The Real Jesus of the Four GospelsAtwater, John Birdseye
Religion
The Real Jesus of the Four Gospels
Atwater, John Birdseye
Jesus Christ -- Biography
President Roosevelt has been quoted, because, in his views, he
unquestionably voiced the sentiments of the great majority of past and
present Americans. If this be true, should we not look for the beam in
our own eye, before we criticize Germany for starting the Great War? She
was simply applying the law that might makes right, except that she
underestimated the might of the enemies she was arraying against
herself. If she had been successful (as she probably would have been
except for the unexpected valor and self-sacrifice of the Belgians),
would she have been any worse sinner (barring some barbarous details of
her warfare) than the United States with its condonation and approval of
the Mexican and Spanish wars? Both of these were wars of aggression
against weaker nations, and the Mexican war, at least, is admitted on
all hands to have been morally unjustifiable, even by such stalwart
Americans as President Roosevelt. More than a hundred years ago, a
distinguished admiral of the United States Navy is reported to have
said: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she
always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Now, this is a
high-sounding phrase and is a great refuge for Jingo politicians when
they have precipitated the country into an unrighteous war. But before
the bar of Jesus it is the veriest clap-trap. The sincere follower of
Jesus should insist that we be sure we are right in the first instance,
and, if it is discovered that we have been misled into a by-way of wrong
and injustice, that we get back at once to the straight and narrow way
of right and justice.
Our churches must denounce these Rooseveltian doctrines early and late,
as a perversion of Jesus' laws. They must insist that opposition to wars
becomes a service of the heart and not of the lip. They must mould us
into a nation of sincere "conscientious objectors," condemning all wars
as un-Christian, judging every aggressive war as _prima facie_
unjustifiable, and insisting that the advocates of any war prove the
justness of their cause beyond a reasonable doubt. Let our politicians
and leaders understand that if they plunge us into an unjust war, they
are to be punished, and not rewarded by the Presidency, as was Roosevelt
after the Spanish war, and Taylor after the Mexican war. How many of our
wars would have lacked advocates, if they had been obliged to plead
their cause under the principles of the Sermon on the Mount?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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