The Dilemma with War

An American preacher during WWI gave a passionate sermon in which he said,

“ It is God who has summoned us to this war. It is his war we are fighting...the greatest in history—the holiest. It is in the profoundest and truest sense a Holy War....Yes, it is Christ, the king of Righteousness, who calls us to grapple in deadly strife with this unholy and blasphemous power [Germany].”1

The dilemma with a statement such as this is that “inscribed on the belts and helmets of the men fighting for this 'unholy and blasphemous power' was the slogan, 'Gott mit uns' (God [be] with us), and their greatest wartime motto, inscribed on scores of monuments to their dead, to be covered by the ruins of a second World War was, 'Fuer Gott und Vaterland' (for God and country). On whose side was God?”2

The problem with war is that every side belives they are on the morally righteous side. Albert Keim and Grant Stoltzfus, two prominent CO historians, wrote:

“This view [just war]...is today the essence of the war ethic of most Christian groups. Implicitly, of course, it contains an alternative to war; if the war to be waged is an unjust war, the Christian alternative is not to participate. Unfortunately very few Christians through the centuries have rejected war on the grounds that it was unjust. Virtually all wars have been 'just' wars.”3

WWI, in the end, had no righteous winner. Americans were not quick to stand up and declare the war that they recently fought in as a just war although it was sold to them as such. Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes, a historian at the time from Columbia University, noted that not one of the lofty reasons for entering the first world war were achieved. Americans had been sold a basket of lofty ideals that more resembled deception after the war. Prior to WWII, Barnes wrote:

“We are all familiar enough with the myths that we believed in the first war. We were taught that our intervention was the only thing that could prevent Germany from conquering the world. We were informed that we were saving the world from further carnage and the rule of brute force. Finally, we were led to believe that we were fighting for noble ideals which would set up a new era in human civilization. On every point our experience in the first World War proved a tragic disappointment and disillusionment...Be entering the first World War we did not save the world. We only made possible the smashing victory of the Allies which produced the fatal peace treaties...Not a single major ideal of wartime was realized.”4

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1 Quoted in Mennonite General Conference, Peace Problems Committee, The Churches and War, (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1956), 16.

2 Mennonite General Conference, Peace Problems Committee, The Churches and War, (Scottdale, Pa: Mennonite Publishing House, 1956), 16.

3 Albert Keim and Grant Stoltzfus, The Politics of Conscience, (Scottdale, Pa: Herald Press, 1988), 19.

4 Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes in Common Sense Neutrality, ed, Paul Comly French ( New York: Hastings House, 1939), 14-15.