As Christianity spread from the Holy Land and interacted with different cultures and political systems, approaches to war and peace multiplied. Today how Christians think about war and peace issues is influenced by these traditions.

We first look at how the early church emphasized pacifism until the just war doctrine emerged in the fifth century and thereafter. We note how crusades took the form of "holy wars". We review how the Eastern Orthodox Church has dealt with war and peace. And we trace the approaches of Methodism and the Evangelical United Brethren tradition.