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The Nation's Pulse
Religious Isolationism and Pearl Harbor
The pacificism of the post-World War I era would no longer do.
In the American psyche there’s never been an event like Pearl Harbor, 70 years ago this week. Of course, 9/11 comes closest, but it followed decades of America’s strategic involvement in the world as a superpower, including the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and later the Persian Gulf War and Balkans’ conflicts, among others.
Pearl Harbor followed two decades of virtual U.S. strategic isolation from most of the world’s great conflicts. Most Americans had recoiled from World War I by firmly adhering to isolationism, non-interventionism, pacifism, or various combinations of all three. Clergy of the dominant Mainline Protestant churches, post-WWI, flocked to pacifism, reinforced by the liberal, utopian, “Social Gospel” theology then ascendant in the churches. A 1931 survey showed 54 percent of nearly 20,000 clergy rejecting war. A 1934 survey showed nearly 70 percent doing the same, with Methodists the most pacifist.
Methodism was then America’s largest Protestant denomination and closely followed this trend. After enthusiastically backing WWI, the church in 1924 declared war the “supreme enemy,” while insisting “selfish nationalism, economic imperialism, and militarism must cease.” Methodist bishops visiting President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 urged “avoiding military alliances of a political and military character.” In 1928 the church renounced “war as an instrument of national policy.”
A prominent dissenter to Methodism’s increasing pacifism in the 1920s wondered if Britain’s hypothetical intervention on behalf of massacred Armenians under the Turks might be a “high act of ethical devotion.” This clergy also suggested “to allow atheistic Russia to overthrow American civilization would be a worse crime than war.” But this view was in the minority for church elites. In 1936 Methodism declared it did “not endorse, support, or purpose to participate in war.” The bishops confidently asserted that any objector to the church’s anti-war stance had “none other refuge” within Protestantism.
In a 1939 message to the Methodists, President Franklin Roosevelt noted the “trampling under foot of the sacred right of freedom of conscience” around the world while pledging the U.S. would continue to “sustain before all the world the torch of complete liberty.” At the church’s governing General Conference that year, FDR’s 1936 presidential opponent, Republican Alf Landon, a Methodist and delegate, condemned FDR’s step away from neutrality and recommended “further discussion” with Hitler. Landon warned: “Let’s stop fooling the people that economic quarantines and economic assistance mean anything other than sending American boys into the cockpit of Europe to fight.” But Landon, a non-interventionist who was not a pacifist, angrily disagreed with most delegates who endorsed conscientious objection to U.S. military service. In 1940, even as Hitler was overrunning France, Methodism, reiterated it “will not officially endorse, support, or participate in war.”
The most prominent Methodist and churchman of that time was the Rev. E. Stanley Jones, long-time distinguished missionary to India, friend to Mahatma Gandhi, and best-selling author, whom Time magazine later recalled as the best known American preacher other than Billy Graham. Jones had loudly denounced Japan’s invasion of China while also frenetically negotiating to prevent U.S. war with Japan. His solution: give imperial Japan the island of New Guinea to compensate for her withdrawing from China and to accommodate Japan’s “surplus population.”
New Guinea, Jones argued, had only 600,000 people but could fit 20 to 40 million. It was then evenly divided between the Dutch and Australia, “neither of whom needed it,” and whom America would financially compensate. Himself an international celebrity, Jones marketed his novel idea to prominent officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the Dutch and Australian ambassadors to the U.S. He claimed he found a “good deal of sympathy,” though the Dutch ambassador insisted “no part of the Dutch Empire is for sale!” The Australian ambassador politely noted his country would fear Japan’s being at its border.
Later, Jones advocated a partial lifting of the U.S. oil embargo against Japan to induce negotiation. Ostensibly the British ambassador, Lord Halifax, was receptive and even “threw me a kiss” as Jones watched Halifax head to a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State. Jones also met with the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors to the U.S., who were mostly respectful but noncommittal. On December 3, 1941, he met with FDR at the White House, passing along the counsel of the Japanese ambassador that the President appeal for peace directly to the Japanese emperor. The delighted Japanese then promised Jones a dinner party on December 8 and added: “The Embassy is your home.”
Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura told Jones, as Jones recalled: “Thank you for what you are doing. Those who try to reconcile others are doing the work of Heaven for it is Heaven’s work to reconcile us.” After the December 7 Pearl Harbor attack, Jones faulted the U.S. for giving Japan an ultimatum to withdraw from China without a quid pro quo, such as New Guinea.
