PACIFISM WON’T END WAR

Evening Star, Issue 23377, 21 September 1939, Page 7

PACIFISM WON’T END WAR

STRAIGHT TALK BY PRELATE POSITION OF THE CHRISTIAN The subject of pacifism has been much to the fore in recent years. Such picturesque figures as Gandhi and the late Dick ” Sheppard, by their passionate advocacy of the policy of non-resist-ance, have,done much to commend the subject to the attention of all thoughtful people, says the Bishop of Ballarat (Right Rev. W. H. .Johnson) in a special article in the Melbourne ‘ Argus.’ Now, needless to say, the outbreak of war has made it imperative lor Christians to face the question: Can a Christian conscientiously engage .m war? 1 have before me a letter from a young student who says: “ In regard to the interesting conversation we began the other day about complete nonresistance, you said that you thought that it would not work in the world as it is. Well, my reply is that it was Christ’s teaching. If this is true and it won’t work, then there does not seem much hope in life for us. That it is Christ’s teaching, I have no doubt. Christ said, ‘ Love your enemies.’ I To him that smites thee on one cheek turn to him the other ’; ‘ Pray for them that spitefully use you ’; ‘To him that taketh. thy cloak, give him thy coat as well,’ and so on.” Society must either destroy war, or war will destroy society. There is no other choice. But would the policy of non-resistance to-day be likely to abolish war? 1 would suggest that Kenneth Ingram is right when he says in his latest book, ‘ Defeat of War,’ that it would not, because the moment for applying the theory of non-resist-ance to action has not yet arrived. The fact that Christ insisted on the evil and futility of violence, and substituted for it the law of love, does not in the least prove that it is the | duty of the Christian to attempt to apply his maxim “ absolutely ” at the present moment. As an illustration of what I mean J would say that nothing could have been more incompatible with Christ’s teaching than the institution of slavery, and yet Christ accepted the services of a slave civilisation. He ate the food, He accepted the necessaries of life produced by slave labour. According to the perfectionist attitude, Christ must | have been grossly inconsistent in doing \ this; He was not practising what He | preached, Ho was not literally applying His own words to action. But He was | not inconsistent. He was aware that the moment had not come for any attempt to be made to abolish slavery, that several developments would have to take place before society would be ready for that further step towards the attainment of a community of free and equal persons. This illustration shows the weakness of the “ perfectionist ” interpretation of Christianity. The teaching of Christ is not a code, not an exact law to be applied absolutely, but a series of eternal principles which have to be ap-,

plied, as best we can apply them, to the conditions of our own time. That is what we mean by “ conditional ” as distinguished from “ absolute ” application. i

All this applies to the different items of Christ’s teaching quoted in the student’s letter, to which I have referred. What this student is facing is the dilemma with which Christians of many generations have wrestled uneasily—whether the' words of Christ are to be given a literal or a conditional application. The traditional Christian view is that they must be given conditional application. Christ’s teaching consists not of an exact law. as I have said, but of eternal and immutable principles which have to be related to a world which is vitiated by human failures and error.

The weakness of the perfectionist case is that it ignores the distinction between these absolute principles and the manner in which they can be applied to the world in which we live. The difficulty lies not merely in our own individual capacity to live up to the Christian standard; much more significant is the tact that, if we were to carry out Christ’s moral teaching as an exact Jaw, we should discover that, because of the complicated system in which we are placed, we were producing results very different from those at which we should be aiming or which Christianity itself envisages. What 1 have been saying is what the theologians describe as the impossibility of applying the Christian ethic “ absolutely ” because of the existence of human sin. DANGER OF BRUTAL TYRANNr. In the circumstances of the world to-day, no one would deny that the British Empire, disarmed and pacifist, would count for nothing in the counsels of Europe, and the result would most likely be the triumph of a brutal tyranny that would obliterate the intellectual, moral, and spiritual inheritance which Europe has acquired by long centuries of toil and sacrifice, and the subjugation of our children to a regime of assassination and terror. As it is, Britain and the Empire, together with France, have done everything possible to preserve peace, and then, when all their efforts failed, have opposed the aggressor, it is significant that even Gnandi, the arch-advocate of the policy of non-resistance, has acclaimed their action. The ‘ Church Standard ’ speaks for churchmen when it says that without in the least wishing to minimise the • effect of non-resistance, we do not be- i lieve that universal peace will be j achieved by the quiet acceptance of in-' justices at the hands of an aggressor nation. We agree with Professor Corkey, that “ one might as well assert that if a father could be found who was ready to allow his child to be kidnapped, the underworld would be so startled and impressed that all babysnatching would cease.” Take our na- | tional life. If justice were allowed to go by default in all circumstances, would peace and security be gained? Is there any reason to suppose that the matter would be different in the . international realm? 1

A recent pacifist writer makes a very curious reply to the question “If your country were invaded would you not take life in order to save your wife or daughter from being raped?” He says, in effect, that be would not take ■ life even in those circumstances, but]

would regard that as the supreme sacrifice which he could make for the ca<use of peace. We ask, but what about the unfortunate woman? Christ abolished the whole system of unwilling sacrifice—unfortunate human beings or animals immolated against their will in the supposed interests of the community. The only kind of sacrifice which He approved was voluntary self-offering for the good of others; and by no stretch of the imagination can the case to which we have referred be brought into that category. Frankly, the attitude of the particular pacifist to whom we referred seems to us cowardly and cold-blooded in the extreme. The CHURCH’S TASK. We are convinced that the church must pursue a positive, constructive peace policy, inculcating the ideals of love and truth and justice, teaching men that these things are greater even than life itself. Men must be taught that their real enemies are not guns, or tanks, or bombers, but greed, jealousy, hatred, malice, and the like, which make Use of such engines of destruction. The social injustice which begets war will vanish under the influence of a Christ-liko spirit. The conception of the human race as a great family must be kept in the forefront; the various nations and peoples are so many groups within the great human family, and our parochial “ nationalisms ” and “ racialisms ” are as absurd as they are mischievous. For the wellbeing of the human race, a League of Nations is essential, with impartial courts, backed by goodwill and adequate force. The issue is not whether pacifism is right or wrong. Pacifism is unquestionably right. War belongs to a primitive order; it is bestial and futile. Man cannot be released so as to enter a wider and more fruitful sphere of activities until he lias loosed himself from the chains of war. But pacifism as a policy for the present is wrong, insofar as it does not belong to the immediate situation. The first essential, I repeat, is to change the situation. The attempt must be made to rise above the nationalist, competitive phase of civilisation, to a new era of civilisation based upon an international commonwealth.