And now let us get at this matter from the point of view of a political economist, a really great economist, John A. Hobson—who puts the case thus:[[297]]
“When has a Christian nation ever entered on a war which has not been regarded by the official priesthood as a sacred war? In England the State Church has never permitted the spirit of the Prince of Peace to interfere when statesmen and soldiers appealed to the passions of race-lust, conquest and revenge. Wars, the most insane in origin, the most barbarous in execution, the most fruitless in results have never failed to get the sanction of the Christian Churches.... There is no record of the clergy of any Church having failed to bless a popular war, to find reasons for representing it as a crusade.”
The following lines from a British philosopher, Frederic Harrison,[[298]] are to the point for the workingman’s instruction:
“The official priests of the old faiths accept without questioning the authorized judgment of the political government. They are engaged ... in calling upon their God of Battles (can it be, their God of Mercy?) to keep the British soldiers—the invaders, the burners of villages, the hangmen of [native] priests—in his good and holy keeping.... A system of slavery prepares the slave-holding caste for any inhumanity that may seem to defend it.... If it hardens our politicians, it degrades our churches. The thirst for rule, the greed of the market, and the saving of souls, all work together in accord. The Churches approve and bless whilst the warriors and the merchants are adding new provinces to empire; they have delivered the heathen to the secular arm.... Christianity in practice, as we know it now, for all the Sermon on the Mount, is the religion of aggression, domination, combat. It waits upon the pushing trader and the lawless conqueror; and with obsequious thanksgiving it blesses his enterprise.”
Who, indeed, shall deliver us from war?
Our pastors?
Hardly.
The pastors’ economic masters will not permit them to do so.
Tho’ the machine guns mow down a million of the world’s choicest working men, pile up windrows of human carcasses and desolate the huts, flats, hovels and “homes” of the poor; tho’ ten million pairs of calloused hands of agonizing working class women be stretched toward well-fed, comfortable pastors, begging for a united, effective declaration against war; tho’ these ten million humble working class mothers, their eyes streaming with tears, on their knees beseech the “holy men of God” to unitedly cry aloud against the accursed “Death’s feast” where their dear ones are devoured; tho’ multitudes of little working class children in mute despair dread the roar of the belching cannon that slay their fathers and brothers; still the pastors (most of them) will “stand by the administration” in any and all wars, as usual.
“The administration,” “the government,” under capitalism, is simply the executive committee of the capitalist class.