Mennonites in the World War: Non-Resistance Under Test - Jonas Smucker Hartzler

Скачать книгу

       Table of Contents

      This government, and especially the President, was blamed by both parties for secretly favoring the other side. This was not only an unpleasant situation, but in time was bound to bring on complications. It will always remain a question as to what part politics and covetousness had in the matter of drawing America into the war. On April 6, 1917, the President declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Germany.

      From that moment this government took active measures to supply both men and money. The war department and the general public felt that the Mennonites and other nonresistant bodies were under obligations to furnish their full share of both while such bodies felt that a nonresistant church could not consistently furnish either.

       Table of Contents

      Here was a new problem. The Church had been vitally and prayerfully concerned for the breth ren in Canada, whose country had already been in the war more than two and a half years. She could not forfeit her position, nor did she waver. But to make immediate, wise, and practical applications of the principles of npnresistance to the rulings of congress and the war department which came in such rapid succession required a careful study of the subject. She sought to go just as far as she could in complying with the demands of govern ment without violating a Gospel principle. With the best of care she realized that there were trials ahead.

       Table of Contents

      Numerous efforts were made by newspapers and public speakers to define the position of the nonresistants, but in most cases they utterly failed be cause they wanted to place it on the basis of, "Passive resistance," "Noncoercion," "Cowardice," "Pro-Germanism," etc. The Church would have spurned ctny of these. Since her organization she has based her position entirely upon the Word of God, and not on any psychological proposition. "Thus saith the Lord," was her basis. She takes it that Christ meant what He said when He commanded us as His followers to love our enemies, to bless them which curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us (Matt. 5 :44) ; that "All they that take the sword shall perish with (not by) the sword" (Matt. 26:52); that in John 18:36 He laid down a rule which all Christian people should obey; that Paul's teaching regarding revenge (Rom. 12: 17–21), going to law (I Cor. 6:1–8), and "The weap ons of our warfare" (II Cor. 10:4) were for all people and for all time; and that no argument, however plausible, could ever form a substitute for the plain teaching of God's Word.

      Most Mennonites hold that it is inconsistent for Christians to support war measures ; that there is really no such thing as "noncombatant" service in aid of war; but that the man who made the gun and the man who pulled the trigger, or the man who drove the team and the man who loaded the cannon, all of them having in mind the overcoming of the enemy by means of violence, share in the re sponsibility before God.

       Table of Contents

      This position does not imply rebellion to government. On the contrary, the Church believes that we should obey magistrates, pray for our rulers and never speak evil of them, to "give honor to whom honor is due." Her teaching on nonresistance has always emphasized the duty of submission to the governments which provide us shelter, holding the single reservation that we should always remember that God's law is first and should be obeyed first, and that whenever these two laws oppose each other, "We ought to obey God rather than men."

       Table of Contents

      Conquering nations and conquerors do not long survive the era of their conquest. Babylon, Persia, Greece, Parthia, Rome, and Germany ; Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, and Wilhelm are monuments of this truth a collateral proof of the doctrine of nonresistance, and of the truth of the statement that, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

       Table of Contents

      But even those who will not accept the Bible teaching on this point have ample reason for op posing war. Think of the war just past. It lasted four years, three months and thirteen days ; it cost the combined nations the enormous sum of two hun dred billion dollars; it swept millions of people in to eternity; it has left millions more cripples for life; it has left some once powerful and wealthy countries all but bankrupt, and all of those involved, decidedly poorer; and now calls for reconstruction work requiring the expenditure of hundreds of mil lions of dollars and many years of time. Besides this, thousands of people have died of starvation brought on by the war, and will require the co operation of Christendom if thousands more do not die from the same cause. War has been variously denned by General Sherman and others, but lan guage fails one to define this war.

       Table of Contents

      Last, but not least, notice some of the spiritual effects. E. W. Orchard, in his book, "The Outlook for Religion/ presents the thought that less than a decade before the war a general idea prevailed "that progress was inevitable to humanity; an irresistible and quite mechanical power was working in the world which was forcing men upward, wheth er they would or not. … We were progressing, the dark ages were over, … a path of steady moral advance lay before us. And now? Well, one is not sure. We are once more back to barbarity. The war has developed a ferocity and inhumanity which would have been thought impossible a few years ago. We have had to consider the spectacle of the most educated, advanced nation in the world perpetrating the most frightful horrors, crashing through an innocent country with awful brutalities, and this justified by her statesmen on the plea of military necessity."

      John Haynes Holmes, in his book, "New Wars for Old," says : "See for example the experience of Dr. Frederick Lynch, as narrated in his little book, Through Europe on the Eve of the War. One day he tells us, he saw merchants, clerks, farmers, peas ants, husbands, fathers, and brothers in France and Germany, going quietly about their business. On the next day had come the declaration of war, and instantly these men were transformed into beasts." The author then goes on to say what these same

      46 MENNONITES IN THE WORLD WAR

      people did after war had been declared, but it is too horrifying to be recorded in a work like this. He further states: "And all this before fighting had begun, or a single drop of blood had been shed. … Talk about war purifying, ennobling, strengthening men! Talk about war instilling patience, sacrifice, heroism in the human heart! War is the corrupter of virtue, the despoiler of purity, the murderer of courage, honor, and chivalry."

      Smoking and Profanity

      Thousands upon thousands of soldiers at the end of the war are accustomed to using profane language who were never known to utter an oath before. This is shown by a military man who in vestigated the cause. From a very large number of answers there were several causes suggested, but nearly all of them admitted that profanity had greatly increased in the camps. Possibly an equal number have learned to smoke who were clean men before the war broke out. The tobacco trust put out the idea that the people in America

Скачать книгу