Some Safeguards for All Concerned

Neither the pacifist nor the nonpacifist can say, "My position is wholly good." In either case the Christian is involved in guilt and wrongdoing. This does not mean, however, that the Christian is morally helpless. There are certain things any Christian can do in time of war or in times when war threatens:

1. You can refuse to hate. No matter how tense the cold war or how bitter the hot, you can refuse to give in to the vindictiveness and calculated hatred which characterize nations at such times. You can recognize that you are involved in the evil of the situation, and that your nation bears part of the responsibility for the situation.

2. You can support positive measures that will help to counteract the threat of war. This might mean supporting legislation to send food, clothes, and machines to downtrodden areas.

It might mean sending them yourself (at least the first two). It might mean support of attempts to rebuild areas that have been devastated by bombs. It might mean backing all attempts to get "enemy" nations together around a conference table. There is almost no limit to the kinds of things it might mean.

3. You can counteract some of the things you may have to do because you live in a society at war or threatened by war. For example, although your nation may be "against" another nation, you can continue to be active in the Christian Church, which embraces men of all nations, including the "enemy" nation, and thus help to keep alive a bridge of good will which stands above national interests.

4.You can avoid indiscriminate approval or disapproval of all that is done by your nation, either before, during, or after a war. (The temptation of the pacifist is to condemn all that his nation does in time of war; the temptation of the nonpacifist to approve everything.) The Christian must remember that he is subject to a higher authority than the State; he must be willing to say the unpopular thing when an important matter or conviction is at stake.

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