Baptist attitudes toward war and peace since 1914.

Baptist attitudes toward war and peace have fluctuated widely at different periods of history.

Although a few Baptists have opted for pacifism on occasion, most fit better into the category known as pacificism by which is meant they regard war as a horrible option for resolving disputes between nations but still concede its inevitability on occasion. Sometimes, human beings must pay the supreme price to preserve freedom, eliminate oppression and injustice, or end other evils.

As pacificists, Baptists have diverged little from the Christian mainstream. Despite inheriting some of the same genes as Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers, Baptists have not offered a consistent peace witness. In the period under consideration here, Baptists wavered from enthusiastic support of American participation in World War I (once the nation chose to enter it) to post-war pacifism to somewhat qualified support of World War II as a horrendous but necessary option to mixed opposition to and support of the war in Vietnam to cautious opposition to further escalation of nuclear arsenals. Threat of nuclear annihilation has spurred thorough reexamination of attitudes in all Christian traditions and produced some curious alignments across denominational lines. Nuclear pacifists claim supporters not only in the traditional peace churches but also in virtually every major communion, just as "peace through strength" advocates list comrades even in the traditional peace churches.

In the United States, where Baptists have experienced their greatest success, pragmatism has characterized their attitudes toward war and peace as it has their general outlook. Baptists benefited immensely from hearty support of the American Revolution, for, as the colonists emerged victorious, they had reason to appreciate the formerly despised sect. In that conflict Baptists sensed they had nothing to lose and much to gain by separation from England. (1)

Between 1780 and 1820, Baptists enjoyed growth unparalleled by any other denomination save Methodism, increasing their churches from 456 to 2,700. (2) Because their views on religious liberty and separation of church and state suited the popular mood, they soon became "a truly American church." (3) Small wonder they have seldom distinguished popular sentiment on such matters as war and peace from their own.

Although Baptists in the United States are divided into more than fifty denominations, they have not differed much from one another on attitudes toward war and peace. Because Northern (now American) and Southern Baptists issued the most formal pronouncements, I will rely on them to indicate the mainstream of Baptist thought. Individuals who diverged from this stream will be called on to document diversity, but they should not be counted representative of Baptist thinking.

Pacifism and Pacificism, 1914-1934

The First World War boosted pacifism among Baptists as well as among other Christian communions. Since the late third or early fourth centuries, rigorous opposition to the use of military force and even to service in the army has had consistent expression only among Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers--three relatively small groups. Periodically, however, pacifist movements have washed over people and nations, thus touching virtually all communions, as they did during the onset of hostilities in World War I. In a flurry of organizing efforts on behalf of peace, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation came into existence in England in 1914. Pacifism, nevertheless, gained few adherents outside the peace churches until after the war. A Baptist Pacifist Fellowship did not develop until 1934.

World War I gave greater impetus to what was called "pacificism." Pacificists supported World War I but objected to war in general, opposed conscription for military service, and affirmed the right to conscientious objection. Pacificism grew during the 1920s, reaching a flood tide in the twelve years after the war. Fear of air attacks, used for the first time during World War I, played a major part in its growth. In the post-war era, pacificism took the form of encouraging internationalism, supporting the development of the League of Nations, and calling for disarmament and the securing of peace by moral authority. Pacificists joined the League of Nations Union, founded in 1918. (4)

Baptist statements during this era reflect the pacificist outlook. A motion produced by J. G. McCall at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) held in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1911 condemned war as "a scourge" which "is wrong in principle and morally corrupting." His resolution also commended President William Howard Taft for using international means of arbitration in settling disputes with the English and appealed to Southern Baptists to "talk up peace and talk down war." (5) Four years later, E. Y. Mullins introduced a resolution expressing appreciation for President Woodrow Wilson "in the firm stand he has taken for the ideals of peace" and "in his vigorous assertion of the principles of justice and the requirements of international law." (6)

