Part 5

The Christian hope is also the hope of immortality; and just now the reality and power of this hope are put to the test. Paul, who knew how far Judaism had gone toward faith in the eternal life of the spirit, testifies that it was only as a Christian and because of Christ that this hope had become to him a certainty, almost a present experience. The nature of God as Christ knew him, and the nature of man's sonship to God, carry immortality with them as an inward and immediate assurance. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Here again the Christian religion has an opportunity and an obligation in times of war. Men are seeking assurance of life to come for those who have given their lives for human right and liberty. It is not to be desired that this pressing religious need of our day should turn to physical evidences, to messages from the dead through abnormal experiences and dubious agencies. The Christian faith in immortality is to be experienced as faith in the God who loves as a father, and who gives as love must give his best to his children. If God is love, then our love does not deceive us. If God is spirit, then our spirits are from God and will return to him. If the soul, the person, is of supreme worth and reality, then it will not be involved in the body's destruction, nor lost as a drop in the ocean or as a breath in the wind, either in the divine being from whom it came, or in the human race, "the beloved community," to which its service is given.

It is perhaps in the relation to each other of the hope for a new human brotherhood and the hope for the life of the soul with God, that the distinction and preeminence of the religion of Jesus come most clearly to light. He feels no need of sacrificing one to the other, but holds his hope for this world and the oneness of men in love side by side with the hope for the other world. He does call upon individuals to give their lives in ministry to others, but in the losing of life he declares that life is gained. Paradoxes express his faith and insight, and the nature of love in God and in man brings with it the key to the solution of the paradox.

The Christian hopes for a new human brotherhood on earth and for the immortality of the individual are involved, and their principles given, in the simple and profound sayings of Jesus, and no other testimony as to their nature and certainty can be compared with his. To no other words is the response of our own spirits so instant and sure. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart: theirs is the kingdom of heaven; they shall see God. Love your enemies, that ye may be sons of your Father. Ye shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Be not anxious for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than food and the body than raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven ... Are not ye of much more value than they? Your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye his kingdom and righteousness. Be not afraid of them that kill the body. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore. If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father give good things to them that ask him. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord ... but he that doeth the will of my Father. Freely ye have received, freely give. It is more blessed to give than to receive. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. I thank thee, Father ... that thou hast hid these things from the wise ... and revealed them unto babes. Except ye turn and become as little children ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Forbid them not ... for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven. What shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world and forfeit his life? It is hard for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Keep yourselves from all covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, ... but whosoever would be great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Here is the Christian hope; here its grounds and motives; here rather than in apocalyptic foretellings of the coming of the Son of Man and the near end of the world. Here is an anthology of testimonies to the faith which a world at war to end war most needs, that man is a spiritual being and that his proper work is "to interpret the world according to his higher nature," and to bring the material aspects of the world into subjection to the spirit. Other "oracles and prophecies of loveliness and loving-kindness" in the Bible and in the world's literature have their abiding worth, but no other of "the seers and poets of mankind" reach humanity so widely and none so deeply.

Certain marks and tests of the Christian hope come clearly into view in these characteristic sayings of Jesus. It is a hope not imposed upon the mind by the outward authority of a book or even of Christ himself, but one that appeals to conscience. Our spirit answers to it, and our answer is not only the consent of the mind but the disclosure of character and the choice of the will. It is a hope for which we cannot merely wait, for we are ourselves challenged to bring it to realization. The Christian hope is fundamentally inward, and is always in part already experienced. Paul and John knew the mind of Christ in this striking quality of it better than later generations. The spirit of God is already a love that creates unity and fellowship among men; and it is already the presence and power of divine and eternal life. The Christian hope unites the community and the individual, and contains the clue to the mystery that now obscures our minds. We know that the ruthless sacrifice of individuals for the abstract idol called the State is a denial of Christ's reverence for the human personality. But we know also that the devotion of the soldier's life to the cause of human liberty and right, to the destruction of the idol of nationality and the creation of the ideal brotherhood of man, is in accordance with that giving of life for many which Jesus taught, and is that loss which is the true finding of life. The Christian hope is too inward and too secure to depend on outward success. The doctrine of physical force is judged by physical success, but not the doctrine of love. Yet though superior to outward fortune, the hope of Christ is certain of ultimate vindication, because it is hope in God. It is a hope according to Christ, and for Christ's coming as the ruling spirit in the life of humanity. But if it is a hope for Christ, if it is Christ's hope for the coming Kingdom of God, it is a hope for radical change, and for the sacrifice of our prejudices and customs, our personal wishes and our material advantage.

