RELIGION AT THE FRONT
The war, like a great searchlight thrown across our individual and
national lives, has revealed men and nations to themselves. It has shown
us the nation's manhood suddenly stripped of the conventionalities, the
restraints, and the outward respectability of civil life, subjected to
the trial and testing of a prodigious strain. It has shown us the real
stuff of which men are made. It is like the X-ray photographs now
constantly used in all the military hospitals, and placed in the windows
of the operating rooms, to guide the surgeon in discovering the hidden
pieces of shrapnel or shattered bones which must be removed in order to
save the patient.
The war has been a great revelation of things both good and bad. In the
light of this terrible conflict, we may well ask what it shows us of the
present virtues and vices of the men, and of our past failure or success
in dealing with them, and to what future course of action it should
summon us? In other words, what lessons has the war to teach us? Large
numbers of young clergymen and laymen of the churches of England and
Scotland have gone to the war zone with the men as chaplains, Y M C A
workers, or in the army itself, and have learned to know men as they
never knew them before. We would covet this opportunity for every young
minister or Christian worker in America. Mr. Moody once stated that the
Civil War was his university. It was there he learned to understand the
human heart and to know and win men.
During the summer of 1917 a questionnaire was sent out to representative
religious workers throughout the armies in France and Great Britain by a
committee under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Winchester and
Professor D. S. Cairns, with Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y M C A, and the
Rev. Tissington Tatlow of the Student Christian Movement, as secretaries.
Although the results and findings of this committee are not yet
published, the writer has before him the reports of numbers of workers in
France. In the base camp where he was last working, the questions were
taken up by more than a hundred of the workers and discussed in
conferences with groups of the soldiers and officers of the various
regiments. These were summarized in findings and the reports were
compared with the returns made from other centers. The writer has had
the privilege of talking with hundreds of the soldiers regarding their
own religious lives and difficulties. In this chapter he will try to
form a composite photograph of all these impressions and to state
impartially the results of his own experience and those of others.
We shall confine ourselves to three outstanding questions: I. What are
the moral standards and actions of the men in war time? II. What is
their attitude to religion and what is their religious life at the front?
III. What is their attitude to the churches, and what lessons may the
Church learn from the men at the front?
The questionnaire has been answered mainly by men of the British army,
but the writer could observe no radical difference between the British
and American forces as regards their religious life. As in other things
connected with the war, we in America may learn much from the experience
of Britain and other nations.
I
_What are the moral standards and actions of the men in war time_? At
the very beginning, we must recognize the difficulty and danger of
generalizations. No two men in the army are precisely alike. All
sweeping generalizations are likely to be misleading. Regiments differ
from one another and workers receive differing impressions of the front.
Most of all we must distinguish between the different classes in the army.
It has been repeatedly affirmed that not more than 20 per cent of the men
now under arms among the British troops were connected with the churches
in any vital way before the war, or were regular in attendance at their
services. Of this minority perhaps a half--those who were weak or
nominal Christians before the war or have lost the higher standards of
peace time or have hidden whatever religion they may have had--would not
now be classed as definitely Christian men. But the remaining half, or
one-tenth of the total number in the army, would probably be out-and-out
Christians, strengthened by the severe discipline of the war and living
under distinctly Christian standards.
At the other or lower extreme, there are perhaps one-tenth who are
so-called "rotters," the men who set the evil standards of the camp and
whose conduct is almost altogether selfish and materialistic. Between
these two extremes are the great majority, or four-fifths, whom it is so
difficult to classify. It is our conviction that these men "are not
saved, but are salvable."
What are the moral standards of this majority? They are not definitely
Christian. Rather, they have a military, material standard of the type
of a somewhat primitive social group. Their expressions unconsciously
reveal their judgments. Their constant demand of one another is "to play
the game," that is, to play fair and to do one's part in order to win the
game for the good of all. Anything which harms, hinders, or endangers
another, which brings suffering to one's fellows or defeat to one's side,
is not playing the game. They condemn unmanly actions which bring
defeat, and praise the practical and virile virtues. As one chaplain
writes: "I believe nearly all live partly by faith in a good God. I have
never found men afraid to die, even though they were afraid before
battle. As to the standards by which they live, I should say they are
the sanctions of group morality. They have very lax ideas about
drunkenness and sexual irregularity, but they have very strict ideas
about the sacredness of social obligations within the groups to which
they belong. I would mention sheer fear of public opinion as one of the
great weaknesses of the men. They would rather be in the fashion than be
right. And most of them have been hardened--though not necessarily in a
bad sense."
As we ask ourselves what are the virtues which the majority admire in
others and practice themselves to a greater or lesser degree, we would
say that they are chiefly five:
1. _Courage_ or bravery, the first virtue of the ancients and always at a
natural premium in war time, is admired by all. In countless instances
in the camps or on the battlefield this rises to heroism or
self-sacrifice. Cowardice is scathingly condemned, and the man who
starts to run away on the battlefield is unhesitatingly shot down by his
comrades to preserve the morale of the fighting body.
2. _Brotherliness_, or comradeship, shows itself in unselfish service and
cooperation with others.
3. _Generosity_ and tender-heartedness show themselves in the men's
willingness to help a comrade, to share their last rations, and to insist
that others be attended to on the battlefield before themselves when they
lie wounded. These are among the most beautiful virtues which the war
has revealed.
4. _Straightforwardness_ and genuine honesty are demanded; and all cant,
hypocrisy, double dealing, shirking, and unreality are scathingly
condemned.
5. _Persistent cheerfulness_ in the midst of monotony, drudgery,
suffering, danger, or death, is admired and maintained by the majority.
