Americans face a 21st century war with an elusive enemy -- global terrorism -- unlike the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War or the ideological confrontation with communism during the Cold War. 

In the political arena and the pulpit, leaders are talking, as they did during the Gulf War and Bosnia, about "just wars" and their moral parameters. Many draw on their religious traditions to understand the issues and frame their response. 

USA TODAY's Cathy Lynn Grossman asked religious scholars and experts, "What is a 'just war' in an era in which people question the definition of war, and 'just' can be seen through different cultural prisms?" 

"Even as we gird to defend our nation and root out terrorism, we have to work through the moral issues," says Rabbi David Sapperstein of Washington, D.C. "There may not be clear-cut answers agreed on by everyone, but the act of a national discussion is the intersection of religion and public policy at its very best, and most valuable to the nation." 
 

Islam 

Jihad, the Muslim term for holy war, or morally condoned combat, has been distorted both by Western scholars and fundamentalist Muslims cloaking politics with religious claims, says Farid Eseck, professor of Islamic studies at Auburn Seminary in New York City. 

The ethics of jihad require: 

• The purpose must be self-defense or protection of your rights. Hence, resisting apartheid or working for women's rights are jihad, says Eseck, formerly commissioner of gender equality in South Africa. 
• Response must be proportional. "You don't nuke a whole country in response to an assassination." 
• Response cannot be rooted in anger or emotion or driven by grudges or humiliation. 
• Non-combatants should not be injured at all, although Eseck wonders, how can modern states engage "without killing innocents"?
• Neither may the environment be harmed. 
• "If the enemy leans toward any kind of reconciliation, the war has to cease immediately." 

Political scientist AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., says, "A war  that is not for a just cause would be oppression. Islam could not support it." American Muslims are right to support their country and  yet constrained to act in keeping with faith. Even amid anger and sadness, they must work for peace and justice, because jihad's meaning is more than militaristic, AbuSulayman says. 

"Jihad means exerting your best to achieve the right thing. To work hard for a living is jihad. To seek knowledge is jihad. To defend the right is jihad. But the word is like soft sand with one sharp thing in it. When you walk, you don't feel the soft, you feel the sharp." 
 

Judaism 

"The war against terrorism is clearly a just war under Jewish moral and legal norms. How it is prosecuted, whether it meets the qualifications for 'just means' remains to be seen," says Rabbi David Sapperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C. 

"Just causes" for war include self-defense and protection of innocent parties. And "just means" requires protecting innocent civilians, seeking a peaceful resolution and "being mindful that use of force should have a genuine prospect of achieving its goal. We are looking for the most moral options available." 

However, Jewish scholars say there is no practical way to fight a war "proportionally," so "there is no limit on the amount of force if the cause is just, the targets are legitimate and efforts are made to minimize damage to the environment," Sapperstein says. 

Facing an elusive enemy, a terrorist attack on American values as well as American lives, this country cannot answer in kind. 

"The enemy cannot set the rules. If someone abridges international laws, it does not legitimize other countries violating the Geneva Convention," he says. 

Sapperstein says the oldest laws of warfare in Western tradition are found in Genesis, where God gives man jurisdiction over his creation, including the responsibilities of punishing wrongdoers and the obligation to be merciful. 

But centuries of teachings have shifted views on passages in First Samuel, where God orders the Israelites utterly to destroy the Amalekites -- "men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" -- because the tribe had waylaid the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt. 

"That idea has been legislated out of the realm of moral possibilities. You cannot legally destroy another society," he says. 

One tradition Sapperstein would keep alive: "Under the Jewish laws of warfare, before a battle, the high priest would come and read the laws of war, so even in the heat of battle they would not forget the moral constraints." 

Roman Catholicism 

Recent statements by Pope John Paul II, who opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, reveal the complexity of Catholic thinking on "just war" since St. Augustine first wrote about it in the fifth century. 

