Volume 6, No. 2, June, 1918

14) e Internationalist Page seventeen
Christianity and Pacifism
By R. B. Whitaker
[One of the foremost ministers on th e Pacific Coast, a man of reputation
for his "advanced" religious views, published in one of the most
open?minded of the denominational journals a criticism of "Christian"
pacifists. It was addressed in particular to one of these Christian pacifists,
Rev. Robert Burdette Whitaker, of Paradise, Butte County, California,
a nephew of Robert Whitaker of Los Gatos, and likewise an allround
radical. Whitaker replied to this criticism in the following good
tempered and well argued article. The editor of the denominational
journal in which the criticism had appeared publicly stated that he thought
in fairness he ought to publish the reply, that it was a thoroughly fit and
an eminently able answer, but admitted that HE DID NOT DARE TO DO
IT. And this editor, as his work shows, is not a coward. He has
already risked his editorial head again and again by his refusal to join
the war madness. His journal represents a church which boasts its
independence, and claims the men and women who landed on Plymouth
Rock as its own special possession because they were of its membership.
Yet its constituency, made up largely of ministers, consented apparently
without protest to this suppression of the article. In the interests of
fair play, as an exhibit of how little the workers of the world can depend
upon their "spiritual guides" for even decency in the discussion of
economics, and as in itself a fine presentation of the CHRISTIAN CASE
AGAINST WAR w e take pleasure in giving to our readers the rejected
paper by Mr. Whitaker.]
THE
majority of the Christian leaders of the world are
telling us that in the present crisis, the real question before
us is not the academic one as to whether war is
right or wrong, but the practical problem of what the Christian
program for the present involves. Under existing conditions,
they would have us believe that participation in the
prosecution of the war is a necessary part of the Christian program.
To an ever growing minority, this seems a mistaken judgment,
especially as many of those who advocate this view go
so far with us in their conception of the nature of Christian
faith. Referring to a statement in "A Pacifist Confession of
Faith", one friend recently said in a personal letter to the
writer: "With all my soul I believe that 'the religion of Jesus
was and is a way of life for the present, and not merely an
ideal for the future,." Now it seems to the thorough-going
pacifist that that one admission ought to make impossible the
life of a soldier for any Christian disciple, for if there is any
one thing which perhaps is more fundamental than all else
in connection with "the Christian Way" it is the Way of Loyalty
to Jesus as the supreme loyalty.
In Him we see the very
heart of God revealed to men, so that loyalty to Him is loyalty
to the Father whom he reveals. Or perhaps it would have
been a better stating of the case to have said that the supreme
loyalty is loyalty to God as He is revealed in Jesus. The
Christian's difficulty here with the whole war problem is, that
military efficiency depends upon implicit obedience to
authority as at all times the chief duty of a soldier.
military
A soldier in action can have no authority but that of his
commanding officer. If in the course of the war he is commanded
to assist in reprisals (merely a polite term for military
retaliation) then he must not stop to think that Christ has
forbidden any disciple of his to have anything to do with
retaliation. Rather, he must obey without question. To state
the matter plainly then, the question, "What Would Jesus
Do?" is not one which it is allowable for a soldier to consider.
A persistent asking of that question in the light of New Testament
teaching would lead to insubordination and sedition on
the part of the Christian members of our army; for there is
much in modern warfare besides reprisals entirely out of keeping
with the spirit of Jesus. It is only because for the period
of the war, under cover of "military necessity," we allow the
voice of the military authorities to become for us the voice of
God, that we can prosecute the war at all. The reasoning
of the average man runs about like this: It is absolutely
necessary to overcome Germany. War is the only method by
which this can be done. Therefore the war must be right. Like
the convert entering the Roman Catholic church, the soldier
entering the army must make the great decision and the great
surrender once for all. By the very act of becoming a soldier
he thereby gives up his right to individual judgment as to the
righteousness or unrighteousness of whatever he may be required
to do. As the church is the infallible judge of right
and wrong for the good Catholic, so is the military authority
for the good soldier. To question the judgment in one case is
heresy, in the other insubordination. The pacifist is frank to
say that he thinks it is more reasonable to accept the Church
as the voice of God than the dictum of military authorities.
Again, as related to this
conception of Christianity as a way
of life, there is the matter of the impossibility of reconciling
the military machine, and its treatment of the individual, with
the Christian teaching as to human value, and the supreme
worth of personality. Military efficiency is attained by treating
the individual soldier as merely a cog in the machine. The
more completely the private in the ranks learns to keep his
place as "only a cpg," and not a person, the more efficient
will his service be. On the other hand, he is not only treated
as a "thing" himself, but it is incumbent upon him, if he would
be a good soldier, to treat his brother man who happens, because
of the accident of birth to be on the other side, as a
"thing" also.
The pacifist has no more regard for mere physical existence
than have many others. It is not what war does to a man's
body, which makes it for us a weapon never to be used, but
rather what it does to his soul, or to use the more modern
term, to his personality. As has already been noted, the military
method is based upon the transgression of two of the
most sacred rights of humanity; first, the right of private
judgment, and second, the right of every man to be treated
as a person. It seems to us a mistaken idea to try to protect
persons, or ideals, by a method which involves the desecration
of that which is most sacred in personality, and the utter abandonment
in practice of the very ideals we would defend.
In a letter already referred to, the writer speaks of "war
in the protection of good being less evil than acquiescence in
the destuction of good." Those of us who hold to the interpretation
which is being presented irt this paper, are far
from believing that Christian men are ever justified in "acquiescence
in the destruction of good." Our difference is one
of method, not of end. We believe that it is incumbent upon
every follower of Jesus, and upon every lover of humanity, to
work for the overthrow of the evil which is just now so rampant
in the world. But we must do it by Christian methods!
As stated already, the real question at issue is not the abstract
one of whether war is right or wrong, but rather "what the
Christian program for the present involves." The friend
whose letter has been quoted, also writes, "We are completely
agreed, too, in our detestation of war, of its brutality, its inhumanity,
its intolerable inconsistency."
Now the pacifists of the country are thoroughly convinced
that no program can possibly be Christian which of necessity
involves "brutality, inhumanity and intolerable inconsistency."
It seems to us that the Christian program must take as its
ruling principle the words of Paul, (which, by the way, are