This is not incompatible with the "grousing" or grumbling which the
Englishman regards as his prerogative. This good cheer shows itself in
the inveterate singing and whistling of the men on the march.[1]
Commenting upon the virtues of the soldiers, especially the wounded, a
hospital nurse writes: "I was struck by the amount of real goodness among
the men--their generosity, kindness, chivalry, patience, and
self-sacrifice. The sins which they dislike are those sins of the spirit
which Christ denounced most bitterly--hypocrisy, pride, meanness. They
love giving, they bear pain patiently, they honor true womanhood, they
reverence goodness."
Probably no one in the present war has given a better description of the
unconscious virtues of the soldiers than has Donald Hankey, in his
chapter on "The Religion of the Inarticulate," fragments of which we here
quote:
"We never got a chance to sit down and think things out. Praying was
almost an impossibility. . . . Above all, we were not going to turn
religious at the last minute because we were afraid. . . . The soldier,
and in this case the soldier means the workingman, does not in the least
connect the things that he really believes in with Christianity. . . .
Here were men who believed absolutely in the Christian virtues of
unselfishness, generosity, charity, and humility, without ever connecting
them in their minds with Christ; and at the same time what they did
associate with Christianity was just on a par with the formalism and smug
self-righteousness which Christ spent His whole life in trying to
destroy. . . . The men really had deep-seated beliefs in goodness. . . .
They never connected the goodness in which they believed with the God in
Whom the chaplains said they ought to believe. . . . They have a dim
sort of idea that He is misrepresented by Christianity. . . . If the
chaplain wants to be understood and to win their sympathy he must begin
by showing them that Christianity is the explanation and the
justification and the triumph of all that they do now really believe in.
He must start by making their religion articulate in a way which they
will recognize."
As we turn from the virtues to the vices or moral weaknesses of the
soldier in war time, we find that they also fall chiefly under five
headings:
1. _Impurity_ must certainly take the first place. Investigation seemed
to show that the majority of these men were immoral in peace time, but
the war has intensified this evil. This would be accounted for to a
large extent by the unnatural conditions under which the men are forced
to live, and the policy of the military authorities, who are often
concerned merely with the fighting fitness of the men, rather than with
the moral issues. However this may be, in nearly every camp or battalion
or regiment or body of men questioned, whether among officers or men, the
majority were confessedly living in immorality. This in itself is a
staggering fact. It could be supported here by numerous statements or
authorities and by much evidence.
2. _Obscene and profane language_ is sweeping like an epidemic through
the camps. It is infectious, and the worst men, who are the loudest
talkers, tend to set the standard, so that evil is rapidly and
unconsciously propagated until the very atmosphere becomes saturated. It
is some comfort to know that frequently words are used unthinkingly and
without a full realization of their original meaning. It is also
comforting to be assured that there is not much deliberate telling of
obscene stories. As one man puts it, "There are few essentially rotten
minds." When, however, the name of our Lord is used not only profanely,
but dragged into the most obscene and horrible connections, unheard of in
peace times, no possible excuse can be offered and the habit cannot but
prove deadening and baneful in its influence. Men who never before
thought of swearing find themselves driven to strong language and to
reckless, heightened, or intensified expression in the trying and
persistent strain of war time.
3. _Drunkenness_ has always proved the danger of the soldier. The
discipline of the army has lessened this evil within the camps.
Certainly it is being sternly suppressed and severely punished by the
authorities among the newly arrived American troops. The rum which is
given to the soldiers of the British army before a charge, or in the
extreme cold of the trenches, has taught some men to drink who had not
contracted the habit before. It is also a fact that the drink bill of
England has increased during the war. Lloyd George said: "We are
fighting against Germany, Austria, and Drink; but the greatest of these
three deadly foes is Drink." The drink trade of England is maintained on
the one hand by the powerful vested interests and the respectable
moderate drinkers at the top of society, who are not willing to sacrifice
their selfish comfort for the weaker brother, and on the other hand by
the demand of the laboring classes who will have their beer, and whom the
government does not dare oppose in the present crisis. Drink has been a
curse to Britain during the war.
4. _Gambling_ is a danger to the soldier. It is strictly forbidden in
most of its forms by the military authorities. The game of "House" is
tolerated as a mild form of gambling, where the men play for hours for
very small stakes in order to kill time. The game of "Crown and Anchor"
is also popular.
5. _A lack of moral courage_, of independence, and of individual
initiative are particular evils of the present. All the men have to act
together. They are taught to obey under rigid discipline. Individual
initiative is crushed or left undeveloped. The sense of personal
responsibility and of personal ownership is often weakened. This lack of
the sense of private property may partly account for the pilfering which
goes on. The men find it exceedingly difficult to take an open stand on
moral or religious questions before their comrades. A soldier will
ordinarily hide his religion and is afraid to be seen praying or doing
anything that makes him peculiar, although the most immoral and obscene
man is not ashamed of his actions.
A lieutenant of the Royal Irish Rifles says: "Taken singly they are
afraid to face public opposition, anxious to avoid bother and exertion,
slack, and easily overcome by temptations. There is a fairly general
chaotic unrest, but little or no serious thought. There is a greater
tolerance towards vice. Many more men practice sexual vice than before
and most refuse to condemn it. It might be said that the men are more
open to religion, but less religious. They are also more open on the
question of sacrifice, the need for living or dying for others."
