Religion and the WarYale University. Divinity School
Religion
Religion and the War
Yale University. Divinity School
World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects
Another force that has been operative in world-organization is
religion, and especially the Christian religion. With its proclamation
of the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man; with the
law of love as its law of social interaction; with its "Go ye into all
the world and preach my gospel"--a gospel of universal membership in a
kingdom of supreme values--in which every member is on a moral
equality with his neighbor--the Christian religion has been promotive
of a spirit of good will among men, and of harmony among the nations.
But what is the case today? A nominally Christian nation joins bloody
hands with a traditionally murderous nation of Mohammedan faith in
wholesale assassination of one of the most ancient Christian peoples,
and attempts to incite the Moslem world to warfare against nations of
Christian faith, merely to enhance her own selfish interests.
Furthermore, in the present crisis we find Christian nation arrayed
against Christian nation: Protestant against Protestant; Catholic
against Catholic; Protestant and Catholic united against Protestant
and Catholic. Peoples in whose ears for centuries have rung the glad
tidings of "peace on earth, good will toward men" are today gripping
one another in mortal combat. The star of the East that, according to
the story, guided the Wise Men to the manger of the Prince of Peace
seems to have lost its radiance and directing power. Never since the
star is said to have shone were men apparently farther from beating
their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning hooks. The
unifying power of him whose life illustrated even better than his
parable of the Good Samaritan the highest law of human relationship is
not in evidence today. Where is the power of that cross, the vision of
which carried with it still another vision of a world attracted to,
and unified by, the power of self-sacrificing love--"And I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me"? Is the power of sacrificial
love drawing the hearts of men and of nations together in the
fellowship of Jesus Christ? Are not the dominant forces operating
today centrifugal rather than centripetal? It is not the skeptic, or
cynic, or pessimist, who asks these questions. They are the questions
of thousands of earnest men and women who face the supreme crisis of
human history. They bring home to us the fact that religion, even in
its highest form, like international law, like morality, like art,
however promotive of human brotherhood it has been, has failed in this
most crucial test to prevent the dreadful work of the destructive
forces of mankind. This is a fact that the sincere believer in
religion must face whether he wants to or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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