The Church & The War

Amid mounting evidence that U. S. clergymen are moving steadily away from their pre-war pacifism, a new fortnightly will be launched next week to give antipacifist churchmen a voice. Its title: Christianity and Crisis. Its keynote:

We believe that modern Christian pacifism is tinctured with utopianism, derived from a secular culture. In our opinion, this utopianism contributed to the tardiness of the democracies in defending themselves against the perils of a new barbarism, and (in America at least) it is easily compounded with an irresponsible and selfish nationalism. . . .

The pacifists are wrong in making no distinction between an individual act of self-abnegation and a political policy of submission to injustice, whereby lives and interests other than our own are defrauded or destroyed.

Only in recent decades has it been believed that the "gentleness" of Jesus was a sufficient and final revelation of the character of God . . . in contradiction to an alleged God of Wrath in the Old Testament.

Significantly, the editorial chairman who penned these words was himself listed as an ardent pacifist in the '20s. He is Union Seminary's famed theologian, highbrowed, sharp-eyed Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, and behind him are a group of potent church sponsors disturbed by a belief that every existing interdenominational paper is strongly pacifist in tone and no longer reflects the sentiment of most ministers.

When World War II broke out in Sept. 1939, U. S. clergymen were overwhelmingly pacifist, determined never again to incur such bitter mockery as their World

War I crusading got them in Preachers Present Arms and The Road to War. No bellicose drum-beating marks their attitude now, but many a minister has reached a slow, sober decision that a just war may be less evil than an unjust peace.

To test this shift, TIME last week asked ranking churchmen of each major Protestant denomination what change they had observed in the sentiment of their clergy since Sept. 1939. Without exception they reported a trend away from pacifism. Individual pronouncements--which had no official status--the answers are nonetheless significant and indicative:

Episcopal. The Right Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, Presiding Bishop: "It is my personal belief that most Episcopal clergymen, especially in the South, now feel we should give as much aid to the British as they need, and if it is necessary to take that last step and go to war we should do it."

Presbyterian. Dr. William Lindsay Young, Moderator: "The clergy generally are not as pacifistic as they were a year ago. . . . My personal view, which I believe is shared by most clergymen, is that . . . aid to England is aid to ourselves. ... It is self-preservation."

Methodist. Bishop G. (for Garfield) Bromley Oxnam, secretary of the Council of Bishops: "Last spring the Methodist General Conference took the stand that 'the Methodist Church will not officially support, endorse or participate in war.' This is a more strongly pacifist attitude than would be taken by the majority of ministers today. . . . Large numbers [now] believe the future of Christianity itself is related to the defeat of this new religion of totalitarian force."

Baptist. Judge Ernest John Millington, President of the Northern Baptist Convention: "Like most of the Baptists with whom I have talked, I favor all necessary aid to nations resisting aggression, to the end that the total defeat of the Axis powers may open the way toward world reorganization."

Congregationalist. William Ellery Sweet, Moderator: "The average Congregationalist minister believes that the issues at stake now are more important than those of the last war. ... If it becomes increasingly apparent that Britain is likely to lose out. even the more pacifistic in the church would favor our entering the war."

Unitarian. Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt. Moderator: "Whatever is obscure in the vast clashing of men and nations, the basis of fascism and Naziism is not obscure. ... [It] is anti-religious and antihuman. Ministers recognize this, and rise to protect Christian values, democratic values, human values. . . . They believe that life should be sacrificed if humanity thereby can be assured such ideals."

Perhaps the most revealing report of all came from the Lutherans, a majority of whom are of German descent. Said the executive director of the National Lutheran Council, Dr. Ralph Herman Long: "I think the majority of Lutheran pastors are in favor of aid to Britain but are not willing to go so far as the Lease-Lend Bill." The National Lutheran Council, meeting last week in Columbus, Ohio, passed a resolution which said: "We, with all American citizens, are in possession of liberties and privileges which are ours because other men have died on the field of battle and for which men again may need to die."

Christianity and Crisis has an imposing list of sponsors including Dr. Tucker and four other Episcopal bishops, Methodist Bishops Francis John McConnell and Ivan Lee Holt, Seminary Presidents Henry Sloane Coffin (Union), John Alexander Mackay (Princeton) and James Ham-Cotton (Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Chicago), Lay Leaders Sherwood Eddy, John R. (for Raleigh) Mott, Charles Phelps Taft and Mrs. Dwight Whitney Morrow, President Harold Willis Dodds of Princeton, ex-President William Allan Neilson of Smith.

Despite the sober growth of antipacifist feeling among the clergy, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis issued a report last week that claimed religious pacifists are better organized today than in 1917, estimated their number at 450,000 ("less than 1% of this country's total church membership, but a dynamic minority"). Thirty-one ministers, seminary students and laymen who refused to register for the draft are now in jail, with about 20 others awaiting trial.

Intelligent and intellectual organ of the anti-war group is the Christian Century, powerful interdenominational weekly whose attitude is that of Managing Editor Paul Hutchinson: "I don't think this war is going to eventuate in any more constructive outcome than the last. . . . Both in Europe and in Asia we can do immeasurably more good by staying out than by getting in." The Century has carefully opened its columns to the views of leaders on both sides, and Editor Hutchinson agrees that an overwhelming majority of the Protestant clergy favor aid to Britain and are not opposed to U. S. rearmament. He believes that if all-out aid to Britain must include war, the clergy would split 60% against, 40% for--a very marked change since 1939.

Editor Niebuhr and his colleagues hope to change the minds of many more churchmen with Christianity and Crisis. Said he of his group's aims last week: "We think it dangerous to allow religious sensitivity to obscure the fact that Nazi tyranny intends to annihilate the Jewish race, to subject the nations of Europe to the dominion of a 'master' race, to extirpate the Christian religion, to annul the liberties and legal standards which are the priceless heritage of ages of Christian and humanistic culture. . . . We believe that the Christian faith can and must make its own contribution to this issue. ... In this instance the immediate task is the defeat of Nazi tyranny."

Said Dean Luther Allan Weigle of the Yale Divinity School, new President of the Federal Council of Churches, last week: "Within the Protestant churches there is today more tolerance of disagreement, a deeper sense of spiritual unity, and a more sobering, thoughtful realism than there was when we faced similar issues 24 years ago. ... I believe personally that victory for the present German Government would be disastrous to mankind; that aid to Britain is necessary.

. . . Above all, I am convinced that America must repent of selfish isolation, and must assume its full share of our common responsibility for a just and enduring peace."

Now on exhibition at the Vatican is the model of a combination church and air-raid shelter, built of cement with a V-shaped roof, camouflaged, complete with altar, pews, first-aid equipment. Dry comment of the papal newspaper, Osservatore Romano: "An unexpected development in the history of Christian art."

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