“Japan is the immediate cause of this war,” Jones concluded. “But America has her responsibility in the remote causes that led up to it.” Oddly, years after the war, Jones was still pushing the idea of giving defeated Japan New Guinea. He claimed that Douglas MacArthur and John Foster Dulles, when he met them, were receptive. More likely, they were polite.
Of course, Japan invaded New Guinea, with the rest of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, after Pearl Harbor, inflicting untold savagery everywhere. In his new book, Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945, British journalist Max Hastings reports that more than 1 million Vietnamese were starved to death during their own Japanese occupation. Japan starved all its territories to ship food to the homeland. Elderly Vietnamese told him those several years were worse than subsequent decades of war with the French and U.S. They represented only a tiny percentage of imperial Japan’s millions of victims.
In 1944, Methodism’s governing General Conference revoked its pacifism. Noting over 1 million Methodists were in the U.S. armed forces, it declared: “We are well within the Christian position when we assert the necessity of the use of military forces to resist an aggression which would overthrow every right which is held sacred by civilized men.” But the motion passed the clergy delegates by only 1 vote.
Religious pacifists in the innocent years before Pearl Harbor imagined the world, like their then well-run denominations, was innately orderly and susceptible to good will and reason. They had forgotten the savage power of human evil. Pearl Harbor reminded America then, as it should today, especially religious utopians, that peace and decent order are the hard exceptions rather than the rule for our fallen world.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
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Steve in Pittsburgh| 12.7.11 @ 7:00AM
Someone share this with Ron Paul and his blind followers.
Clint| 12.7.11 @ 7:55AM
Ronald Reagan,
"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."
" Nonintervention or non-interventionism is a foreign policy which holds that political rulers should avoid alliances with other nations, but still retain diplomacy, and avoid all wars not related to direct self-defense. This is based on the grounds that a state should not interfere in the internal politics of another state, based upon the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination. A similar phrase is "strategic independence".Historical examples of supporters of non-interventionism are US Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both favored nonintervention in European Wars while maintaining free trade. Other proponents include United States Senator Robert Taft and United States Congressman Ron Paul.
Nonintervention is distinct from isolationism, the latter featuring economic nationalism (protectionism) and restrictive immigration. Proponents of non-interventionism distinguish their policies from isolationism through their advocacy of more open national relations, to include diplomacy and free trade."
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here And In Iowa.
Ryan| 12.7.11 @ 8:45AM
Should we defend our country on the shores of another?
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.7.11 @ 9:21AM
Well Ryan,
It has worked pretty well so far....unlike December 7th 1941 and 9/11.
DTOM| 12.7.11 @ 12:10PM
Well, let's se now. If the "another" happens to be the aggressor nation why would you want to spare that nation the collateral damage and destructino that wholesale war brings? Why would you want to fight our enemies here? So we could benefit from that selfsame collateral damage?
Think about it - war here or there? Who wins, who loses? If the war is here you're already halfway to defeat - your enemy is on your soil and you must fight for your life and land.
If you are on his soil, you at least have the option of calling it off and can go home. If you're fighting on your soil, you are home and it's not an option, unless you convince the opponent that you will not quit and he cannot win. Which is a lot less believable, if he already holds some of your land.
I recap -that was a stupid question.
Ryan| 12.7.11 @ 12:34PM
It's more of a question for the Paulites. I believe that they have too vague a notion at times at what constitutes a national security threat.
JimBob7| 12.7.11 @ 3:04PM
All of our wars should be fought as "away games."
Quartermaster| 12.8.11 @ 7:53PM
I'd much rather fight on their real estate than ours. I saw what war can do when I was in Germany in the late 50s. They were still rebuilding.
OTOH, I think most people on this site that diss Paul know very little about him and their superficiality shows. I don't think he would be anywhere near as aggressive as the Neocons, who really are warmongers, but I don't think he would hesitate to defend the country either. The way he expresses his foreign policy predilections, however, is not good.
Jack in Wi| 12.7.11 @ 9:26AM
More nonsense from the warmongers. What part of the words of Jesus do you diagree with? "Blessed re the Peacemakers." " Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. " " Turn the other cheek. " I follow the Prince of Peace, not the gods of war. As Margaret Thatcher once said. " It is better to Jaw jaw then to war war. "
Any serious student of history should read Herbert Hoover's great book written over 50 years ago about how we got into this current mess. It is one of the finest works of revionist history about WW2 and it's aftermath ever written. The title of the book is ' Freedom Betrayed. ' It got a great review in this magazine, just last week.
