Religion and the War

by Yale University. Divinity School

In the Civil War this record is repeated. The ministers of Yale fought at Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. They rode with Sheridan's cavalry in the Army of the Potomac; they marched with General Sherman to the sea. Several, like Erastus Blakeslee (1863), well known for his services to the work of the Sunday school, rose to the rank of general. Moses Smith (1852) entered in 1865 with the first troops into Richmond, while Samuel W. Eaton (1842), after fighting in some of the hardest battles, was present at Appomattox Court House on the surrender of General Lee.

In all this there is no thought of glorifying war, or of haloing the head of the minister who lays down his Bible to take up his bayonet. Quite the contrary. These fighting chaplains condemned war and hated it. They never proclaimed that organized slaughter was a sane method of settling international disputes or ethical questions. They would have marched to their own Calvaries gladly if this would have saved them from the horror of the task of the soldier and at the same time helped to bring in the Kingdom of God. But to their minds there was a time when a Christian ought to put up his sword, and another when his duty was to buy one. Devilishness is not usually overcome by allowing the Devil to have his way. If the powers of evil attempt by force to overthrow righteousness, righteousness may well by force oppose and thwart them; not that it may escape martyrdom, or vent its anger, but with the clear purpose of rescuing the evil doer from his devastating delusion, and of saving the most precious treasures of civilization from the axe of a vandalism, which can and ought to be restrained. The thought finds a crude but characteristic expression in Kipling's poem of Mulholland, the coarse sailor, who, in fulfilment of the vow made during a storm on the cattle-ship, goes back to preach religion to the brutal and unsympathetic crew:

I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should get, An' I wanted to preach religion, handsome an' out of the wet; But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, and I done what I was set.
I have been smit and bruised, as warned would be the case, An' turned my cheek to the smiter, exactly as Scripture says; But following that, I knocked him down an' led him up to grace.
An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the sea is calm, An' I use no knife nor pistol, an' I never take no harm; For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my fighting arm.

It is devoutly to be wished that it was never necessary for the preacher to use knife or pistol; but at present apparently there is no other means by which the smiter may be knocked down.

This teaching is what might be called, in Dr. Van Dyke's phrase, "Fighting for Peace." It is the kind of militant pacifism which Paul hints at. "If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men." Sometimes it is not possible. It is neither wise nor saintly to attempt to negotiate with a tiger. It would be something worse than folly to allow the I. W. W. to dictate the economic policy of our country, or to suffer philosophical and practical anarchism to work its will with the law and order of the world. War as mere war deserves all the vitriolic epithets which have been heaped upon it. It is the scourge of scourges, the father of piracy and of murder, the mother of havoc, desolation and woe. It stands clearly revealed as "a monstrous crime, man's crowning imbecility and folly." But when through war the attempt is made to tear down law, overthrow justice and shackle the world's liberty, shall not war be met by war in order to preserve these priceless possessions, and perchance end all wars by rendering its mad champions powerless? No minister can be called Christian who does not hate war. But most of them hate still more the sinking of the Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the massacre of the peaceful people of Armenia. They cannot with clear conscience sit still and watch the fulfilment of the plot of "the Potsdam gang" without striking a blow. Peace proposals from the successful marauders sound to them too much like Dr. Van Dyke's imaginary conversation between an outraged householder and his triumphant pacifistic burglar. It is not a question of Christ or Cæsar. There is something of the Sermon on the Mount in pacifist and militarist alike. But in the choice our ministers in the army have registered their vote for what seems to be by far the lesser of two evils. They with their fellows have chosen to tread the new Via Sacra, as the road is now called which made the salvation of Verdun possible; and today they stand facing the forces of autocracy, greed and military oppression, uttering that great battle cry which broke from the heart of France, "They shall not pass!"

Whatever the verdict of history upon this decision of brave men in the ministry, certain effects of the war upon them and upon their work are sure. These again are both good and evil. On the debit side of the ledger will be the loss of many in whose future service lay much of the hope and strength of the church. A large proportion of the best men, who were looking forward to the ministry, are in the training camps and trenches. Some may now be diverted to other callings; some will never come back. Their vacant places in the ranks will be saddening and for a time crippling. Great tasks which might have been done must needs be left undone. New Elishas will wear the prophet's mantle; but the memory of many a vanished face will waken the old cry upon their lips: "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" If the church does not begrudge them, it will mourn them among its multitude of sons who

laid the world away; poured out the red, Sweet wine of youth: gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene That men call age; and those who would have been Their sons they gave—their immortality.