As the United States entered the war, the tone shifted from appeals to arbitration to unflinching support for a nation at war. Curiously, Northern Baptists displayed more "hawkish" attitudes than Southern Baptists. In 1917, J. A. Francis, a Northern Baptist pastor, preached a rousing convention sermon entitled "The Church's Call to Colors" in which he enlisted Jesus' expulsion of the money changers from the Temple to support unreserved Baptist involvement in the war. Francis portrayed American participation as "a part of the cost of the advancing kingdom of Christ." "No nation," he argued, "ever entered a war with a clearer conscience or a more righteous cause." (7) A year later, the Social Service Committee of the Northern Baptist Convention stressed the "obligations" of churches to urge "war service" by their members. Failing to do so, a church "will both fail to develop its people and come short of a world opportunity." (8)

Most Southern Baptists also gave hearty support to the war effort. They dispatched their sons with their benediction, raised money for Liberty Bonds, and rallied the people to the cause. (9)

Hardly anywhere could one find a pacifist among them. A curious exception to the rule, however, was a fundamentalist preacher named Joseph Judson Taylor. Educated at Richmond College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Taylor opposed a resolution introduced into the SBC in 1917 by J. W. Porter, a Kentucky pastor. The resolution called for Southern Baptists to pledge their support to the President and to the United States government. After messengers overwhelmingly voted down Taylor's motion to redirect the resolution, he then offered a counter-resolution urging Southern Baptists to "reaffirm our faith in the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount," expressing confidence in the "infallible wisdom of him who has taught us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to them that despitefully use and persecute us." This resolution failed 112 to 1683, but Taylor did not let the matter drop even after the convention.

Taylor returned home from the convention and preached a sermon to his congregation, the First Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, in opposition to the churches' declaring war and selling war bonds. The sermon incited the deacons to call for his resignation in November 1917. He remained silent during the remainder of the war in retirement at his home in Leaksville, North Carolina. After the war, however, under more favorable circumstances, Taylor renewed his pacifist efforts in a book entitled The God of War. Two years later, he was elected vice-president of the SBC. Largely through his initiative, the convention included a strong statement on peace in the Baptist Faith and Message adopted in 1925. (10) Few other Baptist pacifists remained so consistent.

Harry Emerson Fosdick, a staunch pacifist after World War I, had in 1917 fashioned a strong argument for American entry into the war. Appreciative as he was of the pacifist tradition, he argued that to shoulder off on others "the necessity of dealing with life's stern, forbidding problems" and "retreating into a spiritual vacuum" to nurse "absolute ideals" is "unethical." Fosdick conceded that war is evil and un-Christian, but he believed that the threat to human civilization posed by the axis powers left no option. "As for the Christian who believes that when force is ruthlessly employed for wrong, it may have to be met by force employed for right, the present war must come to him with a call for service clear and undeniable." (11)

Following World War I, Baptists joined the wave of pacifists and pacificists who attached hopes for a war-free world to the League of Nations and disarmament talks held under its auspices. Immediately after the war, they took note repeatedly of the horrendous cost of war in human lives, property, programs, and suffering. In its 1919-20 annual report, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society lamented the year as one of "international disappointment and world-wide readjustment." The war had devastated the mission field not only materially but also morally. (12) At the same time, Baptists combated a strong pull toward isolationism that had characterized American political thinking before the war and urged participation in the League of Nations. Oceans no longer separate the nations, a Committee on Social Service reminded Northern Baptists in 1920. The Treaty of Paris had not completed the task of striving to effect peace. What was now required was "some institution for unifying international action." (13)

Virtually every year between the two world wars, Southern Baptists passed resolutions endorsing disarmament and calling for the United States to join the League of Nations. In 1921, the Committee on Social Service expressed dismay that, with the graves of millions of dead scarcely green, "the governments of all the leading nations should go steadily forward creating huge armaments and enlarging their navies. (14) The SBC itself went on record with a strong endorsement of a "practical" movement toward disarmament. (15)

Near pacifism was clearly expressed in numerous Baptist statements of the 1920s and the early 1930s. In 1925, the SBC Commission on Social Service voiced concern that, so soon after the "War to end war," "the war spirit is in many ways and many places manifesting itself." War, the commission declared, "is never justifiable." As "the colossal crime of the ages," it must be banished by the active influence and effort of the great Christian bodies of the world." The commission urged the convention to support the formation of a "peace commission" similar to the one appointed already by the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Northern Baptist Convention. The SBC did appoint such a commission, composed of such luminaries as W. L. Poteat and J. Clyde Turner, to represent it in a national conference held in Washington, D.C. on December 16, 1925. (16) Although such activities doubtless represented an elite corps of peacemakers among Baptists, their spirit was more widespread. Year after year, the SBC went on record condemning war as "the greatest and most destructive of all crimes against civilization" and urging all Christians and citizens to do all in their power to effect the vision of peace depicted in Isaiah 2:4.

