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
It is the fundamental principle of the apocalyptic hope that God made
not one world but two (II Esdras 7:50). This world must end and
the other world must come if evil is to end and good prevail. But
Jesus believed that this world is already God's world, and that in it
good is already stronger than evil. The Kingdom of God is indeed still
to come, but it is already within. It is already upon us when by the
spirit of God evil is cast out. It has been said that it was the
Greeks who believed in one world in contrast to the Jews who believed
in two; and that Poseidonius, the Platonic Stoic, an oriental, of the
century before Christ, wrote to make men at home in the universe. But
it is surely not a mistake to say that Jesus felt at home in the world
and meant to make others at home. This is precisely the meaning of the
word Father, of which Paul testifies that Jesus' use was to a Jew new,
and that it meant freedom from mental bondage and fear. Poseidonius
made men feel at home in the universe by denying the existence of
evil, which is of course one way of making one world out of two; Jesus
by affirming the reality of a goodness in God and in man capable of
conquering evil. That God is Father, the Father of all men, even, and
especially, of sinners, is not the basis of an apocalyptic hope. Jesus
did not chiefly foretell the end of the world through the catastrophic
intervention of God or of the Son of Man. He did chiefly teach that
the power not ourselves is fatherly, that it is human, that we can
trust our own souls at their best to teach us the nature of God, that
our highest human values are the ultimate realities of the universe.
Jesus found that the chief fears and hopes of men were concerned with
bodily welfare and possessions and with power over others. Mammon and
dominion were the false gods men worshipped. Wealth and power seem now
the objects of the hope and the religious devotion of the Central
Powers. Jesus declared that it is the heathen who are anxious about
food and raiment. It is the heathen who lord it over their fellow men.
Not so was it to be among his disciples. Since the Father knows our
needs and wills to give good things, since the outer world belongs to
him and since the things of the soul are of the greater value, we men
are free to put first things first, to seek God's Kingdom and
righteousness. And since God's rule consists in love and in doing
good, without reserve or regard for deserts or for returns, the only
real rulership among men also must be the renunciation of rulership
for the sake of ministry. Not to be masters over others, not to be
strong by making others weak, but to serve and to give is the divine
plan, the real nature of things. This is not what the war lords learn
from physical and animal nature as to the way to success and primacy,
but it is true to that human nature to which they do violence. The
Christian hope is therefore not for material possessions nor for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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