Harry Emerson Fosdick's role in the war and pacifist movements.

"I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another!"

With those words on November 12, 1933, Harry Emerson Fosdick concluded his sermon and descended from the Riverside Church pulpit. (1) His "Unknown Soldier" sermon served to articulate the pacifist position that Fosdick had begun to embrace at the conclusion of World War I. Although previously a war advocate, he became one of America's most vocal pacifist public figures in the 1920s and 1930s. With America's entry into World War II in 1941, Fosdick continued to preach pacifism to a country that had largely left it behind. In his social ethic, war was not simply one issue; it was the issue. He claimed, "This generation, as history looks back on it, will be known chiefly by what we do about war, its causes, and its prevention." (2) Pacifism was central to Fosdick's ministry, and he was central to the pacifist movement in America.

Fosdick's Public Persona

As a preacher, Fosdick's popularity in America throughout his career remained unequaled. The Christian Century claimed, "Fosdick ... stands alone as the pre-eminent American preacher of his generation." In the secular media, Time declared him the nation's most famed Protestant preacher. (3) Preaching in the pulpits of big steeple New York City churches such as First Presbyterian and Riverside, Fosdick occupied a prominent place in the city. The New York Times and The Herald Tribune weekly reprinted his sermons and reported on contemporary theological debates. (4) With mainline Protestantism at its zenith, leading voices like Fosdick's became fixtures within popular culture.

Fosdick's giftedness in writing and rhetoric matched his generation's love of words. (5) On a Sunday morning, the hottest spot in town was one of the 2,500 seats in the pews of the Riverside Church. His devotional books became best-sellers, and Fosdick gained an even greater national acclaim with the rise of radio. From 1927 until his retirement in 1946, he broadcasted each Sunday evening on NBC's National Vespers program. At the program's height in 1941, NBC estimated his audience at 20 million listeners across the nation. (6) His voice became a trusted shaper of the theological and political persuasions for countless Americans. (7)

In the 1920s, Fosdick's denial of doctrines such as the Virgin Birth and the literal inspiration of scripture served as a catalyst at the center of the fundamentalist/modernist debate. In the Baptist world, many disowned him while others found ways to love him even more. (8) His polarizing position created many enemies but ultimately garnered him an even greater public platform. As a self-proclaimed "evangelical liberal," Fosdick saw himself as an apologist working to make Christianity palpable to individuals living in a modern world. (9)

While highlighting the individual's experience with Christ, Fosdick never divorced Christianity's social component. While in seminary, he was exposed to the Social Gospel movement, which was at the height of its popularity, and he soon thought of himself as an erstwhile follower of Walter Rauschenbusch. In his first pastorate of First Baptist Church, Montclair, New Jersey, Fosdick began by confronting questions of personal morality and well being: Sunday picture shows, saloons, and the need for physical exercise. He also addressed social issues of institutional importance. While continuing to pastor in Montclair, he earned a Masters degree in political science from Columbia University, focusing his studies on the unionizing of local workers. (10) For Fosdick, one's individual Christian experience involved "applying Christian principles to the social life." As a preacher he felt his task was to "inspire the building of a better society." (11)

The Challenge of the Present Crisis

After resigning from Montclair in 1915 to teach at Union Theological Seminary as a professor of practical theology, Fosdick entered headlong into the debate over America's entrance into World War I. In a country firmly committed to neutrality and isolationism, Fosdick advocated for the United States' involvement. Far ahead of his clerical colleagues, he stumped in pulpits across the country rallying support for America's intervention in the Great War. "Sad is our lot if we have forgotten how to die for a holy cause," Fosdick preached. (12) He criticized President Woodrow Wilson for dragging America's feet. Finally, Fosdick got his wish, and America entered the war in 1917. In order to stir up support for the war, he wrote a treatise, The Challenge of the Present Crisis, which quickly sold over two hundred thousand copies. Fosdick donated the proceeds to the war effort. (13)

In The Challenge of the Present Crisis, Fosdick acknowledged the complicated interaction between war and faith. (14) He admitted that modern warfare had clearly made the current war the most appalling one in history. (15) Yet, Fosdick noted that world leaders now understood war's destruction and had begun to question the harmony of Christianity and war. In his defense of American and Christian involvement, his liberal optimism asserted that in a war to end all wars, humanity now "will learn to handle the new relationships for fraternity and not for war." (16)

Alongside his optimistic idealism, however, Fosdick mixed in a healthy dose of realism. He belittled the idealism evidenced in extreme pacifism and remarked that Jesus did not face the same questions of war that modernity endured. (17) Instead, Fosdick insisted that "the morale of our people depends" upon their ability to harmonize Christ's ideals with the "necessities of action in a time of war." (18)