In 1928, the Commission on Social Service exhorted Southern Baptists to "preach the gospel of salvation and peace" by every possible means both to individuals and to nations. (17) Baptists everywhere saluted international efforts to end war as a solution to conflicts among the nations. In 1928 and 1929, for instance, the SBC Social Service Commission lauded the Kellogg-Briand Pact for its renunciation of war and pledge to use only peaceful means to resolve disputes. (18) In 1931, the same commission cited an address by President Herbert Hoover lamenting worldwide failure of nations to abide by terms of the treaty, as reflected in expenditure for armaments, and chided the United States Senate for failing to provide for official approval and representation on the International Court of Justice. (19) The next year, the convention adopted resolutions urging the Senate to take action regarding the Court, opposing military training in the schools and colleges, "whether denominational or state," and favoring "full and complete disarmament as rapidly as it can possibly be accomplished" except for policing within national boundaries. (20) Reports and resolutions followed the same line for the next two years, (21) but a definite shift occurred in 1935 as war clouds again loomed over the horizon.

Political Realism, 1934-1945

The rise of Hitler to power and Mussolini's threats against Ethiopia burst the pacifist bubble. Reinhold Niebuhr, himself once imbued with pacifist ideas, challenged the commitment of liberals to what he considered an untenable position in the face of reality. In an article published in The American Scholar early in 1936, Niebuhr sought to knock all three props from under the pacifist position: the religious absolutism expressed in the Sermon on the Mount; liberalism's presupposition that rational persuasion is gradually and progressively displacing coercion as a method of settling disputes; and moral nausea over the brutalities of World War I. Neither apocalyptic nor ascetic absolutism, Niebuhr pointed out, will work in the face of relativities in the economic and political order; it merely served as a reminder about the egoism of sin, that in the world there will be no peace. Liberalism's too optimistic a view of human nature failed to realize that a non-violent approach in a violent world may precipitate violence. Abhorrence about the brutality of war usually resulted in a negative position, which offered no solution to the problem of social justice that precipitates war. Niebuhr noted that British pacifism was breaking up. (22) He doubted whether it would do any good for the United States to join the League of Nations, for that organization had already demonstrated its powerlessness to stop Mussolini. He projected a political realism that would recognize the necessity of coercion as a consequence of "defects of the human imagination and the human heart which even the most enlightened individuals betray." Politics, he argued, "is always confronted with the task of beguiling conflicting egoistic wills into some kind of harmony or equilibrium." National anarchy is greater even than individual anarchy. (23)

By 1940, Niebuhr was speaking of pacifism, to whatever extent it failed to take sin seriously enough, as a "heresy." Pacifists, he said, know too little of the contradiction between the law of love and human sin, which introduced this conflict into the world. Thus, they have no realistic solution to the problem of social justice. "Human egotism makes large-scale co-operation upon a purely voluntary basis impossible. Governments must coerce." (24)

Organization of the first Baptist Peace Fellowship in England and in the United States in 1934 notwithstanding, most Baptists in England and the United States displayed uncertainty and ambivalence in their thinking about war. Most simply did not know what steps their government should take against the growing aggressiveness of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Once again renouncing war, the SBC Commission on Social Service, in 1936, recommended to the convention "that we pledge ourselves as citizens and Christians that we will not support our government in any war except such as might be necessary to repel invasion of our land and to preserve fundamental human rights and liberties." The commission also questioned the expenditure of a billion dollars a year for building up an "enormous military and naval establishment." (25) In their report that year, the commission warned that, even in the name of defense, such buildups "always led to war and will lead to war." (26)

