Pope Leo XIV has given the Church a useful warning and a bad conclusion. In Magnifica Humanitas, his new encyclical on artificial intelligence and the human person, the Pope turns to war and writes that, “without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense,” the “‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated”.
That sentence will be quoted long after the rest of the encyclical is forgotten. It is bold, timely, and wrong.
The Pope is not wrong to worry about war in the age of machines. Drones, cyberattacks, propaganda mills, targeting software, and autonomous weapons have made killing cleaner for those who order it and murkier for those who must judge it. Leo warns that artificial intelligence may make war “more feasible” and “less subject to human control,” and he is right that “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable”. A man killed by a machine is still dead. A village erased by a clever system is still erased. Responsibility cannot be laundered through code.
But abuse is not obsolescence. The fact that just war language has been misused by politicians, generals, and editorial writers does not mean the tradition has expired. Scripture has been misused. The sacraments have been misused. The episcopate has been misused. No Anglican proposes that these things should be retired because sinners have handled them badly.
The evangelical Anglican starting point is not a Lambeth press release or a General Convention resolution. It is Scripture, received in the formularies of the Church. Paul says the governing authority “does not bear the sword in vain” (Rom 13:1-7). John the Baptist, when soldiers came to him asking what repentance required, did not tell them to leave the army; he told them not to extort, not to accuse falsely, and to be content with their wages (Luke 3:14). Cornelius, the first Gentile convert in Acts, is introduced without embarrassment as “a centurion of the Italian Cohort” (Acts 10:1-48).
That biblical realism is written into Article XXXVII. The Thirty-Nine Articles say that lawful civil rulers may “restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers,” and then state the matter plainly: “It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars”.
This is not a loophole. It is Anglican doctrine. It does not glorify war, and it does not canonize the state. It says that Christian military service is not in itself sin, that public authority has a real calling to restrain evil, and that the pacifist may not bind the conscience of the whole Church.
Church Society’s commentary on Article XXXVII gets the point. Military personnel, it notes, “do not exercise authority in their own right” but under lawful public authority, while civil authority itself remains “subject to the critical authority of the word of God”. That is the nerve of the Anglican position. The sword is lawful. The sword is accountable. The sword is not God.
The North American Anglican’s exposition likewise quotes the Article’s permission for Christians to “wear weapons and serve in the wars,” while noting that the American revision of the Articles omitted the English Article’s specific wording on capital punishment and bearing arms, even as it preserved the civil magistrate’s authority “in all things temporal” . The omission is historically interesting. It is not a doctrinal repeal of the older Anglican settlement.
The Prayer Book puts steel and repentance in the same room. Anglicans pray for the kingdom where “no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love”. We ask God to guide the nations “into the way of justice and truth” and to establish “that peace which is the fruit of righteousness”. We pray for our enemies because Christ “commanded us to love our enemies,” and we ask to be delivered from “hatred, cruelty, and revenge”.
There is the Anglican mind at prayer. The Christian may serve as a soldier. He may not love violence. The magistrate may resist evil. He may not turn national interest into divine mandate. The Church may bless those who serve honorably. It may not become the propaganda department of the war office.
Lambeth’s twentieth-century horror at modern war should be read in that light. The 1978 Lambeth Conference said “war as a method of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ” . It called modern war technology “the most striking example of corporate sin and the prostitution of God’s gifts,” and urged Christians toward “non-violent action for justice and peace”.
OK. Let Lambeth thunder. It should. But Lambeth does not amend Article XXXVII. Its moral witness is serious; its doctrinal authority is not the same as the Articles, the Prayer Book, and Scripture. An evangelical Anglican can say Lambeth is right to condemn war as a normal method of settling disputes, right to denounce the technological intoxication of modern violence, and wrong if its language is treated as a general pacifist settlement.
The Episcopal Church’s own record is more careful than the slogans. In 2003, General Convention urged Episcopalians to “seriously consider and utilize the Just War criteria developed over the centuries”. It named just cause, comparative justice, legitimate authority, right intention, probability of success, proportionality, and last resort, and said these criteria together must be met “to override the strong presumption against the use of force”.
That is what Pope Leo’s phrase misses. Just war reasoning is not meant to make war easy. It is meant to make war difficult. It is not a chaplain’s rubber stamp. It is a fence around the sword.
The Episcopal Church’s teaching material on pacifism recognizes the same tension. It says Episcopalians should study pacifism “in addition to the Just War tradition,” while also acknowledging that the Church has “embraced the Just War tradition”. It quotes the 2003 resolution’s counsel that Christians who participate in war must do so with “deep reflection and prayer with humility” and “with great reluctance, always seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness”.
That is not militarism. It is not pacifism either. It is the older Anglican habit of refusing false choices.
Leo is right that AI makes the old questions more urgent. Who gave the order? Who pulled the trigger? Who bears guilt when software selects the target? Can an autonomous system discriminate between combatant and civilian? Can proportionality survive when the human mind has been pushed farther from the human body on the ground? If those questions cannot be answered, Christians should say no.
But those are just war questions. They are not evidence that just war is outdated. They are evidence that the tradition is badly needed.
The danger in Leo’s formulation is that it leaves Christians with two unsatisfactory alternatives. One is absolute pacifism. The other is the naked command of the state. Anglicanism has usually refused both. It has allowed the Christian to bear arms under lawful authority, while insisting that the use of arms stands under Scripture, prayer, justice, restraint, love of enemies, and the judgment of God.
Just war is not dead. It is neglected. It is softened by sentiment, politicized by parties, and abused by states. The task of the Church is not to bury it, but to make it hard again.
Article XXXVII still stands. The Prayer Book still prays for enemies. Lambeth still warns against the insanity of modern war. General Convention still says force begins under a strong presumption against its use. Taken together, the Anglican witness is not a hymn to war and not a surrender to pacifism. It is lawful force under judgment.
That is what evangelical Anglicans should say to Pope Leo. The just war tradition has not expired. It has been waiting for Christians with enough courage to use it against the wars their own side wants to fight.