Fosdick's engagement sprung from his belief in internationalism over isolationism. He asserted that each person shares mutual responsibility in war, (19) and he offered specific guidelines about how countries might prevent future wars by developing an "international mind" in contrast to provincial nationalism. The challenge for both America and Christianity, however, was not prevention but rather to make the world "safe for democracy," winning both the war and the peace. (20) Ultimately, Fosdick would not dare allow his church, his nation, or himself to miss out on the greatest issue of his generation. (21)

War No More

Taking a semester's leave from teaching, Fosdick traveled to Europe under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. in order to encourage Allied troops in the trenches and to be able to recount the war effort for citizens at home. Watching troops return from the front lines, he experienced firsthand the horrors of modern warfare. While continuing to extol the valor of American soldiers, Fosdick soon began to reevaluate publicly his Christian position on war. Explicit examples of the horrors of modern warfare repeatedly appeared in his articles and sermons. After the war's end in November 1918, Fosdick made reference to the war in each consecutive sermon for the next eight months. (22) With each passing day, Fosdick became more disappointed in the war's inability to unite the world. By 1921, Fosdick could preach from the pulpit, "we cannot reconcile Christianity with war any more." (23) By 1923, he fully embraced a commitment to peace.

Fosdick's experience with war significantly altered his theology. The horrors of war infused a healthy dose of realism to temper his liberal idealism. Whereas modernism's Social Gospel and American culture had once walked hand in hand accommodating one another, Fosdick now understood that the church might have to stand alone and speak prophetically against the prevailing culture. (24) He focused on the impact of each individual Christian's ethic on the world while also serving as an apologist for the legitimacy of the Christian faith. The stakes were never higher for Fosdick, for he believed that if Christians did not end war, war would end Christianity. (25)

In becoming a self-proclaimed pacifist, Fosdick did not whole-heartedly identify with the absolute position of the historic peace sects. He found the issue of pacifism much more complicated and distrusted people who felt that their positions escaped inconsistency. (26) From citizens paying taxes to America's own economic practices, Fosdick believed no persons could avoid self-contradiction in attempting to dissociate themselves completely from war. (27) He believed that renouncing war was never simply an individual decision but rather a public one made with the world in view. (28)

Protestantism's Public Pacifism

Fosdick did not stand alone in embracing pacifism. The majority of Protestantism followed. By 1917, most Protestant ministers reluctantly supported World War I, but like Fosdick, they too became disillusioned by the horrors of modern warfare. Many denominations, from Southern Baptists to Unitarians, soon came to support a complete renunciation of war. The Protestant church in the 1920s united around the issue of peace, which occupied the religious minds and presses even more than prohibition or the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. (29)

American society also embraced foregoing war. In the 1920s, the notion of peace reigned generally uncontested. The intellectual aristocracy, popular opinion, and the church all agreed that America should never again participate in war. How to maintain peace became the point of contention. A spirit of isolationism emerged, yet Protestantism remained united in its opposition to isolationism and advocated a spirit of international cooperation. Between the world wars, Fosdick's public advocacy for peace typified the larger Protestant position. His challenge became convincing America and the world that peace rested in active internationalism rather than passive isolationism.

Maintaining the optimism of his progressive liberal Christianity, Fosdick claimed that internationalism was the "new world order" that "can never be crowded back again." (30) Despite his own country's wariness, Fosdick, with overwhelming Protestant backing, lobbied for America's full support of the League of Nations. By 1925, after the American people clearly had cast its vote against the League, he remained its committed advocate. On September 13, 1925, in Geneva, Switzerland, Fosdick delivered the opening sermon for the League entitled "A Christian Conscience About War."

Serving as the mouthpiece for Protestant pacifists on other world issues as well, Fosdick called unsuccessfully for United States' membership in the World Court, which intended to prevent war by establishing an international court of justice. He also rallied support behind the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that brought sixty-four countries together, including the United States, to outlaw war. (31) Although aware of the utopian nature of such projects, Fosdick's commitment to peace compelled him to remain optimistic.

Fosdick also asserted the dangers of nationalism. He identified nationalism as Christianity's "supreme rival," (32) for he believed that nationalism had developed into a competing religion and claimed that countries could not work for world peace until they moved beyond pitting themselves against one another. He condemned a narrow patriotism that says, "my country against yours," but advocated for a wider view claiming, "my country with yours for the peace of mankind." (33)

While favoring internationalism, Fosdick did not overlook issues of peace at home. Along with most major Protestant denominations, he fought for disarmament even if pursued unilaterally. He argued for the removal of military training programs like the R.O.T.C. from America's schools. He also voiced his disapproval for the policy of conscription that he found unfair and unnecessary.