Such ambivalence continued to characterize Baptist attitudes in the United States right up to the entry of the country into World War II. Even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 could not dislodge from this position Northern Baptists, who still supported only "pacific means for settling international disputes." (27) Although they condemned acts of aggression, Northern Baptists were prepared to go no farther than to propose "a restudy of the scriptures, and of the practices of the early Christian church, with a view to more informed judgment as to the teachings of Christ, in matters pertaining to just and peaceful relationship among races and nations." They warned against "the spirit of hysteria and propaganda now sweeping the country," called upon the churches to pray for divine wisdom, and expressed appreciation to President Franklin Roosevelt for his efforts to keep the nation out of war. At the same time, Northern Baptists pled for aid for refugees and for war relief and laid plans for peace at the war's end. (28) The NBC Committee on Social Service published a pamphlet entitled How to Keep America Out of War and mailed it to all pastors and urged churches to become advocates for conscientious objectors. (29)

The bombing of Pearl Harbor demolished whatever ambivalence either Baptist group may have manifested to this point. "We did not start this war," the SBC Social Service Commission declared, "but now it is ours. We will end it." Southern Baptists were called on to support their nation and to meet the needs of fighting personnel. "The religious forces of our citizenship must see to it that we as a nation do not default either during the war or at its victorious conclusion." War now was the "hope of the world," and Baptists must not let it down. (30) Northern Baptists, however, displayed considerable reserve in 1942 about endorsing the war, but by 1944 had articulated a solid rationale for support of American involvement:

   War itself is not and cannot be made holy. The present is of all
   wars the most bestial. But while war itself is unholy, liberty and
   justice, brotherhood and human personality are most holy. For the
   overwhelming majority of all those who seek to know the mind of
   Christ, and to obey his will, when war is invoked against these holy
   things there is no alternative but to dedicate in their defense our
   lives, our treasure and that which to us is dearer than physical
   existence--the lives of our children. (31)

The NBC, however, proceeded to put their perspective under the searchlight of eternity.

   We do not pray for man's mere triumph over his brother man, for "all
   have sinned and come short," and each is to God equally precious. We
   do pray that justice shall prevail, that human personality shall not
   be sacrificed upon any altar of dictatorship, and that freedom shall
   win over tyranny. We do pray that men may know that though they lose
   their bodies--leave them on battlefields and beneath oceans, they
   need not lose their souls. We do pray that in all our seeking we
   shall seek for ourselves no good that we would not share with friend
   and foe alike. We do pray that our sons shall be adequate for their
   high hour, and that "with malice toward none and charity for all"
   we, with them, shall bring even that "last full measure" to win the
   war and to achieve Christian ideals in the peacetime relations of
   the peoples of the earth. We will not bless war, but we will not
   withhold our blessing from our sons who fight and from our country's
   cause in which they, with the sons of Allied Nations, now engage.
   (32)

Northern Baptists proceeded to express opposition to peacetime conscription and to urge all actions that would foster peace after the war. A year later, Southern Baptists came out even more strongly in opposition to peacetime military training as unnecessary, impossible to implement, and unwise. (33)

On the whole, however, Baptists everywhere found themselves able to justify support of their countries once hostilities erupted. Loyd Allen wrote that German Baptists, like most other Christians, rallied to Hitler and to their national cause with considerable enthusiasm. Surprisingly, as Allen has shown, even some Baptists from other countries attending the meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in 1934 fell under the spell of Hitler as a non-smoker and non-drinker. Hitler, they sensed, would offer a boost to personal evangelism of the type Baptists reveled in. Conservative Americans could applaud him for his staunch anti-communism and even his anti-Semitism. (34)

Pacificism Rediscovered, 1945-1965

The Second World War slapped idealists in the face with a strong hand of reality. Reinhold Niebuhr had tried to point out in the 1930s that at the international level nations deal with one another out of self-interest. What they understand is power. Inevitably, they will resort to force, even the force of war, to resolve conflicts. This war, however, escalating violence far beyond previous levels, posed new questions about war as a way of resolving disputes. The introduction of nuclear weapons in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki incited fears that another war would be not "the war to end all wars" but rather "the war to end humankind." In the post-war era, Baptists, like most other Christians, could not return to the simplistic perspectives so many had articulated after World War I, but neither could they ignore the note of doom for civilization sounded by "Baby Boy" at Hiroshima and "Fat Man" at Nagasaki.