An army chaplain who himself served in the ranks writes of the soldier:
"He lives an animal life in which the thinking is done for him. Indeed
his relative comfort depends upon the extent to which he can abstain from
thinking. In France the number who take drink increases greatly. It is
wicked, damnably wicked that our lads through ignorance should be allowed
to slip into sins which in themselves are deadly, but which also open the
door to deadlier sins. . . . There are many indications that when the
Army returns there will be a great social upheaval. Men feel that they
are out to fight Prussianism, but they are becoming growingly conscious
of Prussianism in our own national life. They are very conscious of it
in military life."
If we were to sum up our impressions we would be compelled to say that
there has been an increase of immorality, drinking, and bad language
during the period of the war.
II
Let us now ask, _What is the attitude of the men to religion, and what
are the characteristics of their religious life in war time_? The war
seems to have intensified all the tendencies of peace time. It makes a
man a greater sinner or a greater saint. He is either driven to God or
away from Him. It would be impossible for any single human mind
adequately to sum up the good and evil of war, and strike a balance
between the two. Most Christians cannot believe that war is in itself
good. To those who have seen its hideous reality it is unquestionably a
dire evil. Even the best results of war might have been better attained
by other means. The good is often revealed rather than caused by it. A
moral equivalent for war might have been found. Certainly no Christian
could defend war save as a last resort, forced upon a nation in defense
of its life or for the lives of others, when all more rational or
judicial methods had failed.
Among the obvious _evil results of war_ we would be compelled to name at
least ten: The wanton destruction of human life; the maiming and
suffering inflicted upon the wounded; the breaking up of homes and the
terrible suffering caused to women and children; the loss of wealth and
property, with the subsequent hardship for the poor which it entails, and
the destruction of art, architecture, and the higher material
accomplishments of civilization; the outbreak of immorality and
drunkenness, which always accompanies war; the hardening of the finer
sensibilities of men through the cruelty and barbarity of modern warfare;
the increase of hatred and suspicion; the dividing of humanity and the
destruction of its sense of unity, brotherhood, and cooperation; the
breakdown of international law and respect for law and order; and the
loss of reverence for human life and the sense of its priceless value.
An equal number of possible _good effects_ may be mentioned which war may
at times call out: The development of courage and heroism; the call to
sacrifice in the sinking of selfish individual interests for the sake of
a cause; the discipline of obedience and the development of corporate
action; the bringing of men out of selfish and careless lives to the
facing of the great realities of God, life, death, and immortality; the
awful object lesson of the results of sin, both personal and national,
and the teaching of the terrible lesson that "the wages of sin is death";
the widening of men's horizons, the breaking of old molds, ruts, and
restrictions and the opening of men's minds to new ideas; the chastening
and mellowing influence of suffering, with its possible development of
sympathy, tenderness, and unselfishness; the deepening of the sense of
brotherhood within a single nation with the sinking of the false or
artificial social distinctions of peace time; the strengthening of
religious unity by the stripping off of nonessentials and the laying bare
of the great simple fundamentals; and the new contact with the practical
ministry of religion in hours of deepest need in camps, in hospitals, and
on the battlefields, with the resultant strengthening hold on the great
verities of the love of God, the cross of Christ, and the service of men.
It will depend upon the individual and his theories of life how he will
strike the balance between these two sides of the good and evil of war.
While the good effects of a war are seen more clearly after it is over,
certainly during the war the vast majority of men at the front would
almost unanimously agree that the preponderating influence and effect for
the time being is evil.
At the beginning of the war in 1914 there was talk of a religious revival
in the various countries. The churches for a time were filled. The
opening of the war drove men to God. With the passing months, which have
now dragged into years, many of the high ideals have gradually been
lowered or lost. Men are certainly ready to listen to a living message
and are probably more open than ever before in their lives to religious
influences, because of their desperate need. They are between the nether
and upper millstones of sin and death. On the one hand they meet the
pressure of terrible temptations, and on the other they have to face the
awful fact of death, unready and unprepared. But although the men are
open to a religious message and to the Christian challenge presented by
one who has a real message, it could hardly be maintained by anyone that
there is a revival of religion at the front today. Rather the opposite
is true.
A friend of the present writer, a chaplain in charge of the religious
work in one of the five armies at the front, well says:
"On the whole, I venture to say, there is not a great revival of the
Christian religion at the front. Deep in their hearts is a great trust
and faith in God. It is an inarticulate faith expressed in deeds. The
top levels, as it were, of their consciousness, are much filled with
grumbling and foul language and physical occupations; but beneath lie
deep spiritual springs, whence issue their cheerfulness, stubbornness,
patience, generosity, humility, and willingness to suffer and to die.
There is religion about; only, very often it is not the Christian
religion. Rather it is natural religion. It is the expression of a
craving for security. Literally it is a looking for salvation."
It may be asked, To what extent are the men thinking of religion and
discussing its problems? One friend of the writer, a young Anglican
chaplain, says: "The men are not thinking at all. They are 'carrying
on.' They spend hours in playing a game like House because it requires
no thought." However, it would probably be fairer to say that at times
all of them think about religion, although they do not talk very much
about it. It is not, however, consistent thought leading to action.
Rather they have moments of deep impressions, vague longings, intuitions,
and hunger of heart. But the minute anyone starts a discussion or begins
to attack religion, men show that they have been thinking, or that they
have ideas of their own in private.
Most of them believe in God, although they do not know Him in a personal
way. They believe in religion, but have not made it vital and dominant
in their lives. They have a vague sense or intuition that there is a God
and that He is a good God, round about and above them. He is looked
upon, however, not as One whom they are to seek first, but rather as a
last resort; not as a present Father and constant Friend, but as One to
whom they can turn in time of need. They have a vague feeling of
unworthiness, although no clear sense of sin. Yet they also have an
inarticulate belief or intuition that they have tried, however brokenly
or unsuccessfully, to live up to such light as they had or to some
standard of their own. They feel that somehow, though they have often
failed, at bottom they are not so very bad, and that God is very, very
good. Their vague feeling would probably find its most accurate
expression in Faber's hymn, "There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the
wideness of the sea."