Despite his commitment to pacifism and his adamant opposition to any position advocating war, Fosdick avoided the general perception of being a partisan figure. He addressed issues of war and peace from his church's pulpit, from the campuses of elite universities, and by invitation at political conferences across the country. He worked behind the scenes to communicate his position to senators and presidents. With the country firmly opposed to entering war, the influential presence of Protestantism in American culture, and his own enormous popularity, Fosdick maintained an unmatched platform from which to articulate his position of Christian pacifism both inside and outside the church.

Public Pacifism Falters

Anti-war sentiment remained strong throughout the 1930s, but it peaked by 1935. Protestant churches, once a unified voice for pacifism with an international outlook, splintered into various groups. Many began to embrace an increasingly isolationist view. Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism began to persuade others to abandon their pacifist idealism. With the prospects of war no longer imaginary, many pacifists considered deposing dictators superior to resisting war. (34)

Within these changing dynamics, the pacifist movement retained a vocal presence. In fact, with the immediate threat of war and the myriad of voices clamoring for attention, the American peace movement ratcheted up its visibility, and Fosdick took on a greater role in the movement. By opening the doors of Riverside Church to peace conferences as well as agreeing to speak at countless others, he became a relied-upon public figure. Numerous peace groups sought his support, soliciting him to serve as chairman or to endorse their fundraising efforts, for they knew that Fosdick's name provided them instant media attention. (35)

When the pacifist movement splintered, Fosdick often found himself associated with strange bedfellows. Even as a committed internationalist, his efforts to keep America out of war forced him to walk alongside staunch isolationists. Fosdick spent half his time lobbying for peace and the other half attempting to distinguish his pacifism from those identified with him.

With Congress's passage of the Neutrality Acts of the late 1930s, Americans expressed their unwillingness to enter another war. Fosdick supported these efforts for neutrality, but the acts were dearly influenced more by isolationism than any concern for pacifism. (36) Fosdick cautioned that America's tendency to bury its head in the sand was a thoroughly misplaced temptation. (37) With the peace movement's bifurcation, he returned to his original arguments. Pacifism would not succeed with a small number of individual conscientious objectors, but instead must address the entire war system in which everyone played a complicit part. (38) Fosdick realized that everyone would not agree with his arguments for peace. With war in Europe looming, he accepted the tension of supporting his country while opposing war. As differences of opinion raised the rancor of the debate between war and peace, Fosdick pleaded for civility in discussion. (39)

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Fosdick began articulating his pacifism distinctively out of his vocation as a minister. First, he was a Christian apologist. His sermons addressed the current political climate while discussing how Christians could continue to live in hope in a warring world. (40) Second, Fosdick felt his service as a minister required him to be a pacifist. As the voice of the church, he felt compelled to keep Christ on his "judgment seat" above the strife of war. For no reason did Fosdick feel able to surrender his fervent belief that "it is not the function of the Christian church to help win a war." (41)

War Comes to America

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II, the pacifist movement that had risen to great heights in the 1920s-1930s lost almost all public support. Yet, Fosdick remained a committed pacifist. The Sunday following Pearl Harbor, he preached on "The Church of Christ in a Warring World." He repeatedly called Christians to avoid separating from the world and stated that they could support the troops while despising war. During World War II, Riverside's staff wrote personal letters to all of their members serving either as soldiers or as conscientious objectors. Church members packaged surgical dressings, donated blood, and welcomed furloughed troops into their sanctuary. (42) Fosdick aimed to keep Riverside's community together over and above their viewpoints on war.

Fosdick reminded other pacifists that they currently could not serve as a dominant voice in America. He continued, however, to advocate for international pacifism over against war or isolationist passivity. Fosdick also used the war to bring to light other domestic issues he had already connected with the war system, including economic injustice, race, and nationalism. While noting the horrors of Hitler's holocaust and working to bring European Jews to America, Fosdick also exposed America's own mistreatment of Japanese and African Americans. (43) He worked to make sure that nationalism trumped up in service to the war did not trample the civil liberties of its citizens at home. (44)

Fosdick's characteristic public optimism found an outlet in looking ahead to a postwar world. By the end of 1944, he confidently proclaimed that the United States would win the war, but he began to discuss how the world could win the peace. To that end, Fosdick reemphasized the need for international cooperation. He encouraged the victors to offer economic help, to feed the hungry, and to rehabilitate devastated countries in order to prevent the failures of the Versailles Treaty after World War I. (45)

Despite holding a minority pacifist position during World War II, Fosdick's popularity grew even greater. Attendance at Riverside increased as did his popularity in print and over the radio. Fosdick himself remarked that his preaching during the war was the best of his career. (46) His words not only served to help individuals cope with the current dark days but also reminded his listeners that they had an active role to play in creating a world where war was no longer a possibility.