The hope for a new world-order which is the most significant spiritual event of our age, requires religion if it is to maintain itself and work powerfully for its own realization. For it is the hope for a purified human nature as well as for a changed human organization. Christianity is the chief source of this hope, and is summoned to prove itself equal to the task of keeping the hope high and giving it inward energy and resource. But it will require boldness of faith and the spirit of sacrifice, a sense of the excellence and worth of spiritual things, and willingness to trust our own souls and the souls of our fellow men, to trust ourselves to the instincts and ways of a Christ-like love, if the Christian hope is to prove able to create a new world.

IV

NON-RESISTANCE: CHRISTIAN OR PAGAN?

BENJAMIN WISNER BACON

All forms of peace propaganda are at present justly and properly repressed by the Government as a war measure. This has served in some degree to silence the voice of the pacifist, but manifestly it cannot serve to quiet the disturbed feeling in the minds of many Christians, that to engage in war under any conditions is to come short of the idealism of Jesus. Forcible measures produce the reverse effect, if any.

Non-resistance, under some circumstances and conditions if not under all, is a duty which Jesus undeniably taught. Moreover, his conduct was fully in accord with his principles; otherwise his following could not have maintained their unparalleled loyalty to him. The manifest inconsistency between these non-resistance sayings (taken by themselves) and the method advocated and used by our Government in defence of democracy and righteousness remains ever present. The grave extent of its inroads upon the national morale may be judged by the circulation attained by a typical pacifistic book, whose principal basis of argument is nothing else than these non-resistance sayings, and which if it does not attempt to square them in all cases with the conduct of Jesus, but rather accords to Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-tse the merit of greater consistency, nevertheless owes all its real effect to the fact that its author speaks as a well-known and authorized exponent of Christian teaching, and leaves in his readers' minds the conviction not of the alleged inconsistency, but of an absolute and unqualified doctrine of non-resistance as supported by both the teaching and the conduct of Jesus.

The single year 1915-1916 witnessed the appearance of no less than five successive editions of the book entitled "New Wars for Old," by Rev. John Haynes Holmes, and its propaganda of absolute and unconditional non-resistance was certainly not without effect in the military cantonments, if not among the public at large where its influence is less easy to trace. Recently the Government itself has given public and official warning against this type of pacifistic propaganda; and there is only too much reason to believe that (quite without the intention or knowledge of its authors) those eminent pacifists, the Potsdam conspirators, have made large financial contributions to its success.

"New Wars for Old" may be taken as representative. It is the best example of its type. It seems to be the most effective. At all events, it gives concrete and tangible form to that interpretation of the teaching of Jesus which we regard as misleading and dangerous; it may therefore well form our starting-point toward the attainment of another interpretation, truer at once to historical fact and to the ethical sense of the religious-minded. Recognizing the need for meeting present conditions of the public mind by other than merely repressive measures we may frankly face the question raised in Dr. Holmes' book, whether the doctrine of absolute and unqualified non-resistance, traced by him to more than one revered teacher of pre-Christian paganism, is indeed identical with that of Jesus; or whether, with Israel's Messianic hope, some new factor enters in, to differentiate the Biblical ideal.

Isaiah and Jesus are for this champion of pacifism--and doubtless for others--the two supreme "exemplars of non-resistance," and the eloquence with which his thesis is maintained might well win an assent which would not be granted were account taken of his authority to pronounce upon questions of historical criticism. However, few Americans, competent to form a moral judgment of their own, will hold in light esteem the authority of Isaiah and Jesus. We therefore accept the exemplars at the risk of seeing our native hue of resolution all sicklied o'er with this pale cast of thought. But is their teaching justly and fairly interpreted? That is the question to which we now address ourselves.

I

"'RESIST not evil,' means never resist, never oppose violence." Such is the motto, quoted from Tolstoy, with which our propagandist heads his pages. As he cites no other scholar, critic, or interpreter of the Sermon on the Mount, in support of this declaration of the meaning, the inference is perhaps allowable that the reader is expected to endow Tolstoy with a credit for scientific attainments in the difficult field of historical criticism and interpretation equally great with that which all men gladly accord to his noble disposition and sincere humanity. Whether authority as convincing can be cited for the contention that Buddha and Lao-tse taught the same doctrine of absolute non-resistance we are not competent to say. It seems at least to be beautifully expressed in the saying quoted from Buddha:

With mercy and forbearance shalt thou disarm every foe. For want of fuel the fire expires: mercy and forbearance bring violence to naught.

