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Christian Pacifism in the Era of Two World Wars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
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‘Whenever the actual historical situation sharpens the issue, the debate whether the Christian Church is, or ought to be, pacifist, is carried on with fresh vigour both inside and outside the Christian community.’ Thus wrote Reinhold Niebuhr, the American commentator on Christian ethics, in 1940, having himself been converted first to pacifism and then back again in the course of the interwar period. Final agreement in this debate is, of course, improbable. But this paper will argue that the Christian cases for pacifism and non-pacifism alike were clarified, at least in Britain and for several decades, by the extraordinary ‘sharpening’ of the issue afforded by the ‘actual historical situation’ in the era of the two world wars. The shock of the first world war produced unprecedented support for Christian pacifism; and the aggressions of the 1930s, culminating in the crisis of 1940–1 when Britain faced the possibility of invasion and defeat, provided a series of tests which only the most rigorously thought-out version of that faith could survive—but, having survived them, it could survive anything.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1983
References
1 Niebuhr, Reinhold, [Why the Christian church is not pacifist (London 1940)] p 7 Google Scholar.
2 This framework was first developed in Ceadel, Martin, Pacifism in Britain 1914-1945: the defining of a faith (Oxford 1980)Google Scholar, to which the reader is referred for a justification of the generalisations advanced here. The present paper reiterates some of the arguments of the book, but also uses some new illustrative material.
3 The term pacificist (here italicised both in recognition of its etymological artificiality and to avoid visual confusion with pacifist) was first used in this sense by Taylor, A.J.P., The Trouble Makers (London 1957) p 51n.Google Scholar Reviewing my book, Mr Taylor noted that the word was ‘borrowed from me and which I gladly lend him’ (London Review of Books 2 Oct. 1980 p 4).
4 For this reason several Christian pacifists were disappointed with Gandhi when they met him in the autumn of 1931. See the Friend 18 Dec. 1931 p 1150; London, British Library of Political and Economic Science, Fellowship of Reconciliation, minutes of executive committee 18 Nov. 1931; London, Friends’ House Library, minutes of Friends Peace Committee 5 June 1930.
5 A phrase used by the sectarian pacifist journal Reconciliation Aug. 1935 pp 145-7.
6 Their objection was to coming under military authority. See Rae, John, Conscience and Politics (London 1970) pp 88-9Google Scholar.
7 Thomas, Gilbert, Autobiography 1891-1946 (London 1946) p 128 Google Scholar.
8 Oxford, Bodleian Library Gainford Papers, J.A. Pease to J.B. Hodgkin, 4 Aug. 1914.
9 By the Wilson, Quaker William E. : Christ and War: the reasonableness of disarmament on Christian, humanitarian and economic grounds (London 1913 and revised edn. 1914).Google Scholar
10 For Hicks, see Wilkinson, Alan, The Church of England and the First World War (London 1978) p 27 Google Scholar; for Robinson, , see his Christianity is Pacifism (London 1933) p 9 Google Scholar.
11 Orchard, W.E., From Faith to Faith (London 1933) p 122 Google Scholar.
12 Richards, Leyton, The Christian’s Alternative to War: An Examination of Christian Pacifism (London 1929) p 58 Google Scholar.
13 Raven, Charles, Is War Obsolete? [A study of the conflicting claims of religion and citizenship (London 1935)] p 52 Google Scholar.
14 See the Revd.Goff, E.N. Porter, The Christian and the Next War (London 1933) pp 76–82 Google Scholar.
15 Richards, Leyton, The Christian’s Contribution to Peace: a constructive approach to international relationships (London 1935) pp 137-8, 142-3Google Scholar.
16 New Statesman 25 Nov. 1933 p 653; Reconciliation May 1934 pp 118-9.
17 Reconciliation March 1934 p 66; Charles Raven, Is War Obsolete? p 86.
18 Editorial, Church Times 15 May 1936.
19 Barnes, John, Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham (London 1979) p 350 Google Scholar. For his willingness to say that ‘German legislation on “race hygiene” was on the right lines as it provided for voluntary sterilisation’ see p 351.
20 Richards, Leyton, The Crisis and World Peace (S.C.M. Press Crisis Booklet No. 4 London, Dec. 1938) p 50 Google Scholar.
21 See his article in Peace News 30 Oct. 1942. He launched the British People’s Party in 1939.
22 Peace News 15 Dec. 1944. Soper remained pacifist throughout the war.
23 These figures are taken from the newsletters of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, consulted through the courtesy of its present secretary, the Revd. Sidney Hinkes, at St Mary’s Church House, Headington, Oxford. In July 1982 its membership stood at 1131 and was on the increase.
24 To arrive at this figure one has to assume negligible overlap of members between the F.o.R. and the various church pacifist fellowships—a very unlikely assumption.
25 The only Roman Catholic pacifists I have discovered in this era are Francis Meynell (who abandoned pacifism in 1935) and Eric Gill, both of whom can be classified as political as much as Christian pacifists. For a book which came close to explicit pacifism, however, while staying discreetly within the just-war orthodoxy favoured by Roman Catholicism, see Vann, Gerald O.P. Morality and War (London 1939) esp pp 72-3Google Scholar.
26 Church of England Newspaper 1 Nov. 1935.
27 Reconciliation Dec. 1935 p 320.
28 Church Times 18 Sept. 1936.
29 See e.g. Gray, A. Herbert, Love: the one solution (London 1938)Google Scholar.
30 Charles Raven, Is War Obsolete? p 96.
31 Stone, Ronald H., Reinhold Niebuhr. prophet to politicians (Nashville 1972) p 120 Google Scholar. For discussion of the differences, which on domestic politics were considerable, between Niebuhr and Barth, see pp 122-32.
32 Reinhold Niebuhr pp 11, 18, 30, 32.
33 Macgregor, G.H.C., The Relevance of the Impossible: a reply to Reinhold Niebuhr (London 1941) p 11 Google Scholar.
34 Anglican Pacifist Fellowship leaflet, July 1940, shown to my by the Revd. Sidney Hinkes; italics added.
35 Circular letter, in the collection of Anglican Pacifist Fellowship newsletters.
36 See especially the complaints (mostly about what is here called quasi-pacifism) by a member of the south-western tribunal 1940-4: Field, G.C., Pacifism and Conscientious Objection (London 1945) esp pp 3–7 Google Scholar.
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