They revere God from afar off and in one compartment of their being, but
they have never opened their lives to Him. They have a reverence for Him
in the face of death, in the hour of need, and in the great crises of
life. Most of them like to sing the Christian hymns on Sunday evening
and have thoughts of home and of loved ones that are sacred. They do not
feel that they have come into close personal relations with God, but
neither do they consciously feel that they are out of relation with Him.
They do not think they are altogether right with Him, but neither do they
feel in the bottom of their hearts that they are wholly wrong with Him.
The vast majority of them in the hour of death do not feel that they have
either consciously accepted or rejected Him. They have not loved
darkness rather than light, nor have they wholly chosen the light and
rejected the darkness.
It will depend upon the individual how he classifies these men. Some
will believe that the great love of the Good Shepherd, who laid down His
life for the sheep, will somehow in the end not be thwarted in His
seeking to save the lost. Not only will men differ in their judgment,
but it is exceedingly difficult to pass judgment upon an individual
soldier. He seems to be a different man under different circumstances.
In the temptations at the base camp, he would perhaps appear to be
utterly irreligious and profane. He can hardly be recognized as the same
man as he prays in the hour of battle, or as he lies wounded, chastened,
and sobered, in the hospital. Which situation reveals the true man?
Before us as we write lies the photograph of a young sergeant. Before
the war he was an atheist, an illegitimate child, a member of the
criminal class. But in the trenches he found God. Blown up by a mine,
for sixteen days he lost the power of speech and of memory. He returned
from the front with a deep sense of God, but with no personal, vital
relationship to Christ. He eagerly welcomed the first real message that
went straight to his heart, and the personal word of loving sympathy
which led him to relate his deep experience of the trenches to the
presence of the living Christ. All this man needed was someone to
interpret to him his own experience, and bring him into the relationship
with God which his own heart craved and longed for.
Beside this photograph is the card of a strong-willed, self-righteous
young Pharisee, who had no use for religion in peace time, but who was
driven to God by his awful conflict with sin in this war. Next comes the
card of a young man who formerly had lived a proper conventional life
without bad habits. The war taught him to drink and he finally became a
drunkard, but in his extremity he found Christ as a personal Saviour.
Next comes the card of a man who had been in a public house for
thirty-two years--twenty-seven years as a bar tender and five years as a
saloon keeper. He said, "I have sent men to hell with drink. I have
seen women who would sell the clothes off the backs of their children or
pawn their husband's clothing to get drink." Yet this man has been
brought to God during the war. Many a man has found God on the field of
battle, or like the thief has turned to him in the hour of death.[2]
[Illustration: Three Thousand Soldiers in the Crowboro Hut.]
One young soldier thus describes his experience which is typical of many
another: There had been a charge, a hopeless affair from the start. He
lay in the long grass between the lines, unable to move, and with an
unceasing throbbing pain in his left leg and arm. A whizz-bang had
caught him in both places. He just lay there, feeling strangely
peaceful. Above him he could see the stars. All this bloodshed--what
was the good of it? He suddenly felt terribly small and lonely, and he
was so very, very weak. "God!" he whispered softly. "God everywhere!"
Then into his tired brain came a new phrase--"Underneath are the
everlasting arms." He sighed contentedly, as a tired child. They
fetched him in at last. He will never again be sound of limb; but there
is in his memory and in his heart that which may make him a staunch
fighter in other fields. He has learned a new way of prayer, and the
courage that is born of faith well-founded.
The idea has been widely preached by many British chaplains that death in
battle saves. This may be good Mohammedanism, but it is surely not the
Christian message that is given to Christ's ministers to preach. The
verse most often quoted in support of this theory is: "Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But such
a passage cannot be taken out of its context either in Christ's teaching
or in the man's own life. Our Lord had said that we were to love even as
He loved, that is, out of a pure and surrendered heart to lay down our
life for our friends; and He added, "Ye are my friends if ye do the
things which I command you." It is going far beyond the province of the
Christian minister to offer any hope other than that which is offered by
our Lord Himself. It is not death or a bullet or battle that saves.
Christ only saves, and there is no other name given under heaven. This
offer is made to all men and at all times.
But although one may not preach so dangerous and misleading a doctrine,
it is nevertheless possible to realize that many a man is unconsciously
more of a Christian than he knows, and that in the last day he may say
with surprise: "When saw I Thee an hungered and fed Thee?"
We may turn to "A Student in Arms" for his interpretation of the feeling
of the common soldier in this crisis:
"Then at last we 'got out.' We were confronted with dearth, danger, and
death. . . . They, who had formerly been our despair, were now our
glory. Their spirits effervesced. Their wit sparkled. Hunger and
thirst could not depress them. Rain could not damp them. Cold could not
chill them. Every hardship became a joke. . . . Never was such a
triumph of spirit over matter. . . . If it was another fellow that was
hit, it was an occasion for tenderness and grief. But if one of them was
hit, O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory? . . .
Life? They did not value life! They had never been able to make much of
a fist of it. But if they lived amiss they died gloriously, with a smile
for the pain and the dread of it. What else had they been born for? It
was their chance. With a gay heart they gave their greatest gift, and
with a smile to think that after all they had anything to give which was
of value. One by one Death challenged them. One by one they smiled in
his grim visage, and refused to be dismayed. They had been lost, but
they had found the path that led them home; and when at last they laid
their lives at the feet of the Good Shepherd, what could they do but
smile?"