Even after retirement from Riverside in 1946, Fosdick remained active in public life while never giving up his antiwar crusade. He spoke out against McCarthyism, Cold War diplomacy, and the Vietnam War. After embracing pacifism, Fosdick never doubted that Christianity's success was uniquely tied to the eradication of war.

Conclusions

In examining Fosdick's success as a public figure, one can make several conclusions. First, Fosdick remained successful because of his communication style. In developing his argument for pacifism, he relied upon his own testimony and rhetorical skills to articulate the absurdity of a Christian's support of war. He appealed to issues of both personal life and social involvement. Fosdick sought to speak to individual needs, even referring to his preaching as "counseling on a group scale." (47) He never shied away from addressing the hottest political issues, and his key methodological move was addressing both personal and social issues in the same sermon. Holding both politics and human personality in tension, he garnered a greater audience than if he would have focused on one aspect or the other. His collections of sermons illustrated the point.

Second, Fosdick's life illustrated a public persona who was comfortable articulating himself as a Christian, an American, and a committed internationalist simultaneously. Although critics may say he neglected local issues at the expense of larger concerns, Fosdick never segregated himself into any one sphere. Given an enormous platform, he employed it for the issue of peace. Yet, he never forsook his identity as a Christian minister. Fosdick distinguished himself by using his public persona as a minister to infuse his Christian principles into the national debate of war and peace.

Finally, Fosdick was a refreshing public figure, for he was willing to admit his mistakes, change his mind, and maintain his convictions even when unpopular. As a public figure in a rapidly changing era of American history, Fosdick embodied integrity. Unafraid to speak as his conscience dictated, he modeled for Baptists then and today the balance between public service and Christian convictions.

(1.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "The Unknown Soldier," in Secrets of Victorious Living (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934), 88-98.

(2.) Fosdick, "If America is Drawn into the War, Can You, as a Christian, Participate in it or Support it?" The Christian Century (Jan. 22, 1941): 118.

(3.) Robert Moats Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 335.

(4.) William B. Lawrence, Sundays in New York: Pulpit Theology at the Crest of the Protestant Mainstream 1930-1955 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996), 7.

(5.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 29.

(6.) Halford R. Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Persuasive Preacher (NY: Greenwood Press, 1989), 10.

(7.) Lawrence, Sundays in New York, 15.

(8.) See E. Glenn Hinson, "Baptist Contributions to Liberalism," in Baptist History and Heritage, 35, no. 1 (Winter 2000), 39-54.

(9.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Living of these Days: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 163. Also see Kenneth Cauthen, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962).

(10.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 64.

(11.) Lawrence, Sundays in New York, 77.

(12.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 76.

(13.) Ibid., 80.

(14.) Fosdick, The Living of these Days, 121.

(15.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Challenge of the Present Crisis (New York: Association Press, 1917), 9.

(16.) Ibid., 12.

(17.) Ibid., 28.

(18.) Ibid., v.

(19.) Ibid., 43.

(20.) Ibid., 24.

(21.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 79.

(22.) Ibid., 88.

(23.) "Shall We End War?" quoted in Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 26.

(24.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism," in Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 109.

(25.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "How Much Do We Want Peace?" in The Power To See It Through (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), 124.

(26.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 498.

(27.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "What the War Did to My Mind," The Christian Century (Jan. 5, 1928): 117.

(28.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "An Interpretation of Pacifism," in Secrets of Victorious Living, 100.

(29.) Robert Moats Miller, American Protestantism and Social Issues 1919-1939 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1958), 331,338.

(30.) Ryan, Persuasive Preacher, 28.

(31.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 503.

(32.) Fosdick, "Christianity's Supreme Rival," in The Hope of the World: Twenty-Five Sermons on Christianity Today (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933), 156.

(33.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "A Christian Conscience About War," in Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 96.

(34.) Miller, American Protestantism, 342.

(35.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 522.

(36.) Ibid., 513.

(37.) Fosdick, "When Christianity Gets Us in Trouble," in The Power To See It Through, 25.

(38.) Fosdick, "If America Is Drawn into the War," 118.

(39.) Ibid., 115.

(40.) Fosdick, "Don't Lose Faith in Human Possibilities," in Living Under Tension (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), 11.

(41.) Fosdick, "If America Is Drawn into the War," 115.

(42.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 534-36.

(43.) Fosdick, "The God Who Made Us and the Gods We Make," Living Under Tension, 127.

(44.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 539.

(45.) Harry Emerson Fosdick, "Keeping Faith in Persuasion in a World of Coercion," in A Great Time to be Alive (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 187.

(46.) Lawrence, Sundays in New York, 150.

(47.) Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, 251.

David P. King recently completed the Pastoral Residency Program at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, and is currently a doctoral student at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.