ON THE THRESHOLD OF SUNDAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19478, 26 December 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

ON THE THRESHOLD OF SUNDAY

A CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE ABOUT WAR By HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK, D.D. (Preached in Geneva Cathedral on September 13.) All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.—Matthew xxvi, 52. One ought to read with awe these words spoken nearly two thousands years ago, and only now beginning to seem abviously true. Reliance on violence is suicidal, said Jesus. “All thev that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” When the Afaster said that it could not. possibly have seemed In be true. it seemed evident that, those who took the sword and knew how to use it could rule the Avorld. Reliance on violence clid not, seem suicidal, but necessary, salutary, and rich in its rewinds. In these words of Jesus wo have one <»f those surprising insights where, far ahead of the event, a seer perceives an obscure truth which only long afterward will emerge clear, unmistakable, imperative, so that all men must believe Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. had such a flare of insight when he guessed that the sun did not go about the earth, but that the earth circled about a central fire. It was a surprising leap of intuition. No one believed it. Long centuries had to pass before Copernicus ami Galileo came, and people in general were convinced of what Pythagoras with his inner eyes had seen. So when the Master said that the sword would destroy those who used it, that seemed incredible. War suicidal! The world did not even note this strange thing that He said, and ever since men have tried to explain it away or laugh it off as idealism too lofty for this earth. But to-day that insight of the Master comes to its own. Once more the seer is justified of his vision. Reliance on violence is seif-defeating; war is suicidal; civilisation itself cannot survive it. That fact has been written in fire across the world until not seers alone, but multitudes of plain people of every tongue are beginning to sec the truth once so incredible: “If mankind does not end Avar, Avar will cud mankind.’’ To-day my plea is simple and direct. Of all the people on earth who ought to take in earnest this unforsecable confirmation of the -Master’s insight. Christians come first. This question of war and its denial of the method ami spirit of Jesus is peculiarly their business. Speaking from this historic Christian pulpit to Christians of many races ami nations gathered here one finds himself inevitably concerned with that matter —addressing, as it were, the conscience of Christendom about Avar. The destinies of human kind depend upon the arousing of that conscience. Here in Geneva you once more arc setting your minds to the high task of working out the technique of international co-operation. In this sanctuary avc set ourselfes this morning to consider the dynamic, without which all teachnique will fail—the copscience of Christians about war.

Doubt less ave represent here many different kinds of Christianity. Wo belong to different Churches, hold various theories about ecclesiastical polity, subscribe to diverse creeds. But one thing does unite us all. AVc all start with and include the’ Master Himself. To all of us He is the Lord and His way is the way of life. At the fountain head of our Christianity is Jesus Christ. His life with the Father, His faith in the moral possibilities of man, His devotion to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, His Good Samaritan, His Golden Rule, His Sermon on the Mount. His law of finding life by losing it, His insight into the self-defeating nature of violence, and His substitution of the way of love—all this is included in any special kind of Christianity we severally may profess. How then, can any of us avoid the conxiction that this colossal and ominous question of war. upon the answer to which the future of man depends, is in particular a crucial afi'air for Christianity? 11 has been said again and again that if another war befalls us and shakes civilisation to its foundations. as it surely would, the Christians of the world will be to blame. Surely that is true. The continuance of Avar will advertise that the 579.000,900 professed Christians on earth have not had an earnest conscience about their Master’s view of life; it will boar evidence Avhile they have ealed him, “<ord, Lord.” they have not been willing to <io what He said. War’s Futility. Let us dwell then on some, elements that ought to enter into the operation of the conscience of Christians about Avar. For one thing, there is plainly the futility of war to achieve any of the purposes that Christianity is meant to Indeed, there is modern Avar’s futility to achieve any good purposes xvhatcver. Once it xvas possible really to

win a Avar . Once victors and vanquished stood in such opopsitc categories at a war’s conclusion that there xvas no possibility of mistaking the prestige, prosperity, increased power and happiness of the one and the dismal annihilation of the other, but one shocking revelation of the last war xvas the indiscrim-

