THE AMERICAN CHURCHES AND WAR
By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD
THERE has just been published in New York a re- markable poll of no fewer than 20,870 clergymen who were asked to state their views on war and economic injustice. That the American clergy are beginning to move in some force to the Left is strikingly demonstrated. by the fact that nearly 13,000 of these clergymen have pledged themselves not to sanction or participate in any future war, while 1,000 more have joined them in asking that the churches go on record now as refusing to sanction or support any future war. Even more remarkable is the fact that more than 18,000 have repudiated capitalism, or " rugged individualism," as it prevailed in 1929. One has only to recall the extreme conservatism of the big business men who are the moneyed supporters of the fashionable churches, and the general indifference here- tofore prevaiing in America toward social reform and Socialism, to measure what an extraordinary change this means in the thinking of a group which we have never regarded as in the vanguard, but all too often in the rear, of movements for social and economic advancement.
If we look at an analysis of the balloting the results are even more remarkable. Only a little more than 1,000 are for the old order of capitalism as it was prior to 1929, while about 18,300 arc for a co-operative commonwealth, and nearly 5,900 declare themselves to be Socialists. Some 10,700 believe that reform can be achieved by a drastically reorganized capitalism, just over a hundred vote for Fascism, while only about the same number admit that they are Communists. This last figure, small though it is, is surprising, for in most communities the confession of a Communistic belief would mean the separation of the minister from his congregation. When it comes to the limitation of wealth, more than 16,500 clergymen favour drastic restrictions on the amount to be inherited by an individual, and about 15,800 favour rigid fixation of the annual income which may be legally retained. One of the most pressing questions before the Government of the United States today is whether to favour national unions of workers, or local company-controlled organiza- tions limited strictly to each separate works, or group of works under one ownership. Only about 14,000 of the clergymen voted on this subject., but their verdict was decisive, not fewer than 11,800 declaring for the national unions. The vote on socialized banking revealed a prac- tically equal division of view, 7,200 voting for private ownership of banks, and 7,000 for socialized banking. All of this spells amazing progress in the economic think- ing of the clergy and their willingness to interest them- selves in economic matters, and to let their posiCon become known. Indeed, a two-day session of liberally- minded ministers which has just been held in New York under the auspices of The World Tomorrow, the magazine which sent out the questionnaire cited above, went on record at the end of its session as voting that the ministers should give much greater attention in their pulpits to economic inequalities and injustices.
But it is on the subject of war and armaments that the change of outlook is most striking. There were only 77 ministers in the entire United States who in 1917 refused to bless the entry of the United States into the World War, some of them losing their pulpits and being socially ostracized in consequence. Today there would be 13,000 if they should all stick to their word when the crisis comes. Even allowing for a 50 per cent. recantation, there would be nearly a hundred times as many, if war should come tomorrow, as there were in 1917. The Government would find it hard to gaol 7,000 clergymen. That this change in the clergy is also reflected in many lay circles is astonishingly illustrated by a vote just taken of the class of 1924 of Yale University. As these men have been ten years out of college, their average age is approximately from 32 to 34 years. Most of them arc married and have doubtless acquired a considerable stake in their com- munities. Yet only 57 per cent. of these graduates of our second greatest university have declared that they would fight to defend their country if war should come again. Forty-three per cent. have voted that they would not fight in any circumstances, not even if the United States were attacked. Any similar vote would have been unthinkable in any previous time in our history.
The climax of the conference of clergymen referred to above came when the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the minister of the great Riverside Baptist Church, erected by the Rockefellers in New York City, rose and declared that he would go to prison before he took part in another war. " I renounce it and never again will I be in another war," said he, " I stimulated raiding parties to their murderous tasks. Do you see why I want to make it personal ? I lied to the Unknown Soldier about a possible good consequence of the war. There are times I don't want to believe in immortality —the times I want to think that the Unknown Soldier never can realize how fruitless were his efforts. The support I gave to war is a deep condemnation upon my soul. . . . Men cannot have Christ and war at the same time. I renounce war." Dr. Fosdick is un- doubtedly the most influential Protestant clergyman in New York ; more than that, he is the idol of hundreds of the younger clergy throughout the United States. It is impossible to over-estimate the effect of his words throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Still another prominent New York clergyman, the Rev. W. Russell Bowie of Grace Episcopal Church, • one of the oldest, richest and most fashionable in the city, declared in a recent sermon that he had come to the belief that war could only be stopped by men and women in every country banding together to say that in all foreseeable circumstances, and at all costs they would resist war. " That," he said, " is what I say that by God's help I, for one, propose to do, and I know that there are many other ministers in the Christian Church who will say the same." He was aware, he went on, that it would mean a breach between the Church and the majority of the nation, and that it might involve for those who took this stand " a storm of criticism and of hatred, loss of position, punishment, imprisonment, violence, but only through such costly influences as these are the forces of this world's real redemption set on foot." The 20,000 ministers who were polled were chosen as being broadly representative, not at all as being known to hold pacifist views,. but there is of course another large section which denounces their attitude fiercely. as " treasonable " and " un- American."
Previous page
