Violence, Pacifism, and the Use of Force

This chapter lays out the historical development of Niebuhr’s thought on war and peace in the context of American history and religious thought. It argues that in his early thought he accepts the received wisdom concerning early Christian non-violence, a position that led him to join the “Fellowship of Reconciliation” in 1928. With the Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s, however, his position began to shift in ways captured in his early exchange with his brother, H. Richard Niebuhr. By the time he delivered the Gifford Lectures, at the very beginning of the Second World War, he has rejected pacifism and begun to develop the positions associated with ‘Christian Realism’. This extended into the early period of nuclear deterrence, though with increasing qualification. By the early 1960s, the perceived lack of restraint led Paul Ramsey to turn to the Catholic just war tradition to articulate a Reformation doctrine of principled love that could clarify which uses of force were acceptable and which had to be rejected. The tradition of Niebuhr persists, however, in such thinkers as John Carlson, whose Christian realist account of war and peace draws directly from Niebuhr and his legacy.

Onward Christian Soldiers

In 1914, Europe went to war, because of German expansionism, but without a central moral purpose as in 1939. Christian leaders had to scramble to find justification, which they soon located in our sinful nature, and most particularly the sinful nature of the opponents. In major respects, therefore, the First World War was a religious war, battling against the infidel. Anglican leaders, like the Bishop of London, Arthur F. Winnington Ingram, urged the necessity of killing Germans; and Lutheran leaders on the other side, like Adolf von Harnack, were no less bloodthirsty. There was an often-despised pacifist minority. In England, this included the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who was very much not a Christian, and members of the “Fellowship of Reconciliation,” who very much were Christians. In America, the Episcopalian bishop of Utah, Paul Jones, got the sack because of his pacifism, and the Catholic Ben Salmon was sent to jail and refused communion by his church.

“All War is Contrary to the Mind of Christ:” The Bible and the Fellowship of Reconciliation

This article examines some of the stages in the engagement of members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR) with the Bible. FoR was formed in 1914 and became the leading interdenominational pacifist Christian body in Britain. The article shows the influence of the Bible in the beginnings of FoR, traces the way biblical convictions shaped the views of conscientious objectors to military conscription, analyses pacifism and the Bible in the aftermath of war, and argues that FoR’s pacifist approach, with a focus on the teaching and example of Jesus, gained greater acceptance in the 1930s.

Richard Roberts' Vision and the Founding of the Fellowship of Reconciliation

“Pacifism + non-resistance are by-products of some central things to which we have to testify.”Richard RobertsAlthough Rev. Richard Roberts was the chairman of the founding conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) at Cambridge in 1914, its first general secretary, and the key figure in its early ideology, he has largely been ignored in the secondary literature. Admittedly, Vera Brittain, in The Rebel Passion, sketched an appreciative vignette, but Jill Wallis, in her more recent FOR study Valiant for Peace, mentions him only six times without discussing his ideas. Even Roberts' daughter Gwen's biography, Grace Unfailing, fails to analyze the basis of his contribution. Yet, seven decades after attending the founding FOR conference, its only survivor, Horace Alexander, wrote that, while he could not recall the details, Richard Roberts had impressed him most, for he “got right into [him], and helped [him] find a sure foundation for life.” Alexander's comment points in the direction Martin Ceadel began to develop when he defined pacifism as a faith. But Ceadel restricted that faith to its relation to war, a restriction that was inappropriate for the early FOR. Pacifism, its leading members posited, should pervade all of life, private as well as public. Their conception of the new organization sounded like a worldview, a framework through which they viewed the world. Nevertheless, although pacifism should influence all of life, it was, as Roberts suggested, a by-product rather than the central element. Hence, rather than explicating his understanding of pacifism, at the founding conference Roberts focused on Christ's atonement as the ground of all ethics and as supplying the regulative principle of the Christian's reconciling ministry in the world. From this perspective he drew the conclusion that reconciliation implied a wide range of social activities for which the energies of youth, being used in warfare, should be mobilized in something akin to a Franciscan tertiary order. It was this call for social regeneration combined with evangelism that impressed Alexander. Only in passing Roberts declared the “simple,” pre-1914 pacifism bankrupt, while expecting that reconciliation in all spheres of life would undercut the commonly held view that war was “a hateful affair yet a noble enterprise of Christian chivalry.” This notion of reconciliation, with all that it entailed, became central. Even before the FOR had a conscription committee it had established committees for its rehabilitation of young offenders commune, for education, and for social service. The limited secondary literature has generally ignored these committees and failed to analyze the notion of reconciliation, focusing instead on the by-product and on conscientious objectors. Methodologically, Ceadel defined the FOR as quietist, and compared to the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) that would be quite accurate. Indeed, for while the FOR encouraged its members to be politically involved—it had a political group committee—it shied away from being a political pressure group, regarding the NCF tactics incompatible with reconciliation. Although its methodology was quietist, its ideology was radical, aiming at the transformation of society. In order to understand this largely Roberts-influenced reconciliation ideology, it is necessary to take a closer look at Roberts' worldview.