It has been well said that there is much natural religion in the
trenches, but that much of this religion is not Christian. What is the
attitude of the men to Christ Himself? Most of them associate Him with
all that is highest and noblest in life. They link Him with God in their
thought, and with themselves in their time of deepest need. Although His
name with that of God is sometimes taken on their lips in profanity,
there is often a deep reverence for Him. Thousands have seen the cross
of Christ standing among the ruins in the villages of Belgium and
Northern France, when all about seems to be battered and wrecked. The
old skeptical theories and captious criticisms of pre-war days are little
heard during this awful time. Generally speaking, the facts of the
gospel narrative are not disputed. They believe in Christ as the
revelation of God. They have no difficulty with the doctrine of the
divinity of Christ and do not doubt that He is a living reality and has
power to save. Their only difficulty is with their own sin. They do not
know how to break from it or are unwilling to give it up.
The great need of the hour is for interpretation. On the one hand, men
have had in their hours of great need a deep experience of God which they
do not understand; yet on the other hand, they are gripped by the power
of temptation which alone they cannot overcome. They admire the virtues
of courage, generosity, and purity, but for the most part they see no
connection between these and the presentation of Christ in the lives and
words of those about them who profess to be Christians. What is needed
is personally to relate the man to the God and Father of Jesus Christ,
with Whom he has been brought face to face at the battle front. There is
urgent and imperative need of the giving of that message, both in public
presentation and in the channels of personal friendship.
One chaplain says of the men: "I am sure the soldier has got religion: I
am sure he has got Christianity; but he does not know he has got
Christianity. I am convinced that of the hundreds of men who go into
action the majority come out affected towards good rather than coarsened.
They come out realizing that there are times when they cannot get on
without God; they are not frightened of Him, they flee to Him with their
simple cries for strength."
While another, a student who laid down his life at the front, makes this
valuable suggestion as to the presentation of Christ: "When I was talking
to them at these services, I always used to try to make them feel that
Christ was the fulfilment of all the best things that they admired, that
He was their natural hero. I would tell them some story of heroism and
meanness contrasted, of courage and cowardice, of noble forgiveness and
vile cruelty, and so get them on the side of the angels. Then I would
try and spring it upon them that Christ was the Lord of the heroes and
the brave men and the noble men, and that He was fighting against all
that was mean and cruel and cowardly, and that it was up to them to take
their stand by His side if they wanted to make the world a little better
instead of a little worse."
III
The third question discussed with the men was, _What is the attitude of
the soldier to the churches, and what lesson has the Church to learn from
the present war_? Let it be said at the very outset that the writer
speaks as a member of the Church and in deep sympathy with it. As the
divinely constituted organization which stands for the highest human
ideals, and for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, we all
are, or ought to be, members of the Church. "With charity for all and
with malice toward none," we see no ground for self-complacence on the
part of any branch of the Church, and no part of it which deserves
sweeping condemnation from the rest. Doubtless it will seem to many that
it is unwise to confess our faults, but the men at the front are not
silent, however much we may desire to be. We would do well to face the
facts which this war is forcing upon our attention, however much we may
dislike the searching glare of the present conflict. Obviously something
is wrong. Had the Church fulfilled her divine mission, the present war
between so-called "Christian" nations would have been impossible.
As was stated in the preceding chapter, according to the opinion of the
majority, less than 20 per cent or one-fifth of the men are vitally
related to any of the Christian communions. A series of conferences held
with individuals and carefully selected groups of men and officers
brought out by a general consensus of opinion the following points as
representing the attitude of the men toward the churches:
1. _Indifference to the Church_. As one typical young sergeant, a member
of the student movement, puts it: "The men simply have no time for it.
They do not care for the Church because it did not care for them." There
is a general feeling that the churches do not understand them or
sympathize with the social and industrial disabilities of the men. They
feel that the ideals of life for which the Church stands are dull, dim,
and altogether unnatural; its standard of comfort and complacent
respectability makes no appeal to them and they have no part or lot in
it. They feel that this respectability of the Church is quite in keeping
with flagrant selfishness in social and industrial relationships, that
the Church is largely in the possession of the privileged classes, who
monopolize it, and who have neither sought nor welcomed them within its
doors.
As one representative chaplain in a most influential position in France
says: "There is the plain fact that the great mass of men are out with
the Christian Church, and do not look to it as being in any vital
relation to life as they know it, either in peace or war. There is the
deeper and sadder fact that to a very large proportion of them God
Himself means little or nothing, or means something that is very
unchristian. Where there is a living presentation of religion men are
responsive--extraordinarily so. Put it how you will, men must be
summoned to a new thought, a new outlook on life, a new attitude towards
the unseen and eternal."
2. An attitude of _separation and alienation_ from the Church. For the
most part the men are largely ignorant of what the Church really is, and
for this the churches are largely responsible. They believe that its
message and presentation of truth are often too feminine and impractical
and that its fellowship is too cold and exclusive. They do not
understand the vocabulary and tone adopted frequently by preachers in
speaking of religious things, and they feel that the churches are almost
complete strangers to the real facts of life with which they have to deal.
It is true that the practical work of the churches in their helpful
ministry through the various organizations working in the camps has
brought many of the men into vital contact with religion for the first
time. But the war has revealed the lack of the churches' hold upon the
men in pre-war times.
3. _Criticism of its worldliness_. The men have an unuttered belief in
God, and they reverence Jesus Christ as the friend and brother and
comrade of man, as the embodiment of the highest ideal they can conceive.