Both Northern and Southern Baptists pressed hard for American reliance on the United Nations as the best means for resolving international disputes without resorting to war. At their 1946 convention, Northern Baptists, expressing fear that another war would wipe out civilization itself, declared "full support to current efforts to create a workable world organization through the United Nations" and urged the United States to "lead in further willingness to merge national sovereignty into a fuller sovereignty of the United Nations at whatever points appear necessary to secure lasting peace and progressive good will among the peoples of the world." (35) A special Committee on World Peace appointed by the SBC likewise emphasized the United Nations as the organization through which their country could "secure a just and durable peace." "The United Nations Organization," they declared, "is a visible, practical response to the situation in which everybody knows it is ONE WORLD OR NONE." (36)

As they had done after World War I, Baptists again hoisted a flag about militarism, particularly in compulsory military training during peacetime. The Committee on World Peace just cited, led by J. M. Dawson, noted that continuing buildup of military might would be "wholly inconsistent" with sincere support of the United Nations. He wrote, "Nations, one and all, we agree, must, therefore, break decisively with this outmoded, impossible, unthinkable militarism which has dominated the past." (37) The SBC Commission on Social Service stated in still stronger terms their opposition to peacetime conscription and what they viewed as a "determined effort to militarize our nation and keep military might and war in the center of the international picture." (38)

Northern Baptists sounded an alarm concerning atomic energy used for military purposes. Noting the immense potential for misuse, they went on record "demanding that Congress not adjourn until it has considered and passed adequate legislation for the civilian control of atomic energy." They also voiced "unequivocal opposition to entirely military control and exploitation of this power." (39)

For the next two decades until the war in Vietnam, Baptists in America reiterated their strong opposition to universal military conscription and militarism, defined as control by military aims and agencies. In 1948, the SBC Social Service Commission singled out for attack an "experimental UMT" program at Fort Knox, Kentucky, designed to sway the American public to approve such a program; (40) and the convention again stated its opposition, repudiating the idea "that world peace can be established by military might." (41)

During the "cold war" era in the 1950s, in convention after convention, Southern Baptists issued warnings against militarism. In 1951, as Americans again found themselves entangled in a war, the Social Service Commission published an extensive report on the growth of militarism in American life and, citing earlier convention statements, voiced their opposition both to military education in the colleges and compulsory military training. To their report they attached a Niebuhresque statement entitled "Christian Obedience and Participation in War" drafted by the Commission on Social Action of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr's church) that stressed the obligation of all Christians to be "peacemakers," that is, to work energetically to eliminate the causes of war. This document also called attention to the "terrible predicament" human beings face as a consequence of development of weapons of mass destruction such as atomic bombs and bacteriological warfare. As World War II had proven, tyranny, injustice, and the perversion of laws and institutions represent defiance of God's righteousness just as war does. Thus, Christians have an obligation to use their influence and even their lives "to resist the advance of what threatens to be a greater evil than either war or the imperfect order which exists." (42)

At the height of the Korean War, the Social Service Commission, chaired by J. B. Weatherspoon, professor of homiletics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, outlined "Positive Steps Toward Peace in Our Time." The six steps included redoubling evangelistic efforts, eliminating complacency about war, combating hysteria, rejecting fatalism, opposing primary reliance on military strategy to oppose Communism, and pressing for positive programs to attain peace and justice. (43) The lengthy report voiced vigorous opposition to militarism and called universal conscription "a step in the wrong direction." (44) In 1952, the SBC passed a resolution against peacetime conscription. The resolution also affirmed the United Nations "as the most effective available political device for world peace." (45)

Baptist attitudes about war underwent severe testing during the next two decades as a consequence of the "cold war," "police action" in Korea, and the McCarthy era. Northern (after 1950 American) Baptists seldom raised the issue. Southern Baptists continued to look to the United Nations, but with less confidence than they had immediately after World War II. In 1955, the Christian Life (formerly Social Service) Commission stressed evangelism as the "primary factor" in the attainment of world peace. The United Nations was a "potential" factor, but had been "subject to many dangers and disappointments" since its inception. The commission noted that at the moment "hard realities of the present world situation" would not allow "neglect of our military strength," though they do not require universal conscription. (46)

