Kirby Page

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

"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..."

"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..."

"Can the use of physical force ever be reconciled with the family spirit? ...On one occasion he appears to have resorted to force himself... It sheds no light upon the question as to whether the taking of life, capital punishment, or war are ever justifiable. The criterion by which Jesus judges every method is this; Can it be used appropriately in the home?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Another serious charge against Jesus was that of treason to his country. His admonition to refrain from hatred and retaliation and instead to love the Romans seemed to the patriots of the day nothing less than disloyalty and treachery to his native land... There is little doubt as to what would have happened to an American citizen early in 1918 if he had arisen in a Liberty Loan mass meeting and pleaded for the immediate cessation of hostilities and protested against the hatred being manifested toward the Germans."

"Society always issues an ultimatum to the innovator; conform to this world or expect the reward of a heretic or a traitor. Every generation metes out substantially the same punishment to those who fall far below and those who rise high above its standards. Thieves and prophets of a new day rot in the same foul dungeon; murderers and the Savior of mankind agonize on adjacent crosses."

"At every stage Jesus was confronted with the necessity of choosing. More and more clearly he saw the vast gulf between his ideal and the practices of those about him. In moments of exaltation he caught a vision of life as it ought to be and might be. ...From each succeeding experience of communion with God the conviction became more intense that love alone can bring reconciliation between man and man, and between man and God."

"Asceticism may offer a way of escape from the temptations that come from association with one's fellows and bring a sense of release and contentment. But the universal family can never be built by hermits. Contact may lead to contamination, but it is essential to redemption. Love never flees from the object of its affection. Where pain is most severe and sorrow most bitter, there love is most solicitous and untiring."

"The more popular a religion becomes, the less likely its adherents are to practise its highest precepts."

"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."

"The victims of greed and exploitation will never get justice solely by relying upon the vision and generosity of those who hold power and seek their own gain. Power is blinding and corrupting and causes the slave-owner to imagine that it is his duty to perpetuate slavery. The victims of imperialism, in a world where national egotism and greed are rampant, must resort to coercive action if they are to secure freedom and justice."

"Unless effective non-violent means of coercion can be devised and utilized, the victims of injustice will, in blindness and desperation, take up weapons of violence. In our kind of world, to rely upon anarchy and inaction, is to turn the reigns over to violence."

"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."

"Shall we resort to violence, on the ground that the end justifies the mean? The answer of Jesus seems conclusive. There is no place in the home for violence—as distinguished from less extreme forms of coercion—and the killing of beloved kinsmen."

"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."

"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."

"Imperialist powers are blinded by tradition, prestige and self-interest, and vainly imagine that it is for the good of humanity that they should perpetuate their rule and continue to bear "the white man's burden." Their assumption of superiority and the contemptuous way in which they often treat the "natives" is humiliating and degrading."

"Jesus can aid us at three points: by helping us to avoid hatred, to repudiate violence, and to increase our willingness to accept whatever suffering comes from this combination of refusing to submit to evil and of refraining from hatred and violence."

"If we acquiesce in the presence of injustice and misery, we not only fail to remove exploitation and poverty, but we abdicate in favor of those who seek deliverance by violence. On the other hand, if we offer effective non-violent resistance, we may bring suffering upon both evildoers and victims. If we are able to keep ourselves free from bitterness and vindictiveness, our procedure in every situation will be determined by our judgement as to which type of persuasiveness and which method of non-violent restraint are under the circumstances most ethical and most effective. We will than go forward, even if the journey leads to the cross. Without suffering, there can be no redemption."

"If we are to oppose evildoers, especially if we are to make use of non-violent methods of restraining wrongdoers, we must not only refrain from animosity, but we must reveal our devotion to mankind by exhibiting a willingness to endure suffering, rather than submit to the exploitation of our fellows or to retaliate with weapons of violence."

"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..."

"We gain illumination as to the immensity of Jesus' contribution in setting before us a vision of the new society, and indicating ways and means of bringing it to pass."

"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."

"When we are told that the record is scanty and unreliable, we can reply, with the support of the highest scholarship, that we know enough to be sure of his basic ideas and experiences, and that his personality looms up more brilliantly than the Morning Star."

"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."

"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."

"If men of our age will saturate themselves daily in the mind of Christ, will vividly recall the nobility of his manner of life, and will spend time in conscious communion with the God he so luminously reveals, life will take on richer meanings, and the task of building the new society will become more joyous and challenging."

"The bareness and cruelty and misery of this generation now cry aloud for God-saturated and Jesus-challenged deliverers."

"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!"

"Religious people must be brought to a vivid realization of their awful guilt in sanctioning and supporting an economic system that is the direct antithesis of their religious ideals."

"Men must be reminded that as civilization becomes more industrial and urban, relationships become more impersonal, and that much of our sinning is done as members of groups."

"When the Lord's Prayer is prayed with insight it becomes a petition for the abolition of capitalism and the supplanting of the existing economic order with a society which is consistent with the religion of Jesus."

"If the moral approval of religious people were withdrawn from the system of individualism, it could be quickly transformed. Just as the churches belatedly called slavery a sin, and later religious institutions pronounced war to be the world's colossal sin, religious institutions should now declare that sanctioning and supporting the profit system is sin."

"The troubles are much more deep-rooted because of the inherent difficulties confronting a man who seeks to conduct his business on an ideal basis within an unjust social order."

"Is compulsion necessarily a violation of the law of love? To offer an affirmative answer is to deny the validity of all existing governments. This is the position of Tolstoy and other absolute non-resistants. Few readers of these words, however, will agree that anarchy alone is consistent with love."

"Was Tolstoy justified in interpreting the Sermon on the Mount in anarchistic terms? The answer cannot be found in isolated texts or combinations thereof, but rather in consideration of the basic elements which together constitute the religion of Jesus. ...The Golden Rule of conduct was phrased in terms of mutuality: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The true criterion of every thought and deed must, therefore, be found in its effects upon human personality, human relations, and communion between man and God."

"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."

"Non-resistance in the sense of rejecting all forms of coercion is not always a legitimate expression of love toward man and love toward God. ...the refusal under some circumstances to exercise forcible restraint is a betrayal of love and therefore a betrayal of higher religion."

"There may be occasions when "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you" requires coercion."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"If the principle is accepted that killing in defense of property and life is valid and mandatory, armed preparedness for war follows automatically."

"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."

"The case against defensive killing is cumulative and overwhelming."