But they feel that somehow the churches do not adequately represent
Christ, that they have become merely the adjunct of the State to second
its schemes and aims. Many feel that the Church has lowered its colors
in the present war, that in some countries it has been little more than a
recruiting station for enlistment and that its message cannot be
reconciled with the Sermon on the Mount.
One sergeant thus states his convictions: "Perhaps it would be well if we
out here could get up a committee of inquiry on 'Civilians and Religion'
and arrive at some decision as to what is the matter with you at home.
Are we to return home where the spiritual fires have been kept burning
brightly, or to the blackened ashes of those great ideals of the early
days of August, 1914, which have burned themselves out? Are we to return
to a country in which, in spite of all the community of suffering and
sorrow, the Christian churches have still their differences simmering
instead of being regiments in one common Army?"
Another soldier writes: "What could not the churches do for the world if
they could only connect the symbols Christ gave us with the knowledge
that is within the hearts of men? There must be more known about
suffering and sacrifice now in the hearts of men than at any past time.
I thought once, on the Somme, that the two races facing each other in
such agony were as the two thieves on their crosses reviling each other,
and that somewhere between us, if we could but see Him, was Christ on His
Cross."
4. The men are _bewildered and repelled by the Church's divisions_.
There is a widespread feeling among them that there is something wrong
here, that instead of representing Christ or losing themselves in the
wide interests of His Kingdom, instead of concern for the winning of the
world and humanity as a whole, the aims of many of the churches are
petty, narrow, exclusive, and sectarian. There is a feeling among the
men that far too many Christians are working for themselves or for their
own particular branch of the Church, or are, as one of them puts it, "out
for their own show."
In the last hospital we visited, the young American Episcopal chaplain
working with one of our own units asked the writer to accompany him one
morning to help him in cheering up the patients, giving them Testaments,
meeting their needs, and answering their doubts and difficulties. While
we were proceeding through one of the wards, the Nonconformist chaplain
came by. The writer was speaking to a poor boy who was dying. The
chaplain seemed shocked and surprised that we were speaking to one of his
patients without his permission. The young Episcopal chaplain explained
that he felt sure that the chaplain would not mind if we tried to help
the men. Although he followed him out of the ward and tried his best to
make his peace with him, the chaplain reported the matter, and we were
prevented from doing personal Christian work in neighboring hospitals.
The Roman Catholic chaplain in the next hospital, a most consecrated and
earnest man, has managed to get a military rule passed that no services
can be held in any ward of the hospital unless every Roman Catholic
patient is bodily carried out. This has successfully prevented the
holding of any Christian services whatsoever, Catholic or Protestant.
Throughout the entire war we have never known of a single instance of any
man trying to proselytize or to divert a soldier from allegiance to his
own church. We have known of men leaving the churches altogether during
the war, but not one instance of a man's changing his church or being
asked to do so. Yet the jealousy and suspicion of the bare possibility
of men's doing so has blocked and excluded much genuine Christian work.
To give another instance--a personal friend of the writer, a young
Anglican clergyman, a widely known college principal, was serving in one
of the huts of a Convalescent Camp. He had made the acquaintance of the
patients in some twelve wards and was going the rounds every morning
telling the war news, giving oranges to the fevered, and cheering up the
depressed. The Commandant came with apologies and told him that although
he was doing the best Christian work in the hospital it must be
discontinued, as the chaplain objected. Our friend, who was a clergyman
of the same communion as the chaplain, called upon him and asked if he
had any objection to the distribution of fruit. He replied that if our
friend did this it would give an unfair advantage to his work as his
particular organization would get the credit, and that he, as the
chaplain, must "push his own show." To continue in the words of our
friend: "Then I asked him if I could send the fruit through the lady
workers or the hut orderlies, or the 'Tommies' who were friends of the
wounded. But he refused all. So I asked him if he would distribute them
if I gave them. This he agreed to, and I have sent them to him since
then. But he is too busy." The oranges were not distributed, and our
friend concludes: "I am out against the whole principle on which he acts.
I don't think he is much to be blamed. He is one of the best; a keen,
hard-working, pleasant man, zealous for his 'own show,' and in its
interests doing much for the men. And in his principle of action he is
not an exception, but a common type of the Anglican _padre_ as I have met
them in many lands. They are trained and encouraged to 'push their own
show.' But this keenness on one's 'own show' rather than on men, is the
very essence of the sin of schism, and the very root of Pharisaism. Now,
as a rule, all the sects stand for their 'own show' first, and men know
it. I am ashamed to be a parson today. Men were not made for any
Church, but the Church for them." Here again, which of us is without
sin, and who can throw the first stone at his brother, or at other
branches of the sadly divided Church of Christ?
Facing the vast common need in war time with four thousand wounded
patients, whom no one chaplain could visit, the whole story is obviously
pathetic and sad. The writer also recalls visiting a Y M C A hut of
another nationality, where the secretary was so obviously "out for his
own show," and had become so engrossed in the counter of his dry canteen
and his work as a money-changer, that he had forgotten all the higher
interests of the men, and the high purpose for which he was there. He
had become a mere secularized machine, a kind of automatic cash register,
mistaking in his work the means for the end. He was just as much "out
for his own show" as the three mentioned above, and it was an infinitely
smaller "show."
Here we have four instances of men, each conscientious, well meaning, and
earnest; each zealous for his own work and his own organization; yet each
earning the pity or contempt of the great body of men outside the
churches today who are out of sympathy with sectarian zeal. The saddest
religious spectacle the writer ever witnessed was in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where five chapels divide that sacred spot
where our Lord is supposed to have been crucified, occupied by five
bodies, each claiming to be _the_ church. The blood of their fellow
Christians has been shed by the followers of these churches on this very
spot, and it is a humiliating sight to see them kept apart even to this
day by the Turkish bayonet alone. How many of us are working for "our
own show," rather than for the Kingdom of God?