The SBC, while deploring efforts to implement the latter, recognized "the necessity of preparation for national defense" and approved "continued participation in the United Nations organization and other such international forums and conciliar efforts toward international understanding and cooperative agreements whose end is world peace." The convention also urged "immediate and more determined efforts to reach effective agreements for the elimination of atomic weapons, including the hydrogen bomb, and for the radical reduction of armaments as a means of increasing the probabilities of peaceful existence." (47) A special Committee on World Peace, that included Brooks Hays, a former delegate to the United Nations and SBC president, shifted hopes still further onto a religious track. The committee suggested that among ways Southern Baptists could contribute to the cause of world peace was to increase support of world missions, pray for peace and good will throughout the world, offer moral and financial support for agencies that "proclaim the message of good will, freedom, and democracy to other nations," and pray for the work of the United Nations. (48)

Peace and Justice Kiss, 1965-1986

American involvement in Vietnam sundered Baptists in the same way it did other denominations. In 1969, a resolution of the American Baptist Convention (ABC) that called for "an immediate cease fire in order to facilitate an orderly withdrawal," "the immediate release of political prisoners," and "effective guarantees to all political, religious and ethnic groups of their rights to engage in political activity prior to the holding of free elections to be monitored by an international supervisory body" received 472 yes votes, 241 noes, and 35 abstentions. (49) Southern Baptists, however, avoided such division by issuing a less directive statement encouraging President Richard Nixon and other officials "to pursue every possible effort to secure an equitable settlement of the Vietnam conflict as soon as humanly possible." (50)

One does not have to reflect deeply or search widely to discover sources of this ambivalence among Baptists. The Second World War had proven both the untenability of absolute pacifism and the horrendous price war exacts as a way of resolving disputes. Yet, it also convinced many Baptists that another major war would be the last, for humankind could not survive nuclear holocaust. Like many Americans, some Baptists viewed American involvement in Vietnam as the only way to halt Communist takeover of the Far East and eventually of the whole world. American refusal to accept this obligation would be to repeat Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. It would mean to touch off a chain of dominoes stretching around the globe at the end of which stood the United States itself. Prolongation of the war in Vietnam, however, so far removed from American shores, constantly increased both doubts as to whether this particular war could achieve any of the desired effects and fears that it might lead to the unthinkable nuclear conflict. Americans, Baptists among them, began seriously to speak of "selective conscientious objection," that is, objection to particular wars. Although most could not justify opposition to all wars, they could justify opposition to the war in Vietnam on the basis of the Just War theory. This war failed to meet virtually every condition set forth in the classic theory of the Just War--cause, conduct, auspices, or outcome. Whether it might lead to any peaceful settlement was particularly troublesome.

Reaction to the war in Vietnam Mended into concern for racism, poverty, deterioration of the cities, injustice, and violence to set in motion some new perspectives on peacemaking. Justice and peace "kissed" one another. Martin Luther King, Jr., an ordained Baptist minister and son of a minister, rallied African Americans in quest of their rights through application of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and Gandhi's methods of non-violent social change. "The Negro," King wrote, "turned his back on force not only because he knew he could not win his freedom through physical force but because through use of force he could lose his soul." (51) King perceived quite clearly that peace was impossible without resolution of deeply rooted social problems that fostered violence. Few of his fellow Baptists in the South grasped the point. Those Baptists who did included Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm at Americus, Georgia, who suffered severe harassment for his efforts to unite whites and blacks and to alleviate the suffering of the poor, and W. W. Finlator, pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, who took an active role in numerous social struggles, including negotiations on behalf of textile workers and legislation for civil rights. (52)

During this era, Baptists pressed for new initiatives in peacemaking. In 1971, the ABC, while taking note of varied attitudes ranging from pacifism to military involvement, urged convention leaders, agencies, churches, and members to take up a peacemaking agenda. This agenda, passed 796 to 79 with 26 abstentions, reiterated some pre-Vietnam items, but it also reached out to numerous other areas. (53)

In 1980, American Baptists established a full-time position in peacemaking among their National Ministries at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, designed to implement these goals. At least one group of Baptists was manifesting some inclinations in the direction of the traditional peace churches.

