John Birdseye Atwater

“ A nation today, planning a war, must look beyond the question of how its course will affect the self-interest of other nations. If it has wisdom in its councils, it must also reckon with this spirit of international morality. If its cause be too palpably unjust, or the means it adopts to secure victory be too barbarous, it may shock this international morality, and bring upon itself unexpected enemies, who may balk its best laid plans. The possibility of such contingencies arising will have far more weight than any argument based on the teaching of Jesus. ”

“ If the struggle for existence is eliminated, is there not every reason to expect that progress will be arrested, and the nation's civilization will decay and finally disappear, as has been the case so many times in the past history of the world? ”

“ For untold ages before these utterances of Jesus, nature had been developing the family affections in man. It had made the family the fundamental unit of the tribe, the clan, the race, the nation. These family affections, so planted by nature in man, must, in society as a whole, override the ethical idea of a general philanthropy, as embodied in these utterances of Jesus. The normal man has always, and does now, rank the duties to his family as paramount over those of general philanthropy. ”

“ I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats."
"Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies; I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."
"Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah I:11-17) . ”

“ At the risk of repetition, we will collect again some of the utterances of Jesus which seem irreconcilable with the narrow, intolerant ideas of the non-compromisers and the sacro-sancts: Judge not, that ye be not judged; he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her; how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye; blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God ”

“ One of the marked features of the time is the growing spirit of unrest and discontent among the mass of the people. This spirit of unrest manifests itself, in part, by an increasing appetite for amusement. While this outlet for people's uneasiness may perhaps not be of the highest, it is much preferable to others, to which their discontent might turn. The churches should recognize this present need of man, realize the truth of Jesus saying that the Sabbath was made for man, oppose all new Sunday Blue Laws, and seek the repeal of those now existing. ”

“ The miracles and, even more, the apparent faith of Jesus in their evidentiary value, form serious stumbling blocks in the way of those who revere Jesus as the greatest "Son of Man"—unequaled in the simplicity and unselfishness of His character and in the sublimity of His teaching—but free from the tawdry tinsel of supernaturalism, which is the usual stock-in-trade of leaders of religious sects. Mohammedanism seems to be the only great religion which has resisted the temptation to ascribe to its founder, either divine parentage or the power to perform supernatural acts. ”

“ Or, why should a man not have conscientious objections to paying his taxes if they are to be used, in part at least, for a purpose which he considers evil? Evidently the field for evasion is a large one, and the only protection for society is to rigidly insist that the "conscientious objector," whether the case in hand be war or something else, either submit himself to the will of the majority or seek some other country more congenial to his peculiar ideas. ”

“ The wisest legislation is usually a compromise between conflicting interests and opinions.
It is not too much to say that compromise is the corner stone of every modern democratic society. It is a necessary consequence of the "rule of the majority," since the majority of today may be the minority of tomorrow. To find a society of his taste, the non-compromiser should seek some negro tribe in darkest Africa, where the witch-doctors permit no deviations from the prescribed theological cult. ”

“ Thus dark and uncertain is the economic outlook for nations where the competitive struggle for existence is in full sway, where the acquisition and accumulation of private property are fostered and encouraged, where thrift, industry and saving are ranked as cardinal virtues, and where proper provision for oneself and one's family is even enforced by law against the indolent and shiftless. ”

“ To the innocent party to a divorce, little, if any, stigma attaches either in business, social or religious circles, and nothing but a temporary condemnation is visited on the guilty party. The plain truth is, that divorce has become a matter of everyday life, regrettable but not sinful, and that, on this point, the followers of Jesus (excepting the Roman Catholics) have simply substituted their ideas of right and wrong for His. ”

“ It is only by long centuries of hard fighting with material weapons that the powers of good have so far subdued the powers of evil as to establish our present standard of humanitarianism. But if the good are to be confined to the weapon of moral suasion, how long will it be until the powers of evil are in full control? ”

“ The question of the Civil War is complicated by the moral issue of the abolition of slavery, underlying the political issue of the right of the South to secede, which was the ostensible cause of the war. Slavery in the United States was an evil, both ethically and economically, and, as its abolition was a result of the war, that war is justifiable both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. ”

“ The average, easy-going Christian can without difficulty square his account with God through numerous prayers, or even rest easy in his conscience with a slight balance in his favor. But it must be almost impossible for the believer in, and faithful adherent of, prayer-meetings to rise to the sublime conception of the Almighty, voiced not only by Jesus, but by the later prophets of the Old Testament. ”

“ The dogma of non-compromise finds no support in the teaching and practice of Jesus. He pictured the highest ideals for mankind. But He was no bigot in demanding that fallible human beings should live up to these ideals on pain of damnation. With His wonderful tolerance and broadminded sympathy, He recognized that the happiness and progress of the human race, in its present state of evolution, necessitated certain compromises with evil. ”

“ On the contrary, it is quite probable that, if Jesus were legislating for the complex societies of today, instead of for the comparatively simpler civilization of His day, He would materially modify His stringent views on divorce, in a sane concession to the weakness and frailty of human nature. Certainly, to one who has seen many ill-mated couples seeking relief in the divorce courts, and subsequently making happy marriages, to the mutual benefit of themselves, their children, their friends and society in general, divorce laws cannot seem all evil. ”