Stuart Koehl| 12.7.11 @ 10:40AM
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. (Luke 22:36)
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I [am] strong. (Joel 3:9)
Jack in Wi| 12.7.11 @ 4:47PM
Jesus has always been called the Prince Of Peace Stu. He came to change men by example and reason, not by war and murder. War can only be justified in strict self defense and then only with minimal force. The combatents must try try for a peaceful solution at the earliest opportuity. This desire for endless war is against anything a true Christian should believe in.
TrueBlue| 12.7.11 @ 7:00PM
There is a difference between wishing for endless war, and understanding that some groups of people will not let others live in peace no matter how much you try to talk to them. Some people only understand force, and if it is necessary to go overseas to prevent an aggressor from attacking our home soil, then that is fine by me. I'd much rather fight on their soil than on our own.
You ever notice how much time it takes for countries ravaged by war to recover? You want that kind of thing here? Talking does NOTHING without the means and the will to back up what you say. If people know that they have nothing to fear from us unless they attack us on our own ground then they will destroy all of our allies one at time, destroy our ships trading with them, or declare war on us because we are trading with their enemies; and then when all is said and done we will end up standing alone. Reality check Jack, that is how the world is, no matter how much you, I, or anyone else may wish otherwise.
DTOM| 12.7.11 @ 12:11PM
Hey! Its supposed to be
"Jacques in Wisconsin!"
Get it right, willya!
LarryK| 12.7.11 @ 1:23PM
Is that "Jack Cass in WI"?
Quartermaster| 12.8.11 @ 7:55PM
You should not be looking in the mirror when you attempt to describe some one else.
Stefan Stackhouse| 12.7.11 @ 1:34PM
Jesus said to turn the other cheek when it is your own cheek being struck. To turn the other cheek when it is someone else's cheek being struck is something else entirely. That isn't virtue, that is callous indiference to the sufferings of the weak and innocent - care for the welfare of which Jesus commended to his followers. It is the protection of the helpless and the innocent from the depredations of the powerful that is the primary justification for there being governments and having them utilize force at all. If you don't believe in the legitimacy of governments using force to protect the innocent, then you simply don't believe in government at all and are an anarchist as well as a pacifist, with no real concern at all for the plight of those left defenseless. I fait to see anything the least bit noble or virtuous in that.
JimBob7| 12.7.11 @ 3:06PM
Herbert Hoover laid the foundation for WWII by his tax raise in 1930 that forced America and the world into what would be called the Great Depression. He sealed that with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.
Jack in Wi| 12.7.11 @ 4:40PM
The Allies went into WW2 to save Poland from Hitler. We ended up giving Hitler's partner in the rape of Poland, Stalin, Poland and Eastern Europe. Then Stalin got China as well. We then had a 50 year cold war. I fail to see how Hitler and Tojo winning could have been any worse.
Thom| 12.7.11 @ 6:22PM
"The Allies went into WW2 to save Poland from Hitler"
Really Jack? Can you give me the date when France and Britain attacked Germany after it overran Poland in the fall of 1939? Can you show me any plans by France, Britain or the US that included taking back Poland? Just one Jack is all I ask.
Quartermaster| 12.8.11 @ 7:59PM
Thom, it is self evident that you know little of the causes of WW2. What brought the Brits and Frogs into the war was the guarantee given to Poland by Chamberlain and his cohort in stupidity in France.
Yes, they went to war for Poland. The problem is yours, not Jack's.
TrueBlue| 12.7.11 @ 7:12PM
Those who do nothing about sin and evil, help the sin and evil to prevail. One who is silent when there are those around him in sin becomes a partaker with them (Eph. 5:7).
Alan Brooks| 12.7.11 @ 8:56PM
"to allow atheistic Russia to overthrow American civilization would be a worse crime than war."
To have allowed the Confederacy to glom western territories would likewise.
Quartermaster| 12.8.11 @ 8:03PM
Slavery had reached its limits in MO, OK, and TX and didn't even fully penetrate those states. The South (as opposed to the Confederacy which had little interest in any territory outside the 11 states that seceded) made noises about the territories, but that was about it.
The Confeds glom onto western areas only in your heavily fevered imagination.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.7.11 @ 7:21AM
If Ron Paul gets elected, we will at least have plenty of shovel ready jobs to do....digging fall-out shelters in our back yards and machine-gun nests on our beaches
Clint| 12.7.11 @ 7:58AM
Dr.Ron Paul,
" I would ask for A Declaration of War from Congress against Iran. if necessary.
