As to War

His dumpy, round-faced Grace, Dr. William Temple, Archbishop of York, last week roundly declared: "We are fighting for Christian civilization. I cannot use the phrase 'holy war,' for war in its own nature is always an expression of the sin of man. But without hesitation I speak of this as, for us, a righteous war."

Dr. Temple, a prelate who is much more highly esteemed by world churchmen than his superior, the Archbishop of Canterbury (see p. 25), is a sober theologian, a leader in the ecumenical (interchurch) movement, with many friends in the U. S. One friend, Reinhold Niebuhr of Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary, lately returned from a long stay in England. Dr. Niebuhr drafted, and some of his colleagues rewrote, a statement in which, this week, the Archbishop of York's position was strongly echoed, over the signatures of 33 of the nation's most influential Protestants.

These Christians objected to the isolationist-pacifist line taken by the Christian Century (and by most of the Roman Catholic press*): "That, since all war is unChristian, Christians in neutral nations should not discriminate between belligerents . . . that Christian citizens of nations at war are disloyal to their Christian faith if they give support to their Governments or armies." This view, said the signers, "seems to us to be due to intellectual confusion and to tend toward moral callousness and national self-righteousness and irresponsibility." In full agreement with most Allied churchmen, the 31 affirmed:

"For the ultimate causes of the conflicts in both Europe and Asia all nations, including our own, must share responsibility. This admission of common guilt as regards the origins of the wars must not blind us to the incalculable issues at stake in the outcome of these wars. . . . An interpretation of the present conflicts as 'merely a clash of rival imperialisms' can spring only from ignorance or moral confusion. The basic distinction between civilizations in which justice and freedom are still realities and those in which they have been displaced by ruthless tyranny cannot be ignored. ... To suggest that nothing of consequence is at stake in the success of Japanese, German and Russian designs on China, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic States, or in the successful resistance of these latter nations, is to be guilty of moral irresponsibility. . . .

"The churches in the United States are under obligation to lead their nation to assume a responsible relationship to the present conflicts. This must begin with recognizing that the freedom from war which the U. S. now enjoys is not due to greater devotion to peace or superior moral excellence, but mainly to geographic security. . . . The United States cannot hope to have a part in determining a just and stable peace unless, during the conflicts, she proves herself alive to the deeper issues involved. . . . A new international order . . . is impossible unless every nation is ready to accept some limitation upon unqualified national action in the interests of the welfare of all peoples. . . . For this sacrifice of a measure of national self-interest to the higher ideal of the community of nations, the American people must be prepared. Here is the special task and obligation of Christian leadership at the present time." Among those who signed: Episcopal Presiding Bishop Henry St. George Tucker; Episcopal Bishops William Scar lett of Missouri, George Craig Stewart of Chicago, Henry Wise Hobson of Southern Ohio, Edward Lambe Parsons of California, Henry Knox Sherrill of Massachusetts; Methodist Bishops Ivan Lee Holt of Dallas, Francis John McConnell of New York; Presidents Charles Seymour of Yale University, Mildred Helen McAfee of Wellesley College, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (acting) of Smith College, John Alexander Mackay of Princeton Theological Seminary, Henry Sloane Coffin of Union Theological Seminary; Theologians Niebuhr, William Adams Brown, Howard Chandler Robbins, Henry Pitney Van Dusen; Church Laymen John Raleigh Mott, Robert Elliott Speer, Charles Phelps Taft.

* But some Catholics agree with Jacques Maritain, French Catholic philosopher, who has bailed the "moral greatness" of France and England, declared that they "suffer and fight . . . for the common good of civilized humanity."

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