What Christian will deny the Christ-likeness of this teaching? What reader of the Old Testament will not hasten to add with Paul from Jewish "wisdom":

If thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink; for by so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.[1]

If, indeed, the duty in question be that of _forbearance_, all great religious teachers, whether of Christian or pre-Christian times, will be at one. "Hymns of hate" are unknown to the ritual of any religion, unless it be the ultra-modern of Prussian militarism. One must go to Nietzsche before attaining to the gospel that it is virtuous to have a giant's strength and use it like a giant. Teachers such as Buddha and Lao-tse may well have added to the well-nigh universal religious tenet of mercy, forgiveness, forbearance, the further doctrine of consistent, unqualified non-resistance. We accept it for the obvious reason that their systems of thought, which are philosophies rather than religions, contain (so far as the present writer is aware) no principle of active, but only of passive obligation. The chief end of man is for them not to achieve, in loyal service to the Creator's ideal, but to abstain and refrain, to put the brakes on life, and to teach others to do the like. According to the author of "New Wars for Old," Buddha and Lao-tse lived up to their gospel of non-resistance. Contrariwise, "The Nazarene had his inconsistent moments like the rest of us," and showed it at this point. Our propagandist is too honest to palter with the quibble of Adin Ballou, who in his "Christian Non-Resistance" argues that Jesus in cleansing the temple may have driven the money-changers from the courtyard, but that there is no evidence that he struck any one of them. With such apologetic special pleading he has no patience, preferring to give the act of Jesus its full weight in the following straightforward words:

What we have here is a well-authenticated violation of the principle of non-resistance--and why not accept it as such? The episode is chiefly remarkable in the life of the Nazarene, not for anything which it teaches in itself, but for its inconsistency with the rest of his career. Never at any other time, so far as we know, did he precipitate riot or himself assault his enemies. But this time he did--this time he failed to live up to the inordinately exacting demands of his own gospel of brotherhood. Nor is the circumstance at all difficult to understand! Jesus came to Jerusalem tired, worn, hunted. He knew that he walked straight into the arms of his enemies, and undoubtedly therefore straight to his own death. Weary, desperate, confused, he came to the temple to pray--and here, right before the altars of his God, were the money-changers--here in the sacred places, the type and symbol of that commercialized religion which he most abhorred, and which he knew was certain in the end to destroy him. What wonder that a mighty flood of anger surged up in his soul, and for the moment overwhelmed him.

In short, the weary Jesus was so irritated by the unexpected (?) sight of the traders, that he threw to the winds not only his principles, but the dictates of the most ordinary prudence, giving his enemies not only their desired opportunity, but provoking the issue at just the point where he himself had been betrayed into the violation of his own teaching. Verily, great is the insight of the modern psychologist. To the observer of the phenomena of petulance an incident like the cleansing of the temple is "easy to understand." The scientific imagination required is easily attained. One acquires it by observing the irritability of tired children. How needless, then, to inform oneself as to the historical conditions which made this great symbolic act of the Galilean prophet full of meaning to every patriot Jew that witnessed it. How needless to raise the question why every one of our four evangelists should report the act and give it the prominence they do. For our evangelists record it reluctantly, minimizing its political significance and its insurrectionary flavor. They naturally disliked to give color of justice to Pilate's judicial murder, and to Jewish denunciations of the new religion as a rebellion against established authority.

Let us then take as our point of departure this admitted "inconsistency." It is not historical interpretation, but the subjective variety sometimes self-designated "psychological" which finds it "easy" to set aside the representation of the oldest and most reliable of our sources, that Jesus was _not_ "weary, desperate, confused," and was not in the least taken unawares, when he drove the traders from the temple; but that he planned his _coup de main_ with careful deliberation. The evening _before_, says Mark, "he entered the temple and looked round upon all things." Jesus was not unaware of the conditions he would find, for they were an abuse as notorious as hateful to every right-minded Israelite. This even the Talmud attests. He was not a hunted fugitive seeking asylum at the altar. On the contrary; for weeks past he had set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem and there lift up the standard of the Son of David. The initiative was his. He had planned a new campaign for his ideal, the Kingdom of God, a campaign no longer of mere teaching but of action, and he was now carrying it to the very seat of hostile power. Long since, probably before he left Galilee, he had planned this very act, a challenge to the corrupt priestly control of his Father's house, an act as full of meaning and as deliberate as Luther's nailing of his theses to the church doors of Wittenberg.