Imagine a President who abides by The Constitution.
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here And In Iowa.
Appleby| 12.7.11 @ 7:22AM
Those who believe that Reality TeeVee is reality and LOL is a word are doomed to repeat the same errors that led to Pearl Harbour.
I hope there are more descendents of the heroes of World War II (including my late Daddy and 5 of his 9 brothers) than of the class of Americans who admitted of no reality outside their own home towns. (By the way, H.G. Wells War of the Worlds was really about this subject. Those who jeer at liberal arts education should have paid attention in 1960s classes in cinematography.)
c. j. acworth| 12.7.11 @ 7:38AM
"Si vis pachem, para bellum" is how I think it goes, one of the few Latin tags I remember. National defense is one of the few functions of the federal government that is actually constitutional. The amount we spend and what exactly what we spend it on are, of course, open to healthy debate, but proposals to cut massive amounts being floated out there are, I think, irresponsible. I also think that we should be less anxious to throw our blood and treasure into trying to bring modern representative government (nation building) to people intent on remaining in a state of savagery, but I'm just a dumb mechanic, what do I know.
Quartermaster| 12.8.11 @ 8:15PM
"...what do I know."
A lot more than you think. The curse of this country is that historically it has not been ready for war. One of the main purposes of the 2nd amendment was to provide for a trained Militia that consisted of the entire able bodied male population. Proper military training, however, is not fun, and the regular drill periods that go with such service was not popular.
Republican attitudes established Rome and the US. Both ran for awhile on the inertia established during their republican periods into their imperial periods (and we have become an imperial power, although not in the same manner as the Brits and Romans) where the rot set in that killed them.
Jerry Pournelle has dealt with this issue on his site many times. Our problem is we have a FedGov that has shown itself utterly incompetent when it comes to playing "The Great Game." We refuse to protect our "citizens," but we will subject them to the serious indignities of TSA, EPA, DEA, ATF, and other alphabet agencies. The reality is, we have become subjects of a rather mild tyranny, which is strengthening daily.
There is a progression that has been quoted many times. I can't recall the author, but he was amiong the founders, IIRC. He said, "A people go from Bondage, to courage, to liberty, to prosperity, to apathy, to bondage." Usually this takes about 200 years (the average life of Republics), or until the republican attitudes and mores that allowed the first steps to die. The most serious blow came in the period 1860-1865. Lincoln fooled enough of the people, twice, to enable him to kill the old Republic. While the US continued to rise, the peak was during WW2. The rest has been downhill, and as the rot accelerates, the decline will accelerate as well.
We have a very dark period ahead of us, and it will engulf all mankind.
JA| 12.7.11 @ 8:35AM
There is a big difference between ignorant, stupid utopian pacifism and minding your own business.
WWI and the Spanish American War were two conflicts that the USA had ZERO business getting involved in and the latter set the unfortunate precedence of the USA getting into the affairs of other nations. Both of these conflicts had absolutely disasterous consequences for the USA; since 1898 the USA has literally been engaged -CONTINUOUSLY !!! - in one conflict or another.
The USA needs to arm itself to the teeth, use absolutely deadly and overwhelming force against those who seek to harm us, and mind its own business.
Red Phillips | 12.7.11 @ 8:57AM
Good grief! Do we really need Tooley chiming in with war hawkishness also? WWI was an enormous tragedy that many have pegged as the beginning of the end for the West (Christendom). We should have stayed out of it and the American public was right to embrace non-interventionism.
But Tooley does manage to stumble into the truth whether he intended to or not. He is right to note that broad popular sentiment was for non-involvement. It was the Elites who wanted internationalism and American involvement and the populist masses opposed them. The historically illiterate interventionists who cheer for war seem to believe that the people opposed to intervention have forever and always been lefty hippies. These same people who read The Ruling Class and cheer on sticking it to the Elite Man don't realize that by supporting interventionism they are doing the bidding of internationalist Elites? It's sad really.
Stefan Stackhouse| 12.7.11 @ 1:44PM
If they really were serious about avoiding conflict with Japan, then maybe they should have suggested offering Japan the Philippines and Guam - our own property instead of a New Guinea belonging to someone else. As long as the US held the Philippines and Guam, we were on a collision course with Japan - especially as we were not willing to do what was necessary to maintain naval primacy in the Pacific and to arm those extended and isolated outposts to the teeth. Since we were not willing to do that, we really should have tried to cut a deal with the Japanese, offloaded these vulnerable and indefensible outposts, and pulled back to a more compact and defensible perimeter. Instead, we decided to go with the worst possible combination: overextended lines and too few forces, and thus a pacifist nation without a militarist strategic position.
