On War

In 1917 a short book written by Harry Emerson Fosdick entitled, The Challenge of the Present Crisis, was published. Fosdick crafted an impassioned argument written with a very Christian perspective of his time.

Frome the standpoint of every high ideal, war is unchristian--essentially, hideously uncrhistian.

Perhaps some of today's leaders would do well to listen to Fosdick's words.

Fosdick argued against all are responsible for support the war effort if such an effort is undertaken but he saw the end result as failing to bring final resolution.

War, like all use of physical compulsion, is at its best a surgical operation. By surgery you may restrain an alien growth, but surgery never cures...Its work is all negative, eliminative.

Right he was. War eliminates people, cultures, nations, and wealth.

While he argued people were obligated to support the nation in its inevitable war course, he also put the Christian perspective in place telling all to pray for the enemy, the Germans. Fosdick seemed at heart a pacifist but he was not wholly in the pacifistic mode as he saw the need for war as a surgical exercise at times in the face of overwhelming evil.

Even though he did not apparently experience war firsthand, Fosdick got the gist of the situation very well indeed.

War now is dropping bombs from aeroplanes and killing women and children in their beds; it is shooting by telephonic orders, at an unseen place miles away and slaughtering invisible men; it is murdering innocent travelers on merchant ships with torpedoes from unknown submarines; it is launching clouds of poisonous gas and killing men with their own breath. War means...men with jaws gone, eyes gone, limbs gone, minds gone...it means mothers who look for letters they will never see and wives who wait for voices they will never hear and children who listen for footsteps that will never come.

We would all do well to keep in mind the vision of horror that is the reality of war. To that end may we all seek peaceful ways in the future. War will never bring solutions to the problems of humanity. The sooner humankind comes to that realization the better for all.

Peace.