Southern Baptists were much more circumspect about the war in Vietnam and in their evaluation of national policy. In the mid-1960s, however, a heightening of social awareness triggered serious concern about recurrence of war. Like their American Baptist counterparts, Southern Baptists reaffirmed the United Nations as "absolutely necessary if the nations are to learn to live together and work together in peace." At the same time, they pledged themselves to solve problems of prejudice, poverty, and injustice so as to establish "a firmer place on which to stand as we seek to work toward peace among nations." They also committed themselves to support leaders who opposed war and worked for peace. (54)

A number of Southern Baptists took active roles in demonstrating against American involvement in Vietnam and, subsequently, nurtured a peace concern with reference to nuclear war and various other threats. In 1980, a group of Southern Baptists began publication of Baptist Peacemaker, which served as a link between peacemakers throughout the United States and in approximately fifty foreign countries. Through this endeavor a somewhat larger peace ministry developed among Baptists in the South and led to the forging of ties with other Baptists in the North American Baptist Peace Fellowship, until recently directed by a Southern Baptist, Ken Sehested. Meantime, the SBC Christian Life Commission gradually increased support of peacemaking as it had pressed for solution of other social problems.

Rising peace efforts have not gone unchallenged by Baptists who view the peace issue in a different light. Frightened by near anarchy during the Vietnam War and erosion of American military might after it, many Baptists have opted for "peace through strength." During the late 1970s, Baptists of this orientation became a powerful force on the American political scene as they pressed for acceptance of their views. Organizations such as Moral Majority, disbanded in 1987, rallied behind Ronald Reagan's candidacy for President of the United States in 1980 and again in 1984. As President, Reagan steered a massive buildup of both conventional and nuclear arms to equal or surpass the military strength of the Soviet Union.

A House Divided, 1986-2003

Diversity is not new to Baptists. Gather a handful of Baptists and you will hear a dozen different opinions, and that saying is especially true in regard to recent Baptist attitudes toward war.

American Baptists have twice in recent years, in September 1987 and March 1998, as the United States contemplated using military force against other states, reissued their 1922 Resolution on the Abolition of War. This resolution said:

   We record our conviction that war as a method of settling
   international disputes is barbarous, wasteful and manifestly
   contrary to every Christian ideal and teaching. We reaffirm
   our belief that our country should have its part in an
   association of nations for expressing our common humanity,
   adjusting difficulties and outlawing any nation that resorts to
   arms to further its own interests.

      We earnestly petition our national government to participate with
   other nations in the International Court of Justice and to take
   whatever other steps may be necessary to secure such cooperation
   on the part of the peoples of the earth as will bring about a
   stabilizing of world conditions and permanently banish war. (55)

At a semi-annual winter meeting February 21-22, 2003, the Executive Committee of the Ministers Council Senate of the American Baptist Churches adopted and issued a strong statement opposing war on Iraq and urged government leaders to seek other means to resolve the conflict. In March 2003, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America issued a statement opposing a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Contending that "violence only begets violence," this letter pressed for the use of "nonviolent methodologies" that could "bring hopeful and constructive change in Iraq rather than actions than sow the seeds for more violence and regional chaos." The authors felt that no "moral or national security case can be made to legitimize the United States waging war against Iraq." Doing so unilaterally "would violate and undermine the United Nations' charter" and place the United States "among 'rogue nations' that disrespect the rule of law, forfeiting the trust of other countries."

A number of Baptists of various denominations, including William J. Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., joined other Christian leaders of Churches for Middle East Peace in signing a letter to President George W. Bush, dated September 12, 2002, opposing the war. This letter expressed alarm concerning "pre-emptive military action against Iraq for the expressed purpose of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein." Though recognizing the threat posed by Hussein, the authors cited "moral grounds" against taking military action against Iraq, especially causing civilian casualties and increasing the suffering of a people who had already suffered much. They urged the president to turn his attention instead to settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (56)

Since 1979, SBC leaders have displayed a quite different attitude toward American involvement in wars. A resolution passed at the 1991 annual meeting celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Chaplains Commission, noting among other things that more than 200 Southern Baptists chaplains had served in "Operation Desert Storm." (57) In 1998, an SBC resolution opposed change in military policy that would send women into combat, because "the purpose of military combat is to inflict deadly harm upon an enemy, and the essence of combat is to use force against an enemy in order to kill, damage, or destroy," combat should be restricted to males, which whom such purpose and essence are "aligned." (58)

