Pacifists

"That the navy is maintained at its present level for the purpose of protecting our sea-borne traffic and safeguarding our property in foreign lands, far more than for the purpose of keeping our shores from being invaded and our fellow citizens from being murdered, is an argument that runs like a crimson thread through the literature of armed preparedness."

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

"Repudiation of the principle of defensive killing and the reliance upon ethical means of resistance are imperative if the vicious circle of taking life in order to save life is to be broken."

"If rugged individualists would throw away the right to fight for special privilege and would cooperate in a collective endeavor to secure plenty for everybody, they would have time, energy, and desire to explore higher pathways of living."

"Before a just society can be established the property system and the penal code of such a social order must be radically transformed."

"Once war consisted of individual combats between armed men. Later it was waged between lines of men in opposing trenches. Now it is organized slaughter of whole populations."

"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."

"It seems... wholly out of the question to assemble a genuinely international police at this time. Before that can be accomplished it will be necessary to reduce to a minimum or disband altogether the various national armies and navies, and to create an effective world government with power over matters that are international in character which transcends the power of single nations. In the meantime, any armed force that went by the name "international police" would not be impartial but would be dominated by one or two large military powers."

"Forcible coercion is not necessarily a violation of the law of love, but I find it impossible to reconcile the intentional slaughter of any human being with the religious principle of reverence for personality, that is, respect for the personality of the dead man. Nor does active goodwill or the principle of mutuality justify the willful taking of a human life."

"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?"

"Distinguish between the outlawry of war and the abolition of war. The former is only a step in the direction of the latter. An international treaty declaring war to be a public crime will no more abolish international violence than laws against murder have abolished all killing of one individual by another. There is general agreement, however, that the negotiation of an international treaty outlawing war would constitute an enormous stride toward peace."

"Hatred is an essential part of war. During the conflict it is regarded as treason to "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." In war, the enemy are regarded as targets, not as sons of God."

"If reverence for personality, the principle of mutuality, active goodwill, and love toward God and man constitute the essence of high religion, then in many situations, in an imperfect world, compulsion becomes a religious obligation."

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

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

"If an international treaty outlawing war is negotiated, there is every reason to believe that the United States would join the League of Nations without further delay."

"Every person is a child of God and a brother of man. Therefore personality is the supreme value, and should be regarded as an end and not merely as a means to an end."

"Those persons who were responsible for his tragic death had only the faintest understanding of what he was seeking to accomplish. Even his own disciples so completely misinterpreted his teaching that at the very end they argued among themselves as to who should have the chief places. ...they still visualized twelve thrones of solid gold and quarreled among themselves over the seats of honor on the right and left of the king. How much less able to fathom the meaning of his words and deeds were the ecclesiastical leaders."

"The economic and political power—and therefore police and military force—at the disposal of the owning class is almost illimitable, and is wielded with a ruthless determination to maintain privilege, prestige, and power."

"If certain types and degrees of compulsion represent true expressions of brotherly affection, coercion may ennoble personality. If the killing of a brother is an act which in its very essence is alien to and destructive of the family bond, then it is ethically unjustifiable."

"Jesus was a radical on race questions. He treated men of every color and tongue as sons of a common Father and therefore brothers beloved. In His sight all men are of inherent and inestimable value. ...Jesus also disregarded the rigid class lines of his day."

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

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

"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."

"Mutual aid is the way to prevent the third world war. Mutual aid is also the way to stop the internal growth of Communism by providing our people with plenty, security and freedom."

"None of the three ways of dealing with social injustice can entirely prevent or remove human suffering. Resistance by violence tends to increase and intensify suffering; inaction or failure to exert effective restraint perpetuates the misery of the victims of crime or exploitation; non-violent coercion likewise often results in suffering. The policy of wisdom is to use that method which involves a minimum of suffering, and which offers a maximum of redemption."

"Wherever in a home there is immaturity, lack of self-control, and anti-social stimuli, coercion may be necessary in order to safeguard the other members of the family, and to prevent remorse for irreparable wrongdoing. To say that restraint administered in love and with the welfare of all concerned vividly in mind is immoral, is to reduce society to anarchy and chaos."

