CHURCH AND WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1939, Page 13

CHURCH AND WAR

CHRISTIAN PACIFISM

REPLY TO ARCHDEACON

'MUST FOLLOW CHRIST'

Stating the attitude of the Christian pacifist to war, when replying in the course of his sermon at the Webb Street Methodist Church last night to the utterances of the Venerable Archdeacon Bullock, the Rev. O. E. Burton quoted a number of .the commands of Jesus Christ against the taking of human life, and declared that the Christian Church must follow in His train. Mr. Burton said that it would be a more dreadful thing for him to incite others to take part in war than to have his children slaughtered because efforts for peace were unavailing.

"The Archdeacon addresses to those who are Christian pacifists the question, 'Are they willing to go on living in circumstances of freedom and safety at the expense of others who willj fight?'" said Mr. Burton. "The only j real freedom for a Christian is the j experience of Christ in his soul. He cannot be free if he disobeys his Lord's commands. As for security, that can never be a major consideration for the good soldier of Jesus Christ, who is always in conflict with the sin of the world. What the Archdeacon is really inviting us to do is to co-operate with a no-Christian movement to make ourselves safe at the expense of our enemies. Military security in war only comes when we can kill or starve more of our enemies than they can of us. Then, presumably, we will be safe — unless, of course, our people die of famine and pestilence, those ghastly daughters of war that know no frontiers: Such a security is surely impossible for the Christain who follows Christ, 'who came not to destroy men's lives but to save them,' who 'died for the ungodly,' who suffered to reconcile in His own Person all on earth and all in heaven alike in a peace made by the blood of the Cross.

"EVEN' MORE DREADFUL."

"It is a dreadful thing for me, the possible bombing of ray own city and the slaughter of my own children, but there is one thing even more dreadful, and that is' that I should endeavour to save them by inciting the men of the Church, or the Bible class movements, or the S.C.M., to deluge Cologne with gas and high explosives and so suflVcate and maim and slay the little children of the children who played with tlie New Zealanders twenty years ago.r

"I could certainly agree with the Archdeacon that there is a real difference in moral quality between the brutal- aggressor and the valorous, knightly figure fighting and dying for the weak and the oppressed. The question still remains whether the armed knight, however sincere, is doing the will of God. While Jesus made little direct reference to war, His teaching is packed with words that _ surely make' it impossible. Can we turn 'Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to hini the other also' into 'Bomb those who would bomb you'? Where we are tqld to forgive seventy times seven can we impose a blockade that will starve a nation's children? When our Lord says 'Pray for them that despitefully use you,' are we to bless battleships and bombing planes? When we are, told to seek.and. save the losV'afe we116' deluge great cities with poison gas and high explosives? Can we argue from 'They who take the sword shall perish by the sword,' that the battlefields of anew war will not be as bloody as the Daisy Patch, Chunuk Bair, the Somme, Messines, Grafenstafel, Bellevue Spur, and the trail' of blood from Mailly-Maillet to Le Quesnoy? And will they be.more availing?

ECONOMIC ASPECT,

"When we are told to 'Put tip thy sword;' are we 'to go to war—simply to maintain a higher economic standard than that of our neighbours? Can our Lord's commands, 'Love your enemies,' be twisted into a direction to plunge the sharp steel into the^bowelsi of pur brethren? Or shall we argue that His refusal to raise Jerusalem or to call the heavenly legions is an argument for a national register with conscription to follow? Above all, does not His choice of the Cross and not the sword make war impossible for Christians?

"The world is full of madmen. When our Lord met one at Gadara who had broken his chains and escaped his guards, fearless love brok? through the frenzy,, and the madman, clothed and in his right mind, sat at His feet. When He. went to Jerusalem the madmen there nailed him on a cross, but there He .was victor. Can the Christian Church do aught else except follow in His train?"