Evangelical leadership publicly sanctified a preemptive Iraq invasion as just war

Evidence

In October 2002, five evangelical leaders sent a letter to President Bush to assure him that a preemptive invasion of Iraq did indeed meet the criteria for just war. Written by Richard Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and signed by fellow evangelicals Charles Colson, Bill Bright, D. James Kennedy, and Carl Herbster, the “Land letter” expressed appreciation for Bush’s “bold, courageous, and visionary leadership” and reassured him that his plans for military action were “both right and just.” Referencing the appeasement of Hitler, they urged Bush to disarm “the murderous Iraqi dictator” and reminded him that “the legitimate authority to authorize the use of U.S. military force” belonged to the United States government, not the UN. Elsewhere, Land cited Romans 13 to argue that “God ordained the civil magistrate” to punish evildoers. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 421

Categorization

• XREF: The Romans 13 civil-magistrate argument recurs in Trump-era defenses of executive authority; establishes continuity I should track.