RELIGION AND THE WAR

CONTENTS


PAGE

I. Moral and Spiritual Forces in the War 11
Charles Reynolds Brown, D.D., LL.D., Dean of
the School of Religion and Pastor of the University
Church

II. God and History 22
Douglas Clyde Macintosh, Ph.D., Professor of
Theology

III. The Christian Hope in Times of War 33
Frank Chamberlin Porter, Ph.D., Professor of
Biblical Theology

IV. Non-Resistance: Christian or Pagan? 59
Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D., Litt.D., LL.D.,
Professor of New Testament Criticism and
Interpretation

V. The Ministry and the War 82
Henry Hallam Tweedy, M.A., Professor of Practical
Theology

VI. The Effect of the War upon Religious Education 105
Luther Allan Weigle, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of
Christian Nurture

VII. Foreign Missions and the War, Today and Tomorrow 122
Harlan P. Beach, D.D., F.R.G.S., Professor of the
Theory and Practice of Missions

VIII. The War and Social Work 141
William Bacon Bailey, Ph.D., Professor of
Practical Philanthropy

IX. The War and Church Unity 151
Williston Walker, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of
Ecclesiastical History

X. The Religious Basis of World Re-Organization 161
E. Hershey Sneath, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of
the Philosophy of Religion and Religious Education




I

MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FORCES IN THE WAR

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN


In one of our more thoughtful magazines we were favored last February
with an article entitled, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself." It
was a bitter, undiscriminating arraignment of the ministers and
churches of the United States for their alleged lack of intelligent,
sympathetic interest in the war. It was written by an Englishman who
for several years has been vacillating between the ministry and
secular journalism, but is now the pastor of a small church in
northern New York. The vigor of his literary style in trenchant
criticism was matched by an equally vigorous disregard for many of the
plain facts in the case. His tone, however, was loud and confident, so
that the article secured for itself a wide reading.

"What became of the spiritual leaders of America during those
thirty-two months when Europe and parts of Asia were passing through
Gehenna?" the writer of this article asked in scornful fashion. And
then after listing the enormities of the mad military caste which
heads up at Potsdam, he asked the clergymen of the United States, "Why
were you so scrupulously neutral, so benignly dumb?" His main
contention was to the effect that the religious leaders of this
country had been altogether negligent of their duty in the present
world struggle, and that the churches were small potatoes and few in a
hill.

It has been regarded as very good form in certain quarters to cast
aspersion upon the ministers of the Gospel. When the war came men
began to ask, sometimes with a sneer, and sometimes with a look of
pain, "Why did not Christianity prevent the war?" It never seemed to
occur to anyone to ask, "Why did not Science prevent the war?" No one
supposed that Science would or could. It was the most scientific
nation on earth which brought on the war.

It never occurred to anyone to ask, "Why did not Big Business, or the
Newspapers, or the Universities prevent the war?" No one supposed that
commerce or the press or education could avert such disasters. These
useful forms of social energy are not strong enough. They do not go
deep enough in their hold upon the lives of men to curb those forces
of evil which let loose upon the world this frightful war. It was a
magnificent tribute which men paid to the might of spiritual forces
when they asked, sometimes wistfully, and sometimes scornfully, "Why
did not Christianity prevent the war?"

The terrible events of the last four years have taught the world a few
lessons which it will not soon forget. They have shown us the utter
impotence of certain forces in which some shortsighted people were
inclined to put their whole trust: The little toy gods of the
Amorites--Evolution, with a capital E, not as the designation of a
method which all intelligent people recognize, but as a kind of
home-made deity operating on its own behalf!