While visiting Kazakhstan this week, the pontiff said a society greatly harmed and in danger from repeat attacks "has the right to apply self-defense . . . even though the means you choose may be aggressive," according to spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. However, he added, the pope is neither a pacifist nor "someone who wants to see the application of justice by any means." 

Bryan Hehir, a priest and Catholic scholar who teaches religion and society at Harvard Divinity School and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, says rules for a "just war" have grown more stringent over time. It is limited to only the most serious purposes, such as the "desire to re-establish a just peace," limited to the means and methods, "no matter how just the cause," and limited by intentions. 

Hehir says war talk has rhetorical value, but it's misleading. This is not a traditional war between nations or a humanitarian intervention such as the Gulf War. 

Hehir has a long list of moral and empirical questions for a "war" against an elusive enemy lurking amid civilian society. 

"Who are the terrorists? What is the evidence? Which ones have global reach? It's easy to say there is a just cause, but have all other methods failed but this war? How do you put meaningful limits on intentions? What about using judicial methods," such as bringing Osama bin Laden to trial as Slobodan Milosevic has been brought to trial at The Hague? 

Within the Catholic Church, there's a strong pacifist tradition. 

The Oct. 1 issue of the Jesuit magazine America examines terrorism in several forms, including "domestic terrorists such as the Christian Identity-white supremacist and patriot movements," says the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor. "Lots of experts say you should treat terrorists like international criminals. Treat them like the Mafia or a drug cartel. A criminal represents only himself. War is used against states. We're going to have to make a lot of distinctions here between society and its leadership. (Attacking an entire society) is totally unacceptable in Catholic 'just war' theory." 

Baptists 

"When Jesus said we are to turn the other cheek and love our enemies, he is speaking about us as individuals," says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and newly appointed by Bush to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "I don't have the right to seek vengeance or hate anyone. My government, however, has a divinely ordained obligation to exact justice from perpetrators of evil." 

 Land points to scriptural support for "just war" theory in Romans 13:4, where "God established the state to 'bear the sword,' that is, to use lethal force to keep the peace and maintain justice. This limits the use of force. Peace, not vengeance, is always the object of war. Only defensive war is defensible. The intent must be to secure justice for all involved. It is to be a last resort, authorized only by legitimate civil authority. 

"There is no moral equivalent between the terrorists and the United States. We're civilized and they are not. We don't make war on women and children. A 'just war' would not allow targeting civilians. There must be limited goals, and the question of proportionality must accompany all actions," Land says. 

Robert Parham, director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, cautions, however, that believers should be wary of bumping "against the line of holy war in which crusaders believe the world may be purified from evil. Sadly, such views are theologically faulty about the destructible nature of evil in a sinful world. The best a nation can achieve is imperfect justice, not divine justice," Parham says. 

He sees a critical missing element in establishing the battle against terrorism as a "just war": It must have a "reasonable chance of success." 

Plans to fight "until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated" is "such an ambitious goal (that it) fails to pass the test of 'just war' theory." 
 

Quakers 

"There is no such thing as a 'just war' in Quakers' 300-year religious experience," says Joe Volk, executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. 

Born during the gory English civil wars, Quakerism came to teach that "God would not call people of religious faith to kill others simply over ideas. We are called to answer to the aspect of God in everyone, not only friends or people we like," Volk says. 

"There may be some things for which we would rightly give our lives, such as defending another human being, standing in the way of an attack, giving our lives for the purpose of medical research. 

"But there is no political, economic, social, cultural or religious purpose that would justify taking of another human being's life. The military believes they can create peace and security through warlike means, and they are serving the public and willing to give their lives to do that," he says. 

He notes Quakers' history of service in non-combatant roles as conscientious objectors. 

"We advocate standing up and resisting people who use violence. We aren't saying, 'Lay down and let anything happen.' Gandhi and Martin Luther King helped open the world's eyes to this." 

Quakers will tell America's leadership to "use the world's love for the United States to track these people down and bring them to justice." 

"If we go to war, we say the world is ruled by brute force. Quakers believe there is an immutable relationship between the end and
 the means used to reach it. As ye sow, so shall ye reap."