Peacemakers or Warmongers?
“A CHRISTIAN is not to participate in acts of war.” That statement sums up the early Christians’ view on war, say Thoko and Malusi Mpulwana in Echoes, a magazine published by the World Council of Churches (WCC). It was only “after the Christian Church had come into alliance with the political establishment,” they add, that the church began to favor “an acceptance of the necessity of war.” The result? Christendom’s support of wars throughout the ages has become so flagrant that after the second world war, the United Church of Christ in Japan even felt the need to issue an official “Confession of Responsibility for World War II.”
Today, some 50 years after the war, Christendom’s belligerent reputation has changed little. “If we ask whether we as Christians have indeed said a firm and convincing No to the logic of war and Yes to the love of Christ,” admits Dr. Roger Williamson, who works for the Church of England, “it is clear that we . . . still have much to confess.” Although the WCC declared in 1948 that “war as a method of settling disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Christendom’s churches, Williamson notes, have often contributed to “bigotry, intolerance, restriction of human liberty and hardening of conflicts.” No wonder he concludes that “religion . . . often serves to exacerbate rather than end conflict.”
The war that ripped apart the former Yugoslavia is a case in point. Despite the injustices and cruelties that have been taking place for years, the churches have found it very difficult to take a united stand on the conflict in that country. Why? Dr. Williamson notes that despite their supposed Christian bond, Serbian and Croatian clergy are just as divided as their countries’ politicians. There and elsewhere Christendom’s clergy, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, act not as peacemakers but as “chaplains to their own side.” Though more than 300 churches now belong to the WCC, Dr. Williamson admits that it is “surprisingly hard to find examples of churches actually making . . . peace.”
Hard, yes. But unlike the WCC’s member churches, which are merely talking about reconciliation, there exists one religion that has already succeeded in reconciling former members of different religions and helping them become true Christians. Today, moved by their love for God and their desire to “pursue peace with all people,” in 233 lands the more than 5.8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to share in the wars of the nations—whether fought in such places as Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, or the former Yugoslavia. (Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 22:36-38) Instead, they are fulfilling Bible prophecy by ‘beating their swords into plowshares’ and ‘learning war no more.’—Micah 4:3.
[Pictures on page 31]
Some of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Africa have been severely beaten because of their neutrality or have become refugees