inate ruin in which were plunged victor, xanquished, and neutrals alike, the ferocious and untamable xvay in which xvar, once let loose, tore at the garments of civilisation as a whole, so that, regardless of Avho won it, half the world found itself unclad and shivering when the storm was over. . In the history of Avar wo have one more example of a mode of social action possiluly possessing at the beginning more of good Ilian evil, which has outgrown its good, accentuated its evil, and become at last an intol<»rable thing. That was true of slovory. Men at first, rcilucod to slovery those whom else they Avould have slaughtered after battle. Slovery Avas a. substitute for massacre. profitable, doubtless, but also merciful. 11. Avas a forward stop from brutal murder to enforced labour. But slavery did not retain its philanthropic good. In the end it outgrew all its benefit and became an intolerable curse. Tn an evolutionary world ethics and modes of social action evolve also. So there may have been times when Avar could serve good ends, when armed conflict was a means of social progress. Of this xvar or that it may be claimed that Ilie sword won benefactions lacking which mankind would be the poorer. At least, there is little use in arguing the contrary. For the conviction now growing strong in this generation’s mind is that whatever may have been true about war in times past, modern xvar is futile to achieve any good or Christian thing. To .fight xvith the gigantic paraphernalia of modern science; to make xvar in our intimately interrelated and delicately-balanced modern xvorld, whore our most indispensable means of existence already have become international; to fight, not with armies against armies as of old, but with, entire populations massed against entire poy>ulations so that bombs rain indiscriminate destruction on whole cities, and blockades mean indiscriminate starvation to millions of families, to make war now, when an average five hours of fighting, as in the last war, burns up the endowment of a great university; to tight, knowing that, agreements or no agreements to limit lhe xveapons of war, demoniac .forces like gas and bastcria are certain to bo used that is obviously futile to chicvc any good thing for Avhich a Christian man might wish or pray. “Protecting the Weak.” The old appeals for war in lhe name of a good cause fall coldly now on the instructed ear and cease Io carry conxiction to thoughtful minds. “Would you not go to xvar to protect the weak?” men ask. The ansxver seems obvious. A modern war Io protect the weak—that, is a grim jest. Sec how modern xvar protects the weak: 10,000,000 known dead soldiers, 3,000,000 presumed dead soldiers, 13,000,000 dead civilians, 20,000,000 xvoundod, 3,000.000 prisoners, 9,000,000 war orphans, 5,000, 000 xvar xvidows, 10,000,000 refugees. What can xve mean—modern xvar protecting the weak? The conviction grows clear in increasing multitudes of minds that modern war is no xvar to protect the weak. A World Court would protect the weak. A League of Nations would protect the xveak. An international mind, backed by a Christian conscience, that would stop the face for armaments, provide co-operative substitutes for violence, forbid, and finally outlaw war altogether—that would protect the weak. But this is clear, war xvill not do it. It is the xveak by millions who perish in every modern xvar.

1 As for Christianity, the dilemma which it faces in all this seems unmistakable. The xvar system as a recognised method of inter national action iis one thing; Christianity xvith. all its | purposes and hopes is another, and not all the dialectic of the apologists can ■make the two lie down in peace together. Wo may have one or we may (have the other, but we cannot permanlently have both. i Another stake which Christianity has jin this task of over-passing xvar and Iproviding international substitutes for jit lies in the new and ominous developImcnis of nationalism. In our modern i world nationalism, xvith its attendant (patriotic emotions ami loyalties, has i increasingly taken a form xvhich throatlens to be a chief rival of Christianity. ITo be sure, passionat e love of country lis nothing modern or new. Its roots i are deep in man’s instincts and man’s (history. We here to-day are patriots. :We intend to be patriots. We should think less of each other if we were not (patriots. Love of fatherland is one of jthe oldest, deepest, most instinctive and i most noble sentiments of man. j But xvithin the last four hundred years nationalism has taken a new and (startling form in our Western xvorld. 'With the England of Elizabeth, the 1 France of Louis XT, the Russia of Peter the Great, the development began which more and more has nationalised both the inner and the outer life of all of us. Our politics have become nationalised until the aggrandisement of one’s own country in the competitive struggle xvith other nationalities han ’been the supreme aim of statesmanship. (Our economic life has become nationaljised; the powerful financial interests of ieach nation have wielded so enormous jan influence over its statecraft that I Government, with its army and navy to iback it, has frequently been a docile instrument for the furtherance of the country’s economic aims. Our education has become nationalised, our children have been taught from infancy all out of perspective, xvith national egoism for its organising centre, and wiih j hatred of other nations masquerading las patriotic, training of the young. Even our religion has been nationalised: v.ith State Churches or without them the centre of loyalty in the religious life of the country has increasingly become the nation. Let Protest ant ism acknowledge its large responsibility for this in Western Christendom! In our fight for liberty xve broke up the inclusive mother Church into national Churches;

we reorganised the worship of the people around nationalistic ideals; xve help ed to identify religion and patriotism. And so far has that identification gone that now, when war breaks, the one God of all humanity whom Christ came to reveal, is split up into little tribal deities, and before these pagon idols even Christians pray for the blood of their enemies. Nationalism Overpassed. Never before has human life, its statecraft, its economics, its education, its religion, on so large a scale been organised on a nationalistic basis, and the issue is obvious. The supreme ob ject of devotion for multitudes is the nation. In practical action they know no higher God. They really worship Caesar. That is the limit of their loyalty. What once was said of the King