Too bad that we simply didn't have leaders with the moral clarity and courage to defiantly challenge this crackpot notion that defenselessness is morally superior to a strong defense.
Stefan Stackhouse| 12.7.11 @ 1:46PM
Meant to say "with a militarist strategic position."
fundamentalist| 12.7.11 @ 1:48PM
And how did that work out for China and SE Asia? Were the Japanese so much worse than the Communists? Hitler was a Sunday School teacher compared to Stalin. War mongers can always justify the consequences of their actions by focusing exclusively on the evils of the immediate enemy and the victory without looking at the long term. Congress should have impeached FDR for prodding Japan and Germany to attack the US. Hoover recognized FDR’s duplicity as did most freedom-loving people. Of course, after FDR succeeded in provoking Japan into attacking pacifists were left with few options.
Pat| 12.7.11 @ 5:12PM
Fundamentalist: History does have a way of throwing curve balls at authors who misinterpret past events in support of their own agenda. WWI laid heavy casualties on young Americans both due to enemy munitions and the worldwide flu pandemic. Americans weren’t pacifists between wars based on some foolish whim, it was the WWI mass graves in France, the bloody ground, guts strewn about the battlefields and American boys coughing their lungs out which gave ordinary Americans pause over riding to Europe’s rescue once again. And FDR was well aware that Americans weren’t keen to die by the numbers in Europe as an encore, he even promised America’s mothers, in a widely quoted speech, their sons wouldn’t die on foreign battlefields – he had to make that false promise or forgo implementing the draft to re-build our anemic armed forces.
Military strategists realized American military aid and soldiers to fight alongside our Allies was unavoidable however and logic was on their side. Hitler’s control of the European continent while pushing forward into the Middle East in search of oil would have given him an enormous economic base equal to our own, Arsenal of Democracy notwithstanding. A maniac dictator bent on world domination supported by an industrial base equal to our own needed to be firmly dealt with.
And, yes, Hitler foolishly invaded the Soviet Union but he didn’t announce those plans in advance to our strategists. To Americans, it appeared, at first, Hitler might actually succeed in conquering Russia - adding even more resources and manpower to his industrial base. Or, the Soviet Union could have signed a separate peace treaty with Germany, leaving Hitler free to turn his attentions back to the West.
Take away the emotional rallying cries and we had no logical choice but to enter the war. However, after Berlin fell, the Americans took a long hard look at the board - the Soviet Union had 200 battle tested combat divisions in Europe, we, including our Allies, had less than 90 divisions. So, we abandoned Eastern Europe to its ugly fate under communism and skedaddled – some say wisely so and others said we were moral cowards to let the Soviets have their way.
However, the American people were constantly misled by their leaders just as you suggest, of that there can be no doubt. FDR knew and privately admitted the main fight was always to be in Europe, Japan was a sideshow and convenient excuse to enter another destructive war most Americans prayed would be avoided.
Louis Jenkins| 12.7.11 @ 1:55PM
Wilson was a poor economic president. But what about the intercepted cable from Germany to the Mexican government? Essentially it promised them (La Raza like tendencies) Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona if they would open a front against the US. Did this have any play in Wilson's decision to declare war on the axis powers?
Mike Hawk| 12.7.11 @ 8:44PM
You refer of course to the Zimmerman Telegram. It may not have meant much to Wilson, but it did to others who were far more concerned.
Wayne| 12.7.11 @ 5:47PM
Can you mention Pearl Harbor without mentioning Viet Nam. They did not attack or threaten us in any way. Yet that "not a war" started us into the red and caused over 50,000 deaths of American Soldiers, and Viet Nam still turned Communist.
Tony in Central PA| 12.7.11 @ 8:24PM
You can't really be a pacifist unless you are willing to be a martyr.
That also applies to your family.
Leveut| 12.7.11 @ 9:44PM
Hillary Clinton is a Methodist.
POST American| 12.7.11 @ 9:49PM
----Speaking of NO SHOW Chrisitanity---
"The Federal Reserve has pumped so
many BILLIONS into (--NAZI---) Germany
that they dare NOT name the total."
