Despite the U.S Catholic Bishops’ 1983 declaration that “insufficient analytical attention has been given to the moral issues of revolutionary warfare,” theological scholarship has been slow to engage in systematic analysis of what makes a revolution ethical or unethical. Just Revolution: A Christian Ethic of Political Resistance and Social Transformation aims to address this lacuna. What principles and practices ought to guide people who want to free themselves from dictatorial or oppressive governments? With this question in mind, this book focuses on oppressed peoples as agents of their own processes of social transformation. The model of just revolution proposed endeavors to limit violence to do the least possible harm while overcoming political oppression, working toward a justice, and promoting long-term efforts at peacebuilding and sociopolitical reconciliation. Using the South African struggle against apartheid as a case study, Just Revolution posits an ethic for revolutionary activity that begins with nonviolent just peacemaking practices, allows for limited and restrained armed resistance in accordance with revised just war criteria, and promotes post-revolutionary transitional justice and social reconciliation. Together the practices and criteria that emerge from this study yield a rich and theologically grounded ethic of just revolution.

"Since the end of the Cold War, the majority of deaths in warfare have occurred in intrastate, rather than interstate conflicts. Yet ethical analysis of war has tended to neglect questions about intrastate conflict in favor of addressing interstate conflict, nuclear warfare, or transnational terrorism. Scheid’s book addresses this lacuna very adeptly, by analyzing the ethical issues that arise when oppressed groups seek to transform their governments.... [Scheid]’s discussion of the “reasonable hope of success” criterion is an interesting one for a theological audience.... Overall, [Scheid]’s interweaving of traditional sources with contemporary examples makes for engaging reading that would not be out of reach for advanced undergraduates. A “just revolution” involves complex moral questions and [Scheid] is to be commended for approaching them with both nuance and clarity." - Theological Studies

"With respect to the field of Christian ethics of conflict, Scheid’s book offers an important evaluation and rereading of a tradition of thought that has rarely taken seriously what a just revolution might consist of. . . What Scheid’s book—in evaluating revolution by the classic restraints present in just war thinking—has provided is a far thicker vision of revolution than its predecessors. . . . As conflicts across the world continue to be perpetrated more and more by non-state actors, Scheid’s work is an invigorating example of how to think constructively in a new era without throwing out the traditions of the past." - Studies in Christian Ethics