is said now of the nation; it can do no wrong. And such sheer paganism is sometimes openly flaunted, at least, in my country, and I presume in yours, as, “Our country! . . . may she al wavs be in the right; but our country right er wrong. ’ ’ Nevertheless, at the same time, that this nationalistic process has been going on, another movement has been gathering headway. The enlarging fellowship of human life upon this planet, which began with the elan ami tribe has been moved out through ever-wid-ening circles of communication and contact, has now become explicitly ami overwhelmingly International, ami it can never be crowded bark again. Moreover. within this unescapable internationalism of modern life, not yet adequately recognised in Government, mankind has been learning one great lesson from his social experiments. In area after area he has succeeded in getting what he wanted, not by violence and substituting co-operation. That is what social progress consists in. All social progress can be defined ns carry ing over one more realm of human life from the regime of force to the. regime of co-operation. Whenever wo have civilised any social group the essential thing which has happened is that in that group, not force, but co-operation has become the arbiter. That is true of the family. A household where men captured their wives, exposed their children in infancy, relied for obedience on the power of life and death over their offspring, would bo recognisably uncivilised. A civilised family, with all its faults, enters into marriage by mutual consent, relies on reasonableness, not on force, for its coherence, and from the beginning welcomes children into the democracy of the household. At, least we have learned that violence is no way to get a good family. That same path of progress wo have travelled in education. Once violence ruled our schools. It was said of an old pedagogue, the Rev. erend James Boyer, that “it, was lucky the cherubims who took him to heaven were nothing but wings and faces or he infallibly would have flogged them by the way.” But now our schools at their best would bo ashamed to rely on violence since reasonableness and co-operation so plainly offer not on'y a more ideal, but more effective, substitute. In religion, also, being civilised means travelling that road from violence to co-operation. Once, force was used to compel faith. If a man wished to be, a. Christian he could bo a Christian. but if he did. not wish to be, a Christian, and the centuries are sad with the horrors of religious persecution. But social progress has largely left all that behind, ami what compel! ed its supersession was not sentimentality, but the insight that violence is self-defeating, that force is no way to get religion. So, too, has Government been carried over from violence to cooperation. 'The process is lamentably incomplete, but, so far as it, has gone, it has furnished the indispensable, background for all the civilisation we possess. Still upon our Western clothes we wear the button, now decorative only, on which once, our fathers’ sword belts hung. How impossible it would have seemed to them that the time would ever come when the common carrying of private weapons would be unnecessary, because co-operative and peaceful government had provided a su bstitutc! Tn one realm after another the Master’s insight has proved true. Violence defeats itself. It is no way to achieve family life or education or religion or stable government. Those who rely on it as their main stay and effective instrument are sure to miss what they are seeking Io achieve. Always progress has consisted in carrying over human life from violence to co-operation.

The Next Step in the Church. Now we face, the next great step, the most momentous step in human history. Can wo achieve a like result with our international relationships? Can wo carry them over from brutality and organised slaughter to reasonableness and co-operation? How the best, thinking and praying of our time centres around that hope of superseding belligerent nationalism with co-operative international substitutes for war! Here, then, w* face one of the most crucial and dramatic conflicts of loyally that men ever dealt, with. On the one side our life has been organised as never before in history on a nationalis‘ic. basis. On the other hand, the one hope of humanity to-day, if it is to escape devastating ruin, lies in rising above and beyond this nationalism ami organising the world for peace. On the one side is a narrow patriotism saying, “My country against, yours,” on the other a wider patriotism saying, “My country with your for the peace of mankind.” Is there any question where real Christianity must stand in the conflict? Is there any question that if she doos not stand there she faces the most tragic, and colossal moral failure in her history? Ono would like to cry so that all Christians should hear: Followers of Christ, so often straining at the gnat ami swallowing the camel, tithing mint, anise, and cummin, and neglecting the weightier matters of Jaw. What <lo all the mifiut iae of creed and institution that, distinguish us amount to in the presence of this gigantic problem in -which one of the central meaning of Christ for the world is involved? A narrow, belligerent nationalism is to-day the most explicit and thoroughgoing denial of Christianity, its thought of God and its love of man, that there is How evident this central problem is when we try to discuss the real issues of the world to-day! Some still see those issues in terms of one nation against another. That is the level on which their thinking runs. America versus Japan or France versus Germany —so in a long list of nation against nation they see the world’s affairs. How desperately real the problems are on that, level no one needs to bo told, but after all, those arc not the deepest issues. A celar conviction grows in the best, thinking of to-day Hint mankind’s realcst conflict of interest is not between this nation and that, but between the forward looking, progressive, open-minded people of all nations, who have caught a vision of humanity organised for peace, and the backwardlooking, reactionary, militaristic people of the same nations. The deepest lino of conflict docs not run vertically between the nations; it runs horizontally through all the nations. The salvation of humanity from self destruction depends on which side of that conflict wins. What has happened thus to make a local, national patriotism, however sacred and beautiful in many of its form, inadequate to meet own present need is clear. in unforgettables words the world has been told by a great patriot: “Patriottism is not enough.” Why is it not enough Well, patriotism once took men of little, local loyalties and expanded their outlook and allegiance. They had been citizens of a shire;

