Authors From The United States

"World government must progressively be established, common problems must be solved by common action, economic and racial justice and fellowship must be achieved... empires must be transformed into commonwealths, the race of armaments must be stopped and the system of balance-of-armed-power must be brought to an end, the churches must take Jesus seriously by trusting goodwill and pacific means and by disentangling themselves from the war system, a mighty movement of peoples must be created so that governments will maintain friendly and cooperative relations and will refrain from hostile and provocative actions. ...Now is the time to prevent a third world war."

"If Christians give their consent and support to preparedness to wage war with atomic bombs and other weapons of annihilation and devastation, they will thereby repudiate the way of Jesus."

"Preparedness to use atomic bombs against men and women and children is a proclamation of faith, a confession of confidence in the rightness and effectiveness of human slaughter as a means of seeking safety and of maintaining justice."

"We can take Jesus seriously and strive earnestly to follow him, or we can prepare to wage atomic war, but it is utterly impossible to do both at the same time."

"Feebleness of confidence in the power of international goodwill operating through appropriate agencies of international justice and friendship is at present paralyzing efforts to take the steps which must be taken if war is to be averted."

"The truth must be driven home that it is sinful to prepare to annihilate millions of God's children in other lands."

"Western man has progressively accepted the use of violence during the years since the outbreak of the First World War. In that war the Germans began the practice of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations of British cities. ...The peoples of the Allied world and of neutral countries were shocked and outraged by this evidence of German inhumanity and bestiality... the dropping of bombs on men, women and children sleeping peacefully in their beds in great cities. ...By the year 1945 most people of the United Nations were rejoicing over the winning of the war through the destruction from the air of numerous German and Japanese cities, and were revealing scarcely a qualm of conscience over this unequaled devastation and annihilation. The practice from which they had recoiled in horror less than three decades previously, they were now using with cold premeditation and concentrated skill. And nothing like the havoc they wrought had ever before been seen on this earth."

"Faith in armed might paralyzes international action."

"Every basic doctrine of Christianity is nullified to the degree that we accept the ideas and practices of atomic war: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the inestimable value of human life, the kinship of all peoples, the duty and privilege of sympathy and compassion and affection, the responsibility of the strong to bear the burdens of the weak, the overcoming of evil with goodness, the redemptive power of self-giving love, the supremacy of spiritual forces over material might."

"It is impossible to use an atomic bomb here to defend the population of our own city. Likewise we cannot use our bacterial weapons here in our own country. These weapons of annihilation must be used offensively. And against their use no effective defense is possible."

"Preparedness to use the weapons of war creates the tempers, the quarrels and the crises which lead to the outbreak of war."

"Through every legitimate educational procedure the truth must be driven home to the masses of people that the race of armaments is not a means of defense but a race to mutual suicide."

"If we trust organized and aggressive goodwill we will transform the present war-producing system into a peace system which removes the causes of war and maintains the agencies of pacific settlement of international dispute."

"We Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs, stop making any additional ones, and stop all preparations to wage war with biological weapons. Such actions would... place our government in an advantageous position to plead with all other nations to join with us in an international treaty of disarmament by as rapid stages as possible."

"In the Baruch proposal our government suggested the creation of the International Authority by the United Nations to which would be given a complete monopoly of all atomic installations, materials and stockpiles. This authority should be given power of inspection and power to call for the punishment of violators."

"It is no longer possible to place a halo around war and speak of it in idealistic terms."

"Instead of spending our money on preparedness to fight, we should pour out billions in a common effort to solve common problems around the earth... on the scale of present preparations for total war. ...This vast sum should be spent on food, clothing, shelter, medicine, seed, fertilizer, livestock, machinery, tools and other requirements of efficient production and distribution. ...Instead of spending billions on preparedness to wage war with pestilence, vast sums should be spent on health measures and the eradication of plague from the face of the earth."

"Self-centeredness is death. Centeredness in God and in his people brings life."

"These mighty weapons of explosion and fire are already obsolete, and the improved weapons of today will be dwarfed by the monstrous weapons of tomorrow."

"The way of disarmament and of mutual aid and of international cooperation is a highly dangerous way. It is not safe. But it is safer, safer than the race of armaments and the third world war."

"The race of armaments is nothing less than a race to mutual suicide."