And when the blow had been struck Jesus stood courageously by it. He met the inevitable demand of the hierocracy, "By what authority doest thou these things?" with a counter demand. Whence had the Baptist authority to inaugurate his prophetic reform, making ready for Jehovah a purified people prepared for his coming? The Sanhedrin evaded this counter demand, and answered only (as Jesus had foreseen they would) by secret denunciation of him to Pilate. But Pilate understood the case. We have the Roman governor's official interpretation of its significance in a certain superscription written aloft in Hebrew and Greek and Latin on the gibbet of an insurrectionist. This, too, Jesus seems to have foreseen.

All this was not a mere "episode." It was the culminating effort and crisis of Jesus' career, and richly rewards a just understanding. We are told that it was "inconsistent with the rest of Jesus' career." His mission, we infer, was to be a rabbi. His attempt at active leadership in achieving the Kingdom he preached was an unfortunate aberration. He should not have tried to be "the Christ," and thereby incurred a needless martyrdom. The cross is still a stumblingblock.

Strange that the evangelists who omit so much, who would have so strong a motive for omitting this particular "inconsistency" no less for their Master's good name than for the safety of the Church, should one and all record it. The disposition to minimize everything savoring of political action on Jesus' part is very marked in all our evangelists, for obvious reasons. To the evidences of this belong, for example, Mark's denial, and the fourth evangelist's explanation, of the saying about destroying the temple, together with the latter's description of the whip "of small cords" as Jesus' only weapon in the purging of the temple.[2] Are we then to admit the "inconsistency"--not casual and incidental, as conceived in this pacifistic interpretation, but deliberate and flagrant? Or may we perhaps now raise the question whether the "inconsistency" is not rather chargeable to the interpreter's account?

The interpretation with which we are dealing makes the teaching of Jesus regarding the use of force identical with the non-resistance doctrine of Buddha and Lao-tse. On the other hand, it very justly relates it to that of the great prophet of the Davidic kingdom of righteousness and peace, Isaiah, the son of Amoz. From the point of view of the historical critic the relation of Jesus' teaching to that of Isaiah is absolutely sound. But the effect of this relation is fatal to its identification with the non-resistance doctrine of Buddha and Lao-tse.

Apart from the circumstances which for the time being made non-resistance, or rather mere passive resistance, the policy of true statesmanship alike against Assyrian and against Roman domination, Isaiah and Jesus stood together upon the most fundamental point of all, unqualified, unlimited loyalty to the God of Righteousness and to his sovereignty upon earth. Their pacifism differs from that of Lao-tse and of Buddha in the important respect of having a pronounced theistic basis. Buddha and Lao-tse can preach consistently a doctrine of absolute non-resistance because their systems are destitute of the social ideal of Israel's religion, and indeed ignore the very existence of a "Power not ourselves that makes for Righteousness." Contrariwise with the great prophets of the Kingdom of God. Whether of the Christian or pre-Christian dispensation, so far as they advocate non-resistance it cannot be unlimited, _because their religious aim is not merely individual but social_.

The non-resistance of Isaiah and of Jesus is not self-centered but God-centered. It is bound to consider what is expedient for others, for the weak and dependent, as well as for the individual, and for the present time. It seeks the welfare of the world and of generations to come. It is always subsidiary to the paramount interest of the Kingdom of God.

Just because it regards non-resistance not as an end in itself but only as one of the divinest means to an end, Biblical pacifism can hold before men's eyes the moving figure of the martyred Servant, dumb as the lamb in the shearer's hands, while it can in the same breath commend the men of violence that take the Kingdom of Heaven by force. Christian or pre-Christian, it rests upon the foundation of utter, absolute loyalty to a world-wide Republic of God, a cosmic sovereignty of righteousness, and having this social aim for its religious ideal it can and does nourish to the highest pitch of devotion the heroic virtues of patriotism, of service and of sacrifice. The summons to the standard (not men's but God's) is ever the same. The weapon may be the sword or the cross, as the times require. Under mere self-centered philosophies such as those of Buddha and Lao-tse the contrary is true. Notoriously, where these control patriotism and all its heroic virtues tend to dwindle, approaching often the verge of extinction.