-Rep Charles McFadden
1935
And earlier the Bernard Baruch
dealings with Imperial Japan, making
rapid militarization, colonization and
EUGENICS 'modernization' of Korea
and Manchuria a proviso of bankster
favors
-----AND, of course, the set up,
installation and empowerment of the ever genocidal Soviets
--------ALONG with the unceasing, lavishly
funded, TAX FREE operations of the Luciferian
'benny violent' foundations ---with the aim of
degrading the culture, and destroying the
REAL church and family -----FOREVER
------------YES, YES, ---where WAS the church
on these matters?
AND EVEN NOW
AS unabashed EUGENIST and Globalist
NEWT GINGRICH reaches for CON-servative candidacy
-----and as 33rd degreee FREE--MAY--SIN
----PAT ROBERTSON opens the door to
EUGENICS X-speediency viz a viz one's
spouse with Alzheimer's
----------------YES! ---YES!
-----WHERE?-----WHERE is the 'CHURCH'??!!
----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012---------------
Mark30339| 12.8.11 @ 9:25AM
There is no doubt that the Sermon on the Mount precepts on non-violent confrontation with evil are difficult to apply when two of the largest economies in the world (i.e. Japan and Germany) orchestrate systems of confiscation, displacement, torture and death on millions of people.
One of the most serenely Christian men we have ever known, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had inside knowledge of the horrors inflicted by the German SS in Poland and elsewhere and aligned himself with the efforts to kill Hitler. Yet he considered this decision to be a profound human failing and clearly understood it risked his own salvation, and correctly so.
A most interesting aspect of Bonhoeffer's life is his escape to the US just before 1939. After arriving, he was troubled by the shallowness of leading protestant communities here -- to him, the only bright spots were negro churches where he sensed a profound faith in Christ. He chose to reject offers to teach in the US and returned to resistance work in Germany.
It is disappointing that 1930's Americans had so little compassion and understanding for the crimes committed against the Chinese, the Poles and the Jews. It was not until the attack of a legitimate military target, Pearl Harbor, that Americans chose to confront Germany and Japan with military force.
The saddest effort of all, however, was the unsolicited bid by Chamberlain to make peace with Hitler in 1936. At that time, resistance to Hitler in Germany was profound, and overwhelming majorities opposed any return to armed conflict. The resistance was ready to use Hitler's eminent call to war in 1936 to depose him. When Chamberlain butted in and GAVE Hitler territory, it irrevocably raised Hitler's stature in Germany and gutted the resistance movement.
Christ does not call us to pacifism. He calls us to CONFRONT evil -- but to do so without violence (and at the risk of own lives). Appeasement and enablement of evil is not a virtue, Christian or otherwise.
Further, military force is not per se wrong. The fact that we stationed troops in Japan, South Korea and West Germany protected communities from radical elements and nurtured great societies there. But on the other end of the spectrum, using robotic planes to blow up residential neighborhoods is seriously flawed -- especially when our supposedly Christian nation fails to mourn the loss of life and acknowledge the tactics as a human failing.
Perhaps the best example of non-violent confrontation rooted in Christ is the 50 years of suffering in Poland to resist totalitarianism. A bloodless collapse of the entire Soviet Union was the result. And that is the challenge Jesus Christ gives us, can our love of the other as a creation of God be so profound, that we will persevere in absorbing the violence rather than propagating it. It is understandable that there may be circumstances when humans fall short of this standard, but let us not delude ourselves into being proud of those moments.
Michael Sriver| 12.9.11 @ 6:41AM
Quote: “Religious pacifists” “imagined the world” “innately orderly and susceptible to good will and reason. They had forgotten the savage power of human evil.”
Put a Christian pacifist and a Christian gun-rights advocate in the same room to begin plans to build a church for a gospel starved but ready part of the world, and who would be the first to confirm division in the body of Christ?
Well, who first of all isn’t capable of fulfilling sobrieties “vigilance” in the fuller spectrum regardless of parameters? Much harder than for the non-pacifist to tip into the fringes of “kindness”.
Or, in other words, a brother who is fixated on pacifism wields war on the unity of the body of Christ much, much more tenaciously than the danger of dis-unity by the non-pacifist due to the lack of Spirit led “kindness” sensitivities he may exhibit.
How can this problem, pacifism, being class-wide and held in both the confirm and denial mode to the great detriment of not being in alignment with the will of God, therefore, not be a foremost concern seeing what it leads to, by both parties?
Thank you Mr. Tooley for once again touching on it!