[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have been very
glad to see the letters of Leyton Richards and others in your issue of November 21st, for, like them, I felt that in the article recently printed the question had been slurred over.
The Christian Church and Christians individually have simply got to face this issue, a thing which, generally speaking, they have never done since the days of the Early Christian Church. " We (Christians)," says Justin in the Apology, " who formerly used to murder one another, not only now refrain from making war on our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our enemies, willingly die confessing Christ." Christians have travelled far from that position, and it is noticeable that almost all the antagonists in the Great War were nominally Christian.
During that War a well-known leader of religion (I will not more particularly describe him) said at a public meeting that if Jesus were to come back now His first action would be to take a bayonet and go into the trenches. Whenever I have quoted that saying at a meeting a shudder of horror has passed over my audience. Does any sane man really believe it ? The man who said it was temporarily insane, driven mad by the hatreds of war. If we do not believe it, if we believe that for Jesus such an act would have been an utter impossibility, must not we who dare to take upon ourselves His name face up to the question as to whether we can not only fight ourselves, but even, as non-combatants, sanction the system of war as a method of settling disputes ?
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