The SBC leaders are unique among religious leaders in their support of President Bush's policies. Richard Land, once an adviser to the governor of Texas and now director of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, quickly declared that war on Iraq was "just." In a forum held on February 26, 2003, at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Land and Daniel Heimbach, deputy executive secretary of the Domestic Policy Council under President Bush and now a professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern, differed on legitimacy of purpose. Heimbach contended that the war would be legitimate only if "weapons of mass destruction" were found, for then the United States would simply enforce the conditions laid down at the end of the war in 1991. Land, however, held that removal of Saddam Hussein was also a justifiable reason for the war. (59)

Where do Baptists go from here? Who can say except to predict that they will continue to differ as they do on many other issues. There will be a few pacifists, many pacificists, and no small number who are more militant. In the present time, however, there is a desperate need for persons who can reach out to the Islamic world and make peace.

(1.) See Winthrop S. Hudson, Baptists in Transition. Individualism and Christian Responsibility (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1979), 76-77.

(2.) Edwin Scott Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Bow Publishers, 1978), 4, 43.

(3.) Hudson, Baptists in Transition, 80.

(4.) Martin Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain 1914-1945. The Defining of a Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 1-122.

(5.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1911, 23-24.

(6.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1915, 19.

(7.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1917, 212-18.

(8.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1918, 182.

(9.) E. Glenn Hinson, A History of Baptists in Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas Baptist State Convention, 1980), 221-23.

(10.) Robert Parham, "Taylor: 'Only One, But a Lion,'" Light (July/August 1986), 4-8.

(11.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Challenge of the Present Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1917), 42, 46.

(12.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1920, 607ff.

(13.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1920, 249

(14.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1921, 84.

(15.) Ibid., 56.

(16.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1925, 121; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1926, 110-11.

(17.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1928, 84-85; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1929, 92-93.

(18.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1928, 84-85; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1929, 92-93.

(19.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1931, 125-26.

(20.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1932, 98.

(21.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1933, 105-06, 107-08, 113, 117; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1934, 105-06, 113.

(22.) See Ceadal, Pacifism in Britain 1914 1945, 123ff.

(23.) Reinhold Niebuhr, "Pacifism against the Wall," The American Scholar, 5 (Winter 1938), 138, 140.

(24.) Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940), 14.

(25.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1926, 35.

(26.) Ibid., 26.

(27.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1939, 270-71.

(28.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1940, 353-55.

(29.) Ibid., 261-62.

(30.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1942, 91-94

(31.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1944, 281f.

(32.) Annual, Northern Baptist Convention, 1944, 281f.

(33.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1945, 95.

(34.) William Loyd Allen, "How Baptists Assessed Hitler," The Christian Century, September 1-8, 1982, 890-91.

(35.) Yearbook, Northern Baptist Convention, 1946, 177.

(36.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1946, 64.

(37.) Ibid., 64.

(38.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1946, 125-26.

(39.) Yearbook, Northern Baptist Convention, 1946, 178.

(40.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1948, 338-39.

(41.) Ibid., 53.

(42.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1951, 416-17.

(43.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1952, 44.

(44.) Ibid., 412-14.

(45.) Ibid., 56.

(46.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1955, 56-57.

(47.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1955, 57.

(48.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1959, 450-51.

(49.) Yearbook, American Baptist Convention, 1969-1970, 136.

(50.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1969, 76

(51.) Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait (New York Harper & Row, 1963), 25.

(52.) See G. MacLeod Bryan, Dissenter in the Baptist Southland. Fifty Years in the Career of William Wallace Finlator (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985).

(53.) See Yearbook, American Baptist Convention, 1971, 101.

(54.) Report of the Christian Life Commission Annual, Southern Baptist Convention 1965, 245-46.

(55.) Yearbook, American Baptist Convention, 1922. Affirmed by the Executive Committee in 1987 and modified in 1998.

(56.) Director of Churches for Middle East Peace, Letter to George W. Bush, September 12, 2002.

(57.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1991, 83.

(58.) Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1998, 91.

(59.) Tony W. Cartledge, "SEBTS Speakers Land, Heimbach Say War with Iraq is Just," Biblical Recorder 7 March 2003.

E. Glenn Hinson is retired professor of spirituality and John F. Loftis Professor of Church History, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Richmond, Virginia.