Religion and the War

by Yale University. Divinity School

Strange that the evangelists who omit so much, who would have so strong a motive for omitting this particular "inconsistency" no less for their Master's good name than for the safety of the Church, should one and all record it. The disposition to minimize everything savoring of political action on Jesus' part is very marked in all our evangelists, for obvious reasons. To the evidences of this belong, for example, Mark's denial, and the fourth evangelist's explanation, of the saying about destroying the temple, together with the latter's description of the whip "of small cords" as Jesus' only weapon in the purging of the temple.[2] Are we then to admit the "inconsistency"—not casual and incidental, as conceived in this pacifistic interpretation, but deliberate and flagrant? Or may we perhaps now raise the question whether the "inconsistency" is not rather chargeable to the interpreter's account?

The interpretation with which we are dealing makes the teaching of Jesus regarding the use of force identical with the non-resistance doctrine of Buddha and Lao-tse. On the other hand, it very justly relates it to that of the great prophet of the Davidic kingdom of righteousness and peace, Isaiah, the son of Amoz. From the point of view of the historical critic the relation of Jesus' teaching to that of Isaiah is absolutely sound. But the effect of this relation is fatal to its identification with the non-resistance doctrine of Buddha and Lao-tse.

Apart from the circumstances which for the time being made non-resistance, or rather mere passive resistance, the policy of true statesmanship alike against Assyrian and against Roman domination, Isaiah and Jesus stood together upon the most fundamental point of all, unqualified, unlimited loyalty to the God of Righteousness and to his sovereignty upon earth. Their pacifism differs from that of Lao-tse and of Buddha in the important respect of having a pronounced theistic basis. Buddha and Lao-tse can preach consistently a doctrine of absolute non-resistance because their systems are destitute of the social ideal of Israel's religion, and indeed ignore the very existence of a "Power not ourselves that makes for Righteousness." Contrariwise with the great prophets of the Kingdom of God. Whether of the Christian or pre-Christian dispensation, so far as they advocate non-resistance it cannot be unlimited, because their religious aim is not merely individual but social.

The non-resistance of Isaiah and of Jesus is not self-centered but God-centered. It is bound to consider what is expedient for others, for the weak and dependent, as well as for the individual, and for the present time. It seeks the welfare of the world and of generations to come. It is always subsidiary to the paramount interest of the Kingdom of God.

Just because it regards non-resistance not as an end in itself but only as one of the divinest means to an end, Biblical pacifism can hold before men's eyes the moving figure of the martyred Servant, dumb as the lamb in the shearer's hands, while it can in the same breath commend the men of violence that take the Kingdom of Heaven by force. Christian or pre-Christian, it rests upon the foundation of utter, absolute loyalty to a world-wide Republic of God, a cosmic sovereignty of righteousness, and having this social aim for its religious ideal it can and does nourish to the highest pitch of devotion the heroic virtues of patriotism, of service and of sacrifice. The summons to the standard (not men's but God's) is ever the same. The weapon may be the sword or the cross, as the times require. Under mere self-centered philosophies such as those of Buddha and Lao-tse the contrary is true. Notoriously, where these control patriotism and all its heroic virtues tend to dwindle, approaching often the verge of extinction.

The pacifism (not non-resistance) of Isaiah hardly requires elucidation. Two or three very familiar quotations will suffice. There is, for example, the prophet's vision of a universal peace based on international law. This vision of the world's willing acceptance of the sovereignty of Jehovah's justice Isaiah shares with his contemporary, Micah, both prophets seeming to choose it as a text from some forgotten earlier pacifist.

It shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established at the head of mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills, And all nations shall flow unto it.
And many peoples shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, To the house of the God of Jacob, And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge between the nations, and will be arbiter for many peoples; And they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more.

Manifestly the ideal of an international tribunal as the basis of a League of Peace is not so novel as some modern statesmanship seems to conceive.

But the consistent, thoroughgoing advocate of non-resistance rejects even the coercion of magisterial and police constraint. To Russian idealism restraint of the individual as well as the national criminal is tainted with the same poison of violence. Since Isaiah is the exemplar of non-resistance he should be permitted again to speak for himself. His words seem to have a singular applicability to the land which is now testing to the limit the theory of Proudhon, the individualist of individualists, the gospel of anarchism:

For behold the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, The whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water, The mighty man, and the man of war; The judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder; The captain of fifty and the honorable man and the counsellor ... And I will give children to be their princes, And with childishness shall they rule over them, And the people shall be oppressed every one by another, and every one by his neighbor: The child shall be arrogant against the old man, and the base against the honorable.