War and

the Gospel

By

Jean Lasserre

Translated by Oliver Coburn

Foreward by

Rev. George F. Macleod

M.A., D.D.

PREFACE

THERE is a resistance movement by the clergy.

Asked about Polaris, a minister replied that he had not given it much thought as he was not mechanically minded!

A Scottish Presbytery of forty-five ministers had an official conference to hear the non-pacifist case and twenty ministers turned up. At a subsequent official conference to hear the pacifist case nine turned up.

In an English town stamped addressed envelopes went to forty-five full-time religionists, from the Vicar to the Salvation Army Captain, for a reply to an offer that competent exponents on the moral issues of the Bomb would come to speak to Vestry, Woman's Guild or Youth Group. Three envelopes were returned: two requesting a speaker, the third averring that repentance should precede disarmament. The Bishop of the Diocese and the Archbishop of the Province were equally approached. Neither even acknowledged the communication.

There is a resistance movement by the clergy.

In a measure it is meritorious. The clergy are trained to take a world view of issues. They see, more clearly than some young enthusiast for nuclear disarmament, the very grave consequences were the Church to adopt a pacifist position: consequences, in the relation of Church and State, unparalleled for at least twelve hundred years. Men must be sure of their ground who would commit the Church to oppose the State at the point of its greatest expenditure.

But in a measure this resistance movement is meretricious. It appears attractive to 'stand by the ship of State'. No one in a crisis wants to rock the boat. Yet what if the ship founders for lack of the Word from the only institution that can declare it? What if the paralysis be one of mutual international fears? What if the only cure is faith so strong that only the Church's Word is its adequate repository ?

The German autocracy was the ultimate cause of Eichmann's unbelievable act; resulting in the death of five million men, women and children in three years. What if our democracy is judged in years to come as the ultimate cause of a more unbelievable act: the death, by

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one Polaris, of ten million men, women and children in fifteen minutes? What if the Church, from which the democratic ideal seeded, is then recorded to have been silent? Faith alone can now save the State. Faith in non-violence when, short of it, violence may destroy all. 'Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon the Throne': we still sing it regularly. With equal certainty we do not believe it.

Thus is the Church muddled. When one attempts to sort out the muddle, central in the fog one stumbles on a doubt about the nature of progress. Scores of clergy chant: 'I was a pacifist once.' They belonged, that is, to the idealist school that flourished too luxuriant in the days when men spoke of the 'evangelization of the world in our time'. No wonder they reply to no circular when the destruction of the world in our time has become the sober possibility.

It is a cardinal value of this book by Jean Lasserre that it discards either the evangelization or the destruction of our world. The book is biblical throughout. He has felt on his pulses all the shattering dilemmas of our time. In wartime France he knew the attractions of the Resistance, the bankruptcies of the collaborators, and the tragedy of a great nation defeated. But he also knew His Bible, the sure Sovereignty of God and, in it, the Majesty of the Crucified.

Not since G. J. Heering's The Fall of Christianity has there appeared, in similar compass, so compendious a statement of the issues involved in accepting the non-violent interpretation of the gospel.

The reformation of John Knox stemmed in part from his courageous condemnation of the 'monstrous regiment of women'. The central moral issue of our time is the 'monstrous regiment of the bomb'. The new reformation for which the whole reformed world waits will stem in major part from a recovery of the doctrine of nonviolence as central to the message of the Cross.

A sufficient declaration of its principles is contained in this short but pungent work.

