Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Winter 2017 5 On Joel Salatin’s “Behold the Glory of Pigs,” Autumn 2016: Without wishing to fall foul of Romans 14, I must say reading the last issue (and specifically Ronald Sider’s and Joel Salatin’s pieces together) made me wonder if a “consistent ethic of the sanctity of life” should not also be extended to the animals we share God’s creation with? If we are going to allow them to “glory,” as Joel helpfully puts it, should this also mean that we should stop killing and eating them? Richard Barnard, Whitstable, Kent, UK On John Dear’s “Death Knell for Just War,” Autumn 2016: If we cannot learn from scripture that Jesus was nonviolent, we can learn nothing about him, according to biblical scholar Fr. John L. McKenzie (1910–1991). Yet Jesus did not elaborate a theory and practice of nonviolence as John Dear claims. That would have to be left to a time when the material conditions were right, and that time is now. How does John Dear explain Matthew 26:51, Luke 22:38, and John 18:10 if Jesus had taught a theory and practice of nonviolence? Matthew and Luke describe how one who accompanied Jesus to Gethsemane drew a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Why had Jesus allowed one who walked with him to carry a sword? John identifies the swords- man as Peter, chief of the apostles, who had walked with Jesus throughout his entire public ministry. These fellows must have been very poor students if they had failed to absorb the theory and practice of nonviolence John Dear claims Jesus taught. Here the saying holds true: Qui nimis probat, nihil probat. He who tries to prove too much proves nothing. The Catholic way is not either/or but both/ and. Not either just war categories or evangeli- cal nonviolence, but both. Catholic teaching builds in continuity with the past rather than rupture. Do we really expect Pope Francis to teach, in effect, that our ancestors in the faith who held to just war theory were material heretics and that the Holy Spirit abandoned the church for 1,700 years until we pacifists came along? Don’t count on it! You can count on a clear and forceful plea from Francis for a decisive turn to nonviolence in his anticipated encyclical – nonviolence using just war catego- ries to determine the appropriate response to unjust war, the only kind possible in today’s world. Christian pacifists alone will not end the scourge of war. We must dialogue with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and non- religious people of good will as well, and link arms in nonviolent resistance. In order to do so, we will have to use a mutually comprehen- sible language. In so doing we will inevitably reinvent the categories of just war theory, which are, after all, nothing more than tenets of the universal natural moral law. Tom Cornell, Marlboro, NY On “Forerunners: Muhammad Ali,” Autumn 2016: Ali asserts that “We all have the same God, we just serve him differently.” This is wrong on so many levels; I can’t believe a “Christian” quarterly would offer it in praise of the man who spoke it. Ali is basically saying that the incarnation of Jesus, his death on the cross, and his resurrection are just unnecessary details, and that there is no mediator needed Readers Respond  L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R Florence Fuller, Inseparables Image from Wikimedia Commons (public domain)