A second regrettable result in the minds of some will be the discrediting of the ministry. There have been too many un-Christian utterances from the pulpits of all lands, though we are naturally especially sensitive to those "made in Germany"; too many petty, superstitious prayers addressed to tribal deities as little like the God of Jesus as Moloch and Mars; too reckless dealing with "high literary explosives" on the part of preachers possessing neither the wisdom of Solomon nor the restraint of Paul; too flamboyantly patriotic utterances from orators who apparently forgot their obligations as citizens of heaven and makers of a new world. So far as the writer knows, there have been no blasphemies from the pulpits of the Allies equal to the saying of Pastor W. Lehmann: "The German soul is God's soul; it shall and will rule over mankind"; or that still more brutal and unblushing pronouncement of Pastor D. Baumgarten: "Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the 'Lusitania,' whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty to unnumbered innocent victims, and give himself up to the honest delight at the victorious exploit of German defensive power—him we judge to be no true German." But if none have descended to these depths of theological blindness and ethical madness, there has been a certain kinship with the spirit of the imprecatory psalms, used as convenient and refreshing outlets for pent-up tempers, together with more or less pagan treatment of ethical and religious questions, camouflaged with felicitous phrases, which lulled the listener with the assurance that the preacher was quoting from the Litany. All this has not redounded to the respect of the thoughtful for the pulpit, or for the leadership of men supposed to be specialists in the rules of right and teachers of the counsels of a fatherly God.

Furthermore, while the mass of Christian unity and coöperation has been unprecedented, there have been here and there expressions of denominational rivalries. It is not an inspiring spectacle when a few—and fortunately only a few—bigoted denominationalists are seen storming certain camps, not because the religious welfare of the soldiers is not being amply cared for, but because the accredited purveyor of their ecclesiastical shibboleth is not teaching his patois and peddling his wares. Neither our best laymen nor our wisest religious leaders have either patience or sympathy with modern denominational Pharisees. They recognize temperamental, psychological and national differences among fellow Christians, and are content that Quaker and High Churchman, shouting Methodist and dignified Scotch Presbyterian, Salvation Army lassie and devout Romanist should choose their own liturgy and polity, and go to heaven each in his own way. But to their minds, in everyday life usually and in camp life always, sectarian squabbling and doctrinal hair-splitting are merely rocks of stumbling and stones of offense; and whenever they witness, especially in war time, such wrangling in the porch of the sanctuary, they discount the utterances and even the calling of the minister, and, instead of entering the edifice and joining in the service, pass by on the other side.

Still more damning will be the accusation, made even by loyal sons of the church's own household, that not only has the ministry failed to prevent war, but that it neglected to mass its forces and measure its might in the great task. To reply to the charge in its undiscriminating, blunderbuss form is easy. Many ministers gave up their lives to the cause, notably in the various forms of the peace movement. Others proclaimed and urged a cure, which the laity declined to put into operation and the governments ignored. The prevention of war should have been the work of the educator, the lawyer, the scientist, the promoters of commerce and the prophets of international socialism as well as of the minister. If he is blameworthy, so are they. Men who love to sit in the seat of the scornful and jeer at Christianity should enlarge the scope of their humor. If, as G. K. Chesterton puts it, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried," it is equally true that the ministry has not been trusted and found incompetent; it has been the herald of an unwelcome message and ignored. No one class in the community could work the miracle of a world-peace; it could be wrought only through the faith and works of all. To attribute to the ministers the failure to achieve it is in part fair; some of them are guilty. As Dean Hodges said of the much-discussed article, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself," the charges are richly deserved by those by whom they are deserved. In part, however, it is manifestly unfair; multitudes honestly tried. In part it is one of the greatest compliments ever paid them; for it suggests their power, acknowledges their leadership, and honors their task as the constructive statesmen of the world. No one ever before hinted that the clergy ought to have stopped the wars of Charlemagne or of Napoleon. During the Civil War neither the conflict nor the cause was laid at the minister's door. But in our day many clamor for priests after the order of Joshua as well as of Moses, men at the head of great bodies of Christian soldiers, who shall participate vigorously in domestic politics and international relations, until they actually bring in the reign of righteousness and of love and truth among men. As ministers we accept the compliment while we confess our sins and shortcomings. The burthen of having done the things we ought not to have done and of having left undone the things which we ought to have done is one that we carry shamefacedly but not exclusively. It is shared by all mankind.