The On Faith blog asks if the conflict in Iraq is a “just war”. Pagan panelist Starhawk responds, and says that the Goddess “weeps at our wars”.

“Religion should not be a set of earplugs to deafen us to the cries of children, nor a sedative to ease our consciences as we survey the graves. Religion should challenge us to be more than we are, to deeper levels of compassion and love than we have yet reached. The Goddess, the deep interconnectedness of all being, does not cheer on one team to kill and maim another. She is weeping.”

She also makes the distinction between a war being unavoidable, and a war (any war) being a “just” war.

“It may be that some wars are unavoidable, that at times we must resort to force to prevent even greater wrong. As someone born Jewish in the post-Holocaust era, I can’t say that an armed response is never justified or necessary. But let us not call it ‘just’, or ask our religions to dignify and bless it. The worst atrocities are committed by those who are most convinced of the rightness of their cause and the demonic evil of their enemies.”

As Starhawk points out in her essay, “just” wars will only happen when they invent bombs that only kill the guilty. Even though some Pagans don’t agree with Starhawk’s political agenda, I am glad that she has been included in this project and that modern Paganism has some sort of voice amongst the more “mainstream” faiths. I look forward to seeing her answer the newly posted question for the panelists: “Have women fared well or badly in the world’s religions down through the ages? Why?”