World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Young Men's Christian Associations
Is not the whole war a call to deep humiliation to the Church of Christ
and should we not all stand convicted of sin before it? So far as our
saving the world is concerned and our bringing in the Kingdom of love and
peace, which Christ came to establish, does not the war write in flaming
judgment against us, "Thou art weighed in the balances and found
wanting"? Are we not all, like the Pharisees of old, too ready to throw
the first stone at someone else who we may think caused the war, instead
of admitting our own guilt?
As Arnold Freeman, in his lectures at Sheffield University, says:
"We persuade one another that it was the Kaiser, through his lust for
self-glorification, who made this war. Would it be possible for one man
to transform all Europe into a slaughter-house unless that same
Kaiser-spirit found its response in human nature in every corner of this
continent? It is the 'Kaiser' in each one of us that makes wars
possible. It is because we have in every nation, and in every class,
multitudes of men and women who neglect the service of their
fellow-creatures in a desire for self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement,
that this catastrophe has fallen upon us all. It is a case of
devil-possession, and our only hope is to exorcise ourselves of the evil
spirit. Our avowed intention is to cast out 'Kaiserism' in Germany by
brute force. We must be no less resolute to cast it out of this country."
The Bishop of Carlisle has well said that if we were really Christians
this war would not have happened. If the defense of its citizens is the
work of the State, and the redemption of the world is the task of the
Church, no one can deny that the State has done its work far better than
the Church. In the face of this, the most pathetic spectacle that the
Christian world ever witnessed, must we not wring our hands with shame
and cry, "Why could we not cast it out?" The divisions, the impotence,
the worldliness, the coldness, the sin and failure of the Church stand
revealed in the lurid light of this war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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