conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

fosdick speaks

CHRISTIANITY AND WAR HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK, D.D. of PARK AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY

He preached this sermon in Calvin's pulpit in Geneva. Wow. I am enjoying learning about him. My grandfather has several of his books. I'll receive them this summer. It is quite a gift. A gift from preacher to preacher to preacher...there is a geneology for you.

Enjoy this quote.

This conflict of loyalties creates your difficult problems here in Geneva. You know how tenacious the adhesions of nationalism are, how difficult to entwine the thoughts and affections of men around new ideals and new methods of world peace. But this inner struggle between two loyalties goes deeper than the realm of statesmanship; it runs far down into the souls of men where the destinies of religion lie. How can a man be a follower of Jesus Christ and still be a belligerent nationalist, when once this better hope of a world organized for peace has dawned upon his view? Whatever else Christianity may believe in, it must believe in God, Father of all men; it must believe in men of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, as God�s children; it must believe in the Kingdom of God on earth. The spirit of Christianity is not narrowly nationalistic, but universally inclusive. When the world, therefore, organizes itself on the basis of belligerent nationalism the very genius of the Christian Gospel is at stake. Once more we can have our old war systems with their appalling modern developments, or we can have Christianity, but we cannot permanently have both. They worship irreconcilable gods.

I need not, and I must not, press the analysis further. Two generations ago one of our great statesmen, Charles Sumner, said, �Not that I love country less, but Humanity more, do I now and here plead the cause of a higher and truer patriotism. I cannot forget that we are men by a more sacred bond than we are citizens�that we are children of a common Father more than we are Americans.� Shall not each one of us here pray for his own country, as I pray earnestly for mine, that that spirit may come into the ascendency? Christianity essentially involves it.

He continues.

The first Christians saw this. �The early Christian Church,� says a recent writer, �was the first peace society.� Then came Christianity�s growing power�the days when Christians, no longer outcast, were stronger than their adversaries, until at last the imperial household of Constantine himself accepted Christianity. Then Christianity, joined with the state, forgot its earlier attitudes, bowed to the necessities of imperial action, became sponsor for war, blesser of war, cause of war, fighter of war. Since then the Church has come down through history too often trying to carry the cross of Jesus in one hand and a dripping sword in the other, until now when Christians look out upon the consequence of it all, this abysmal disgrace of Christendom making mockery of the Gospel, the conviction rises that we would better go back to our first traditions, our early purity, and see whether those first disciples of the Lord were not nearer right than we have been.

'Nuff said.

Posted by tripp at February 27, 2004 11:36 AM