“Best Thing That Could Happen”

A news dispatch in the Houston Chronicle of August 16, 1955, reported on some statements made by a clergyman in Marthall, England: “Rev. Philip Francis, the local vicar, sincerely believes that what this world needs is an atomic war. ‘Yes, it would be the best thing that could happen,’ the 55-year-old parson told reporters who besieged him with questions last night about a provocative article he wrote in his parish magazine. In the article he said: ‘We need not bother about the dire warnings of eminent people who hate changing from the gunpowder age to the atomic age.’ ‘An atomic war would do the world good. . . . It is the only thing which could clear away present evils and bring about world government.’” But the Bible shows that the only thing that will do this is God’s war of Armageddon. It will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”