The war work of the Y M C A in America, in England, in France, and
elsewhere has been made possible only by churchmen sacrificing their
individual interests and losing themselves in service for the Kingdom.
The Association represents the churches at work on behalf of the
suffering men in the war zone. If it should claim the credit for itself
as though it were a wholly independent organization, rather than the
united work of the churches which have sunk their own differences to make
possible this common work, this would be only a manifestation of the same
spirit and more inexcusable. But such a claim it could never truly make.
As a matter of fact, this united work has proved how truly Christians of
various bodies can get together on a great practical issue. If, as at
present, all can unite in a great lay organization, what may not the
churches themselves do in the future?
Should we not in this war repent, in bitterness and deep humiliation, for
our unhappy divisions and each resolve that he will work for nothing less
than the whole Kingdom of God, and that no member of that Kingdom, even
one of these least, shall be excluded from the love and fellowship which
make us one in Him? One of the chaplains in France who has himself been
in the ranks says: "I feel that in the past churches have been more
anxious to get men into the Kingdom of the Church than into the Kingdom
of God, with the result that very many are Pillars of the Church who are
not near to the Kingdom. Out of the two battalions which I have known as
a private soldier, I should say that not more than five per cent were
vitally related to any of the Christian communions. It is useless making
plans for the time when the boys come home, unless the Church rediscovers
her Lord and Master. The Spirit-filled Church is more necessary than any
modifications of organization."
Is not the whole war a call to deep humiliation to the Church of Christ
and should we not all stand convicted of sin before it? So far as our
saving the world is concerned and our bringing in the Kingdom of love and
peace, which Christ came to establish, does not the war write in flaming
judgment against us, "Thou art weighed in the balances and found
wanting"? Are we not all, like the Pharisees of old, too ready to throw
the first stone at someone else who we may think caused the war, instead
of admitting our own guilt?
As Arnold Freeman, in his lectures at Sheffield University, says:
"We persuade one another that it was the Kaiser, through his lust for
self-glorification, who made this war. Would it be possible for one man
to transform all Europe into a slaughter-house unless that same
Kaiser-spirit found its response in human nature in every corner of this
continent? It is the 'Kaiser' in each one of us that makes wars
possible. It is because we have in every nation, and in every class,
multitudes of men and women who neglect the service of their
fellow-creatures in a desire for self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement,
that this catastrophe has fallen upon us all. It is a case of
devil-possession, and our only hope is to exorcise ourselves of the evil
spirit. Our avowed intention is to cast out 'Kaiserism' in Germany by
brute force. We must be no less resolute to cast it out of this country."
The Bishop of Carlisle has well said that if we were really Christians
this war would not have happened. If the defense of its citizens is the
work of the State, and the redemption of the world is the task of the
Church, no one can deny that the State has done its work far better than
the Church. In the face of this, the most pathetic spectacle that the
Christian world ever witnessed, must we not wring our hands with shame
and cry, "Why could we not cast it out?" The divisions, the impotence,
the worldliness, the coldness, the sin and failure of the Church stand
revealed in the lurid light of this war.
What a self-righteous spirit the war has bred in many of us, and what a
hatred of our enemies! One has but to read the secular and religious
press on both sides of the present conflict to see our sin writ large
before us. Since we have such a keen vision for the mote in our
brother's eye and such an eager perception of every flaw in our enemy, we
can recognize this spirit most readily if we look for it first in
Germany, but in doing so let us clearly recognize that every quotation
can be paralleled by the press both secular and religious on our own side
of the conflict. In all fairness let us state that a large proportion of
the sermons which have been preached in the churches of Germany, England,
and America have had a recognition of the sins of their own people. But
there have been many preachers on both sides who have praised their own
nation to the skies with Pharisaic self-righteousness, and have seen the
enemy only with the distorted eyes of prejudice and hate.
It will not be necessary to quote here the notorious "Hymn of Hate," by
Ernst Lissauer, which was distributed by the Crown Prince of Bavaria to
his army. Rather let us quote from some of the sermons and poems of
German pastors and the religious press. In a collection of poems
published by a German pastor, Konsistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, there
occurred the following paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer: "Though the
warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and tenfold woe unto
the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each bullet and each blow
which misses its mark! Lead us not into the temptation of letting our
wrath be too tame in carrying out Thy divine judgment! Deliver us and
our Ally from the infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine is the
kingdom, the German land; may we, by aid of Thy steel-clad hand, achieve
the power and the glory." Fortunately, this was deleted in the later
editions of this book.
The published sermons of Pastor H. Francke are also typical:
"As Jesus was treated, so also have the German people been treated. From
the East the Russian threatens us. Injustice and bloody deeds of
violence are his life-element, agreements and constitutions, solemnly
sworn to, have no significance for him; he is stained with blood from top
to toe. Germany is precisely--who would venture to deny it?--the
representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of the
most chastened Christianity. They envy us our freedom, our power to do
our work in peace. To heal the world by the German nature is to become a
blessing to the people of the earth. Wherever the German spirit obtains
supremacy, there freedom prevails. Here we come upon the old intimate
kinship between the essence of Christianity and of Germanism. Because of
their close spiritual relationship, therefore, Christianity must find its
fairest flower in the German mind. Therefore we have a right to say:
'Our German Christianity--the most perfect, the most pure.' Thus the
Germans are the very nearest to the Lord. Is He the God of those others?