"War is not high ideals. War is not noble objectives. War is not gallant heroism. War is not sacrificial devotion."

"War is method. War is atrocity. War is wholesale falsehood. War is the practice of military necessity. War is the utter denial of the spirit and example of Jesus."

"A deep fog of obscurity is thrown about war by the use of misleading and confusing terms."

"Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?"

"Atrocity supplants compassion and mercy. Mutual forbearance and mutual forgiveness are suppressed as treason. The overcoming of evil by doing good is looked upon as impracticable and dangerous to national welfare. The war method has no place in it for the spirit and practices of Jesus."

"An infant crying in the crib can better appreciate the character of its mother than we can fathom the full nature of God."

"To depend upon mutual aid is right. It is better to run the risks of doing right."

"The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language."

"The war method includes falsehood as an integral part. Truth is indeed a casualty of war."

"The war method substitutes the doctrine of necessity for ethical ideals. ...That is right which contributes to victory; that is wrong which magnifies the threat of defeat."

"Verily, civilized patriots strain gnats and swallow camels!"

"The United States not only helped to encircle Germany with a strangle-hold but continued to maintain that starvation blockade for more than seven months after the Armistice, on the ground that if the blockade were lifted Germany might refuse to accept the peace treaty. No sane American desired to prolong the process of starving German women and children; this atrocity was continued because it was considered necessary. No idea is more inextricably interwoven into war than the doctrine of military necessity."

"Even after proper discount is made for false propaganda, the evidence is indisputable that every invading army perpetrates atrocity, so much so that war may correctly be defined as atrocity. Reference to various standard dictionaries reveals the following definition of atrocity: "A deed of violence or savagery; great cruelty or reckless wickedness; extreme cruelty; enormous wickedness.""

"War is atrocity; war is a method of savage violence."

"The totalitarian nature of modern war renders invalid the distinction between combatants and non-combatants."

"Bombardment, air raid and blockade constitute the most revolting forms of atrocity because they are not deeds of violence committed under the momentary, blinding influence of fear or passion, but are deliberately premeditated processes of devastation, mutilation and slaughter of men, women and children without regard to guilt or responsibility."

"There is a far higher degree of probability of success through non-warlike means than through the Communist strategy of civil war."

"Plenty for everyone can be provided in the United States if the anarchistic economic freedom of the frontier is renounced and replaced by the higher freedom of collectivism, through the socialization of the basic industries and the approximate equalization of economic privilege."

"The political horizon would be greatly clarified if the voters were offered the choice of three parties representing three strategies: A conservative party committed to the preservation of individualism, perhaps in a highly modified form; a communist party bent upon revolutionary changes through violent seizure of power, confiscation, and a proletarian dictatorship; and a radical party seeking to socialize the basic industries and to move toward an equalization of economic privilege through purchase, taxation, and drastic regulation, without resorting to confiscation or armed seizure of power."

"Sufficient private property in users' commodities is dependent upon the abolition of private property in primary means of production and distribution. With less private property, we may have more private property and make available plenty for everyone."

"War is planned devastation and organized slaughter. ...War is continued devastation and slaughter until the enemy yields or until a nation's own defeat is acknowledged."

"Continued adherence to the doctrine of military necessity will lead to mutual suicide."

"If the race of armaments continues it will lead to the third world war and to the destruction of our civilization."

"Non-warlike revolutionists fall into a tragic blunder when they enter into a united front with communists or near-communists."

"National unions embracing a considerable portion of the workers in a given industry are able to exert terrific power in the determination of the relative levels of wages, dividends and interest. To the degree that organized labor is strong, the power of owners is decreased."

"A powerful consumers cooperative movement helps to maintain an equitable balance between prices and profits, and thereby decreases the power of owners and investors."

"The consolidation of financial and industrial power in the hands of a small section of the people leads inevitably to more and more intense congestion of money."

"To the extent that a political party bent upon socialization is supported by a substantial majority of voters, it will be able to utilize the powers of government in diminishing the power of ownership."

"When we pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth," we are praying for the abolition of individualism and the coming of the higher individuality through collective action as members of God's Home on earth. "If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed. ...For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever, for My sake and for the sake of the Good News, will lose his life shall save it." "Make me a captive, Lord, then shall I be free!" Truly, freedom can be preserved only by throwing it away! And individuality can reach its highest level only through the collectivism of the beloved community!"