War and the Christian (review)

BOOK REVIEWS41 ancient Chaldea. "I know not whose prayer gave rise to my being" is the satisfying first sentence. Yahweh's growth in the minds and spirits of men is seen to depend on the leaders. "As a man is, so is his God," he admits. He is tempted with Abraham and is strengthened by Moses. From Moses he finds out about "a Voice." Hosea acquaints him with some great spiritual truths and he learns somewhat less from the lawyers. Then comes the Galilean and "a sense of unity with some source of power which I knew not." These pages are done with a freshness and delicacy which are very touching. Yahweh, who has been exalted and bloodthirsty by turns, is troubled by the vision of universal love, which he cannot understand. Indeed he tries to save Jesus from his unworldly views, for Yahweh is nothing if not conservative and tender of expediency . Jesus replies, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Yahweh becomes a Christian. But the sword and theology and the sophistries of priests lead, through Constantine and St. Francis and Luther, through the War and the jazz age, to the Nazis and the terrible present ; and Yahweh, not yet weaned from the sword, is reconciled to the prospect of "a day of war and destruction such as hath not been seen." "And if perchance there be One mightier than I to thrust me down to the pit, I shall have had my day." Robert Munson Grey's book is an indictment of the world's blindness. Again and again Yahweh harks back to the Galilean, again and again chooses not love but the sword. The author's research must have been enormous. His irony and satire cut to the bone. His style varies with the age involved, from Biblical simplicity to the slangy emptiness of Billy Sunday. In the main it has a praiseworthy economy with much beauty, tenderness, and a sly touch of humor, as when the theologians are deciding how the Trinity is to be seated. Friends will sympathize with its object, which is a passionate plea to listen to "the patient witness within." This reviewer intends to read it again. T. Morris Longstreth. War and the Christian. By Charles E. Raven. New York, Macmillan, 1938. xi+186 pp.; $1.75. HT1HIS BOOK by Canon Raven gives not merely his answer to the¦*¦ question, "Can Christians take part in war?" It also throws out a unique challenge to the thinking of peace lovers. Not only is the Christian pacifist position cogently set forth, but the book outlines with clarity and understanding the chief difficulties that face this position and the resultant nonpacifist stand made by many sincere Christians. As Canon Raven remarks, the position of the nonpacifist Christian has usually been outlined so badly or so apologetically that there is real danger of overlooking its importance and condemning it by default. Only one with this writer's intellectual breadth and wide experience of varying Christian attitudes 42 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION could deal as sympathetically with the different answers to such questions as : Can we end war ? Cannot war be the less of two evils ? How reconcile pacifism with our responsibility to the state? Is there a middle way? When this wide understanding is combined with Canon Raven's wellknown devotion to the cause of pacifism the book gains exceptional interest. The divergence of Christian thought on this question was made clear by the World Conference of Christian leaders at Oxford in 1937, when four different positions were defined, but not reconciled. The Conference report itself urged further study. This is the occasion of Canon Raven's book, and its clearness, fairness, and lack of propagandists bias are in accordance with the need. It does not seek to say the last word. Yet it insists that the overcoming of evil with good is at the very heart of Christianity, and that pacifism can face the practical difficulties of a warmad world. Above all it enforces the urgency of the need for consultation by pacifists and nonpacifists. "In the matter of war we shall be wise to recognize that our differences go very deep, and to discuss...