"No more thrilling challenge confronts the people of this generation than that inherent in the crusade to abolish war and to create adequate international organization."

"It seems incredible that a man with such a message and such nobility of character should have been killed as an enemy of society. But is it surprising? ...In a memorable passage Jesus refers to the fact that it is customary for one generation to stone the prophets and for another to erect monuments in their honor."

"Our difficulty comes, of course, in deciding where ethical coercion ends and unethical violence begins. The only person who is able to escape from this dilemma is the complete anarchist who repudiates every form of restraint and compassion—and such a man has no solution to offer for the imminently menacing problems of the hour. All other persons are obliged to draw the line somewhere, and orderly progress depends upon intellectual keenness and ethical sensitiveness with which the situation is confronted."

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

"Followers of Jesus in our day will, by their compassionate concern for the victims of greed and blindness, be stimulated to search more diligently for means of increased persuasiveness of wrongdoers, on the one hand, and for ethical means of restraint, on the other. They will be prepared also to rely exclusively upon means which are consistent with the worthy ends sought, and to take consequences of following Jesus' way of life."

"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."

"The religion and the ethics of Jesus are utterly inseparable."

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

"There is no inherent irreconcilability between love and coercion, but rather the reverse; under some circumstances love ceases to be love if it fails to use moral means of restraint."

"God is Father and perfectly exemplifies the spirit of the home. ...He makes the sun shine on the evil and the good and the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. He is forgiving and always goes out to meet the prodigal."

"By his own experience of God and his estimate of man, by his emphasis upon and practice of brotherhood, by his repudiation of hatred and violence, while attacking with audacity deeply entrenched inequities, and by his vicarious suffering on the cross, Jesus awakens, challenges and inspires us to take up the cross and follow in his sacrificially redemptive steps. Thus we are saved and thus society must be redeemed."

"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."

"The menace inherent in any form of coercion is greatly reduced if those who act in behalf of victims of oppression voluntarily submit to suffering. Mahatma Gandhi... furnishes the most illuminating contemporary example..."

"The God of Jesus differs fundamentally from the Jehovah presented in many sections of the Old Testament, where is frequently pictured as authorizing pillage and slaughter and... as... an active participant in war..."

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

"When we are reminded that modern men find it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus, we urge a search for realities that are far greater than words. If Jesus gives us our clearest vision of the nature of God; if he reveals the godlike qualities in man; if he secures penitence, restitution, joyous allegiance, and heroic sacrifice; if he leads to deliverance for individuals and groups—he becomes a symbol for all that is noblest in the universe, whatever may be the title by which he is characterized."

"When we are reminded of his apocalyptic concepts and are told that an interim ethic possesses little validity for distant centuries, we are able to make rejoinder that his experience of God, his valuation of man, his call to love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are universal and eternal."

"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."

"The religion of Jesus begins and ends in the home. All life is a domestic affair. The universal family embraces every race and tongue. Man's primary purpose is to establish the Family of God... The way to create God's home is to live every day as a good member of the family. Only those ends are worthy which are consonant with the family spirit and only those methods are justifiable which are appropriate in the home."

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

"Even if the days of 1928 and early 1929 could be brought back again, the economic situation would be utterly indefensible on moral grounds. The greedy scramble for private gain and special privilege, the gambling spirit and the ruthless determination to gain wealth by means fair and foul, the callous indifference to how the other half lived or at most the throwing of a few crumbs of philanthropy, the bitter exploitation of the weak and the brutal suppression of the workers as they attempted to organize in defense of their minimum rights, the cruel assumption that there must always be a wide gulf between the rich and the poor, the willingness to send unnumbered victims to their doom on the battlefield in defense of vested interests—all these and countless other evils are inherent in the economic order which held sway in 1929. God forbid that we should have any desire to return to that living hell!"

"Live to-day as if the ideal society has already come to pass. The Kingdom of God is within you. It is all about you."

"It is utterly unthinkable that Jesus would himself condemn a wrongdoer to everlasting torture. ...Like any other Oriental teacher he spoke in parables and figurative language. Allowance must also be made for misinterpretations by the persons who recorded their impressions of his words. Jesus frequently pointed out the inevitable consequences of human conduct. It would be easy for his hearers to assume that he was uttering threats of punishment..."