No, they serve at best Satan, the father of lies."
The Rev. J. Rump writes in the same strain:
"Against us stands the world's greatest sham of a nation, the 'English
cousin,' the Judas among the nations, who betrays Germanism for thirty
pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual France, the harlot amongst
the peoples. Against us stands Russia, inwardly rotten, mouldering,
masking its disease under outbursts of brutality. Germany shall be the
Israel of the future. The Germans are guiltless, and from all sides
testimonies are flowing in as to the noble manner in which our troops
conduct the war. We fight--thanks and praise be to God--for the cause of
Jesus within mankind. Verily the Bible is our book. It was given and
assigned to us, which proclaims to mankind salvation or
disaster--according as we will it." [3]
Such quotations could be multiplied not only from German war sermons, but
from some that have been preached in England and America as well.[4] The
Archbishop of Canterbury says: "I get letters in which I am urged to see
to it that we insist upon 'reprisals, swift, bloody and unrelenting. Let
gutters run with German blood. Let us smash to pulp the German old men,
women and children,' and so on." [5]
Here is Henri de Regnier's song of hate from France:
"I swear to cherish in my heart this hate
Till my last heart-throb wanes;
So may the sacred venom of my blood
Mingle and charge my veins!
May there pass never from my darkened brow
The furrows hate has worn!
May they plough deeper in my flesh, to mark
The outrage I have borne!
By towns in flames, by my fair fields laid waste,
By hostages undone,
By cries of murdered women and of babes,
By each dead warrior son, . . .
I take my oath of hatred and of wrath
Before God, and before
The holy waters of the Marne and Aisne,
Still ruddy with French gore;
And fix my eyes upon immortal Rheims,
Burning from nave to porch,
Lest I forget, lest I forget who lit
The sacrilegious torch!"
A poem recently written by an "Unbeliever" represents all the churches,
Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran and Reformed, of the enemy and of the
Allies, at last united in one message, which furnishes the recurring
refrain of the poem, "In Jesus' Name go forth and slay."
With two-thirds of the world, representing more than twenty nations,
already dragged into the widening vortex of the present war; with more
than five millions of the finest youth of Europe already slaughtered on
the battlefield, with twenty millions who have already been wounded,
nearly forty millions under arms, and whole nations organized for war and
the manufacture of munitions; with the flood tide of impurity and
immorality which war has brought in its train; with the barbarism and
cruelty, poison gas, flaming oil, and organized destruction used at
present on the battlefields of Europe, is it not time for the Church to
set her own house in order, to humble herself with shame in the very dust
for her criminal impotence and worldliness and sin, and to return to her
crucified Lord and Master? Is it not time that we seek a new vision of
His face, to renew our consecration before Him, and to seek a vital and
life-giving message first for ourselves and then for the world about us?
Not for "our country right or wrong," not for a Pharisaic
self-righteousness, but for Christ and His suffering world, for a whole
Kingdom, and a whole Church, must we reconsecrate ourselves.
As Fosdick says, "The issue was drawn: _Christianity would be a failure
if it did not stop slavery_. And from the day that this issue was drawn,
the result was assured. It was not Christianity that failed, it was
slavery. . . . This, too, is a climactic day in history. For so long
time the Gospel and war have lived together in ignoble amity! If at last
disharmony between the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of war is becoming
evident, then a great hope has dawned for the race. . . . The main issue
is clear. _Christianity will indeed have failed if it does not stop
war_." [6]
Is it not time that we turn to God in humiliation and prayer for an
outpouring of His spirit and a deeply needed revival of religion? In the
words of Admiral Sir David Beatty, the Commander of the British Fleet,
"England still remains to be taken out of her stupor of self-satisfaction
and complacency and until she be stirred out of this condition, until
religious revival takes place at home, just so long will the war
continue."
If at the call of nationalism the manhood of the nation has poured forth
in boundless heroism and self-sacrifice, at the call of Christ cannot His
Church rise again to its high vocation? If half of the zeal and passion,
half of the outpouring of life and treasure, of organization and
efficiency, that the State has put into this war could be thrown into the
cause of the Kingdom and of the eternal verities, the world would soon be
won. If Christians would but follow Christ, war, as an unbelievably
brutal and barbarous anachronism, like its former savage contemporaries
of slavery, the burning of witches, and the torture of the Inquisition,
would be forever done away. The message with which our Lord challenges
the whole Church today is that with which He began His ministry when He
faced His apostate nation, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand."
[1] The songs of the men which are most popular in war time bear evidence
of this unconscious virtue. They fall into three classes. There are the
songs of cheer so popular in the camps today: "Pack Up Your Troubles in
Your Own Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile," "Are We Down-hearted, No,"
"Though Your Heart May Ache Awhile Never Mind," etc. Then there are the
songs of home: "Keep the Home Fires Burning," "Tipperary," "Take Me Back
to Dear Old Blighty," "Put Me on the Train to London Town," "Back Home in
Tennessee," "In My Old Kentucky Home," "There's a Long, Long Trail
Awinding," "Give Me Your Smile," "If You Were the Only Girl in The
World," "Mother McCrae," etc. Then there are the songs of nationality;
The "Marseillaise," "John Brown's Body," "When Irish Eyes are Smiling,"
"Come Back to Erin," "Annie Laurie," etc.
[2] See Appendix III for a typical expression of a soldier's new
experience of religion at the front.
[3] Quoted in "Hurrah and Hallelujah," pp. 116-119.
[4] It is interesting to note in this connection some words of Immanuel
Kant. See Appendix I.
[5] _London Times_, June 22, 1917.
[6] "The Challenge of the Present Crisis," Association Press.