patriotism made them citizens of a na- , lion. Patriotism once, called mon to the. widest, imaginable outreach ol their devotion, it broke, down local provincialisms, it stretched human horizons, it demanded unaccustomed breadth of vision and unselfishness of life. To be a patriot for the. nation meant a large loyalty as against the meanness ami parochialism of a local mind. But, the, world has moved. Life has expanded and become international. Xow it is possible for patriotism to fall from its high estate. Instead of calling men to wider horizons it can keep them within narrow ones. Once the issue was patriotism versus a. small parochialism; now the question may become patriotism versus a large care for humanity. Once patriotism was the great enemy of provincialism; now it can be made provincialism and to sanctify the narrow mind. This conflict of loyalties creates your difficult problems here, in Geneva. You know how tenacious the adhesions of nationalism are, how difficult to entwine the. thoughts and affections of men around new ideals and new methods of world peace. But this inner struggle between two loyalties goes deeper than the realm of statesmanship; it runs far down into the souls of men, where the destinies of religion lie. How can a man be a follower ol’ Jesus Christ and still be a belligerent nationalist when once this better hope of a world organised for peace has dawned upon his view? Whatever else Christianity may believe in it must believe in God, Father of all men; it must believe in mon of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, as God’s children; it must believe in the Kingdom of God on earth. The spirit of Christianity is not narrowly nationalistic, but universally inclusive. When the world, therefore, organises itself on the basis of belligerent nationalism the very genius of the Christian Gospel is at, stake. Once more we can have our old war systems with their appalling modern developments, or we can have Christianity, but we. cannot permanently have both. They worship irreconcilable gods. 1 need not, and 1 must not, press the analysis further. Two generations ago one of our great statesmen, Charles Sumner, said: “Not that I Jove country less, but humanity more, do I now and here, plead the cause of a higher and truer patriotism. I cannot forget that wo arc men by a. more sacred bond than wo arc citizens- -that we arc children of a common Father more than wc are Americans.” Shall not each one of us here pray for his own country, as I pray earnestly for mine, that that spirit may come into the ascendency? Christianity essentially involves it. An Irreconcilable Division. The first Christians saw this. “The early Christian Church,” says a recent writer, “was the first peace society.” Thon camo Christianity’s growing powi er—the days when Christians, no longer outcast, were, stronger than their adversaries, until at last the Imperial household of Constantine himself accepted

Christianity. Then Christianity, joined with the Stale, forgot its earlier attitudes, bowed to the necessities of imperial action, became sponsor for war, blesser of war, cause of war, fightci of war. Since, then tho Church has come down through history too often trying to carry tho cross of Jesus in one hand ami a dripping sword in tho other, until now, when Christians look out upon the, consequence of it all, this abysmal disgrace of Christendom making mockery of th>‘ Gospel, tho conviction rises that we should better go back to our first traditions, our early purity, and sec whether those first disciples of the, Lord were not nearer right than wo have been. We cannot reconcile Jesus Christ ar.d war —that is the essence of the matter. That is the challenge which to-day i should stir tho conscience of Christendom. War is the most colossal and ruinous evil that afflicts mankind; it |is utterly and irremediably unchristian; | in its total method and affect it mefins everything that Jesus did not mean, and it means nothing that He did mean; it. is a more blatant, denial of every Christian doctrine about God and man than all the theoretical atheists on earth ever could devise. It would be worth while, would it not? to see tho Christian Church claim as her own this greatest moral issue of our time, tc see her lift once more, as in our fathers’ days, a clear standard against the paganism of this present world and, refusing to hold her conscience at the beck and call of belligerent States, put 'the Kingdom of God above nationalism I and call the world to peace. That, would not be the denial of patriotism, but its apotheosis. I Here to-day, as an American, under this high and hospitable roof, I cannot speak for my Government, but both as an American and as a Christian I do speak for millions of my fellow-citi-zens in wishing your great work, in which we believe, for which we prav, our absence from which we painfully regret, the eminent success which it deserves. Wo work in many ways for the same end—a world organised for peace. Never was an end better worth working for. The alternative is tho most appalling catastrophe mankind has ever faced. Like gravitation in the physical realm, the law of the Lord in the moral realm bends for no man and no nation: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the, sword.”