It is not enough for the Christian merely "to do nothing contrary to the law of love"; he must actively toil and suffer in its service, fighting to the death. His personal enemy he may and must forgive. Enemies have thus been won to the kingdom. The enemy of the weak and defenceless brother he must resist. The enemy of God's kingdom he must fight to the death. It is true that this foe of God is no human or visible foe. Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; it is against the principalities and powers of darkness in the heavenly places. But we do not beat the air. This power of darkness finds incarnation in human form at least as readily as the Power of light. He fights with real and concrete weapons, and this reality is the ultimate test. For the foe who thus incarnates the evil power the Christian has no hatred as brother-man; only as agent of the evil power. The hatred ceases when the man renounces the evil allegiance. Hence the paradox of love that may necessitate a blow. Self-deception is here all too easy, but absolutely selfless devotion may be trusted even here not to substitute its own cause for God's.
The very paragraph from which the non-resistants draw their doctrine has this conclusion:
Wherefore seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these (outward blessings) shall be added unto you.
It is because Jesus sought first the kingdom, which means righteousness, peace and good will among men, sovereignty of right over might, overthrow of the powers of darkness which claim as their own the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, that he could teach as the best means to its attainment forbearance and loving-kindness to the limit. For a limit there is—the divine limit of the welfare of all. Loyalty to this ideal led Jesus to crown his sublime teaching with action sublimer still. When the scenes of his earlier ministry were closed, he left the quiet paths of teacher and healer in Galilee to tread the martyr's road, and to set up in his own cross an ensign to rally the scattered and bleeding flock of God. Because he sought "first the kingdom of God" Jesus held back his disciples from the bloody and disastrous path of Zealot fanaticism, and bade Peter return his futile sword to its sheath. For the same reason and no other he depicted to his disciples the Good Shepherd laying down his life in defence of the flock, and poured scorn upon the hireling who "when he seeth the wolf coming, leaveth the sheep and fleeth." It is for the same reason and no other that he also warned them of days to come when it should be the duty of the disciple unprovided with a sword to "sell his garment and buy one," days when only he that endured unto the end, fighting to the death against the powers of darkness, should be saved.
Jesus teaches unlimited non-resistance where only personal and selfish interests are at stake; but resistance unto blood for the sake of the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. In this he is inconsistent with non-resistant pacifism that can see no difference between this doctrine and that of Buddha or Lao-tse. Jesus even reverses that Bolshevist pacifism that to save its own skin throws to the Turkish-Teuton wolves the bleeding remnant of the earliest historic flock of Christ. He approves rather shepherds that give their lives fighting in defence of their helpless charge. He is inconsistent with the theories and philosophies of non-resistance; but he is consistent, sublimely consistent, with his own gospel of the sovereignty of God.
The rule of truly Christian pacifism is not hard to understand when we approach it from the standpoint of those who after the precept and example of Jesus seek first the Kingdom of God. Men of this type are ready like "all the saints who nobly fought of old" to lose their lives in this high cause, that they may save them unto life eternal. For individuals and for nations the rule is the same: "In thine own cause strike never, not even in self-defence; in God's cause strike when he bids thee strike and cease not, come victory or death." There is, no doubt, an easy self-delusion, prone to identify its own cause with God's. But against this blasphemous egotism human history henceforth will ever set up the abhorrent warning of a certain imperial attitudinizer whom we do not need to name. There is a time for forbearance, patience, longsuffering, up to the limit of the forbearance of that God who seeks only the good of all, and who seeks it in wisdom and justice as well as in forbearance. The time is up to that limit, and not beyond it. If the enemy can be won, win him. Turn the other cheek, surrender tunic along with cloak. But forbearance is not meant to play into the hands of the evil power. There is also a time when it only gluts the ravenous maw of inhuman, soulless tyranny, a time when incarnate evil sits in the very temple of God, setting itself forth as God, a time when the law of violence is openly avowed and exalted above the law of mercy and right, a time of the beast and the false prophet, threatening to turn civilization back again to the age of Lamech and Tubal-cain. That is a time to remember also the commandment, "Let him that hath no sword sell his cloak and buy one," and the promise: "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne."
[1] Rom. 12:20, citing Prov. 25:21-22.
[2] See below as to the fourth evangelist's explanation of Jesus' claim to be the Davidic Shepherd of Israel only in the sense of uniting the scattered flock of God.
[3] The citations are all from the unquestioned writings of the First Isaiah, Isa. 2:2-4; 3:1-5; 9:2-7 and 28:1-6. The rendering is made independently from the Hebrew.
[4] Mal. 3:1-4; 4:1-6.
[5] Paul is elaborating Isa. 57:19.
[6] Mk. 6:34; 14:27 and parallels.
[7] Ezek. 34.
[8] "New Wars for Old," pp. 252-258.
[9] Ibid. p. 223.
[10] Ibid. p. 258.
[11] "New Wars for Old," p. 241.
V
[THE MINISTRY AND THE WAR]
HENRY HALLAM TWEEDY
When the greatest crime in all history was perpetrated and the world-war began, it was natural and necessary that the ministry of all lands should buckle on the Christian armor and take its place in the fighting ranks. Thousands volunteered as chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers. Thousands more—two thousand at one time in Canada alone—equally eager to don the khaki and endure their share of the hardships, waited impatiently until a door could be opened for them to go. In the training camps and in the trenches, in hut and in hospital, these men found new parishes and pulpits, ministering in a multitude of ways, and finding opportunities for Christ-like service in the soldier's every need. They did more than preach sermons, hold Bible classes, and act as spiritual comforters and advisers. To them, as to Donald Hankey's "beloved captain," no task was too petty or too menial, no lowly service beneath them, if it lightened the burdens or added to the comfort and efficiency of the fighters. At all times and everywhere, in all ways and by all means, they strove to represent the Master, who cared for bodies as well as for souls, for the resting times and food and tired feet as well as for the thoughts and motives and ambitions of his disciples. They were the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace and the army's public friends.
All this was only what might have been expected. The arresting fact was to find these prophets of peace, with comparatively few exceptions, proclaiming the righteousness of our participation in the war. In 1915 when the Continent, of Chicago, sent out a questionnaire among the Presbyterian ministers of the country, an overwhelming majority declared themselves in favor of preparedness. A vote in Brooklyn, embracing ministers in something like twenty denominations, showed one hundred and fifty-one in favor of preparedness, while six qualified their approval and only fourteen were opposed. These are indications of the trend of thought among the ministers of America; and though they may not give direct and unimpeachable evidence of how these men would have viewed the entrance of the United States into the European débâcle, it would seem to be a legitimate inference that their attitude would be the same. When a nation, patient and forbearing until her enemies scoffed and her friends grieved, found herself compelled to defend her unquestioned rights against lawless and brutal pirates, minds which approved of preparedness for war would naturally, almost inevitably, approve of war. Nor was it our rights only. We entered the struggle not through pride or greed or hatred, but as the champion of international law, righteousness, liberty, democracy, and a world peace that shall be abiding and just for all.