On patting snakes and sitting under trees: Just peace theory and prophetic witness

As a reaction against the failures of Just War theory in creating a more harmonious world, recent times have seen the emergence of Just Peace as a corrective to the tendency to use Just War as justification for, rather than a warning against, aggravated conflict. This article considers the contribution of Daniel Philpott to this literature, and argues that theoretical concepts alone will be insufficient for the institution of a Just Peace. In looking for complementary images, the article considers two images from the prophetic corpus to image a Just Peace. Strikingly, both prophetic passages draw on ecological imagery to imagine a world at peace.