“ The thirteen centuries of experience of the followers of Mahomet demonstrate that prohibition does not of itself produce great men, or general virtue, progress or prosperity.
Theoretically the success of prohibition is handicapped by the fact that it is opposed to the evolutionary processes of nature. The basic idea of prohibition is to improve man by removing the cause of evil. For no one can deny that excess of drinking is [Pg 98] an evil, just as is excess of eating, of fasting, of prayer, or any other form of human activity. ”

“ But in all this, even allowing that he has reasonably practiced the virtues of generosity, charity and philanthropy, there is no disguising the plain, naked truth that is all the time making compromises with the ideals of Jesus. His actions simply do not square with the maxims: Give all thy goods to the poor; take no thought for the morrow; every one who does the will of God is the same to you as your brother and sister and mother; resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain ”

“ The important fact is that we have here an undeniable instance of Christians, not only making a compromise with the acknowledged evil of divorce, but also completely ignoring the views of Jesus in making the compromise. Those who condone, or tacitly approve, these divorce laws (as do the great majority of the Protestants in the United States) should certainly be slow, in the matter of other evils, to urge "no compromise with evil," or bring forward some utterances of Jesus as the final argument on the subject. Let them first consider the beam in their own eye. ”

“ Jesus undoubtedly considered that riches were an evil (Matt. XIX:23, 24; XIII:22; Mark X:23, 24; Luke XVIII:24, 25) . He knows the "deceitfulness" of riches, and that the temptations attending the possession of wealth do not ordinarily make for righteousness. He advises that one should lay up treasure in heaven rather than on earth (Matt. VI:19, 20; Luke XII:33) .
Riches, then, being an evil, the non-compromiser should logically regard the rich man as a persistent evil-doer. He should constantly denounce his evil ways, as those of any other malefactor. ”

“ The Jews as a people rejected, and have always rejected, both Jesus as a Messiah and His teachings as their religion. If the Jews had then been an independent nation, living in their haughty isolation from other peoples, the power and hatred of the Pharisees would probably have stamped out the last remnants of Jesus' followers, and He would have survived only as a name in history. But the disciples (or apostles) found under the Roman rule protection for their teaching, and ready access to the Gentile communities, not only in Palestine, but throughout all the coasts of the Mediterranean. ”

“ The simple, unceremonial religion which Jesus taught, a living force animating each act of one's daily life, nourished by secret prayers in one's chamber, manifesting itself by unobtrusive acts of mercy, not by public prayers, fastings and religious services, was the direct antipodes of the ceremonial formalism then dominant among the Jews. ”

“ In the matters of prayer, fasting and ceremonial worship, the churches must make radical changes in their practice, if they are to win back their influence over the masses of the people—an influence which, it is generally admitted, has been on the wane during the past few decades. The contrast is altogether too glaring between the simple form of worship, practiced and preached by Jesus, and that of most of our modern religious denominations. The luxury of modern living is a favorite subject of invective by essayists and philosophical writers. ”

“ But Jesus' conception of the Heavenly Father was essentially unique in ever realizing the spiritual unity existing between the Father in heaven and His Son Jesus and His other children on earth. Mark the difference between Moses and Jesus in the matter of divine communications. Moses' messages to the Jews are the results of direct and separate interviews with the Almighty. He sees Him in the bush, or in the fire, and hears Him from the clouds. But all this is unnecessary with Jesus. He and the Father are one, and when He speaks, the Father speaks through Him. ”

“ There is no record of any Jingo statesman being punished by his constituents for precipitating the United States into unnecessary and unrighteous wars, and the supreme hypocrisy of all is, that, in every war, whether morally justifiable or not, the followers of Jesus crowd the churches to pray for His assistance, and to thank Him for victory when won, as though He were sanctioning these infractions of His Sermon on the Mount. ”

“ World-conquest demands of its aspirant merciless severity, even to the enslavement or annihilation of any unoffending people, which the "necessity of war" considers to be impeding its progress. In so far as the individual imbibes, and is affected by, the ideals of Jesus, just so far is his efficiency as a unit of the conquering nation [Pg 65] impaired. World-conquerors can tolerate no "conscientious objectors" in their ranks. Logically their gods should be the gods of the old Valhalla, Valor, Glory, Victory. Their priests should preach war and hate, not peace and love. ”

“ The sincere follower of Jesus should insist that we be sure we are right in the first instance, and, if it is discovered that we have been misled into a by-way of wrong and injustice, that we get back at once to the straight and narrow way of right and justice. ”

“ When right theological thinking became established as the primary essential of a Christian, and especially when Christianity acquired temporal power, it was inevitable that there should be extracted from Paul's militant writings that most abominable doctrine of "No compromise with evil." In company with dogmatic distinctions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, it has inflicted its full quota of misery and suffering upon the human race. ”

“ But the essence of Jesus' religion was the living of an every-day godlike life, not the adherence to certain creeds or dogmas, or the performance of rites and ceremonies. In this formalism He recognized His most dangerous enemy. It was a deep-rooted evil and hard to eradicate. One of its inherent dangers is the easy cloak it lends to hypocrisy, and, like the poor, the Pecksniffs we will always have with us. ”

“ As long as the people of the United States are animated by, and their conduct based on, the war philosophy of Roosevelt, it is hard to see how any League of Nations could be anything but a farce—a mere "scrap of paper." On the other hand, if all the Christian nations were sincere, ardent "conscientious objectors," wars would be avoided without the need of any League of Nations. If the Christian people of Germany had been "conscientious objectors" in this sense, there would not have been a Great War. ”