GEORGE F. MACLEOD

CHAP. PAGE

Preface 5

Introduction: The Question at Stake 9

PART I. PRELIMINARIES

1. Towards a Correct Statement of the Problem 13

PART II. THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE

1, The Teaching of Christ and the Apostles 23

2. The Example of Christ and the Apostles 36

3. The New Testament never sanctions Violence 53

4. The Testimony of the Old Testament 59

5. Weakness according to the Gospel 65

6. Some Objections 71

PART III. THE CHRISTIAN'S OBEDIENCE TO THE STATE

1. The Christian's Attitude to the St ate 81

2. The Limits of Obedience to the State 114

3. Political Morality and Gospel Morality 128

4. The Criterion of Good 145

PART IV. THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

1. Its Significance 165

2. The Death Penalty and the Police 180

3. The Army 197

Conclusion 217

References 219

Bibliography omitted

Biblical Index omitted

INTRODUCTION: THE QUESTION AT STAKE

NEVER, it seems, has human life been held so cheap as today: abortions, euthanasia, elimination of mental defectives, genocide, gas chambers, and the whole concentration‑camp world with it massacres, tortures, inquisitions, liquidation of traitors, A‑bombs and H‑bombs‑and so on indefinitely.

A plane will be sent out, it is true, to save a single person who is dangerously ill; but one plane also kills a hundred ‑thousand people in a single second. Modem science can save, but it also kills at a faster and more frantic rate. Swept along helplessly by uncontrolled technical progress, present‑day man is often driven to boast of his own abdication before the murderous forces unleashed in our age, and to justify these forces. Almost all current philosophies and political ideologies have a common denominator: they set little store by the existence, either physical or spiritual, of human beings.[1]

The more clear‑sighted among our non‑Christian contemporaries declare that man is in danger, and they demand 'respect for the human personality.’ But although their emphasis on personality is sincere, their philosophy both the sanest and the nearest to Christianity, most of them on a mere decree from their government are resolved (or resigned?) to surrender completely to the inhumanities of military discipline, and will give themselves up body and soul to the blasphemous massacre of God's creatures.

The Decalogue, in its age‑old wisdom, has set out what is involved in loving your neighbor or (if you prefer) in respect for human personality. Modem man is mad indeed if he thinks he can build a civilized world while maintaining his light‑hearted attitude to the sixth commandment. I believe the future of humanity turns precisely on whether he takes this commandment seriously or not. If there is one question of life or death, it is our attitude to 'Thou shall not kill.’ The planet's fate depends on this; the Church's fate also.

For it is this question above all by which modern man will finally judge the Church and its witness. Where is its vaunted Good News if it takes part in the slaughter and howls with the wolves? What

WAR AND THE GOSPEL

real significance can Jesus Christ have, if His disciples join in collective hatred and violence so readily, if they too gamble with human life? How can the Church bring a message of hope to men oppressed by their murderous factions, if it seems to sanction these factions and murders with its moral authority? When atheists wax sarcastic against religion, they are basically betraying their contempt for the Christians who preach love and do not practice it. In the past millions of men have left the Church for good because of religious wars and the Inquisition; and today tens of millions are obviously disgusted with Christianity because of the wars which Christians wage. Today more than ever, owing to the horror of modem methods of mass‑extermination, the Church's witness turns on the truly crucial question of the sixth commandment.

But alas, instead of letting the Good News be heard as a clarion call amidst a world ravaged by terrors, despairs, hatreds, and violent convulsions, the Church's preaching has a sad and uncertain sound. Before the agonizing challenge of 'Thou shall not kill,' it seems hesitant and equivocating; it drifts on in impotence and resignation. Little wonder, then, if people turn away from it in disillusionment and despair.

Despite all appearances, the masses are longing for a hope which will bring them release; the Church cannot go on disappointing them any longer. Nor can it let its own children be racked by terrible problems of conscience without speaking to them clearly. More than ever Christians are torn between their obedience as children of God, who have received forgiveness and are called on to forgive others, and their obedience as citizens called on to maintain order and justice in this sinful world. From the darkness of this deep inner conflict, they are confronted by a dilemma which seems insoluble: they must deny Christ by taking part in the general slaughter or else deny Him by evading their military duty. Has the Church really nothing to say to them?

There can surely be few tasks of greater importance and urgency than to study this problem of respect for human life, under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit, in the fraternal communion of all those who invoke the name of Jesus Christ and are tormented by the tragic dilemma of whether a Christian should take part in war. In other words, if Christ is preached by a Church which submits to military laws, is He still the Christ of the Scriptures? The pages which follow are intended as a modest contribution to the common search for a true faithfulness to God.[2]