Abstract

The Church on the Great Settlement

Shortly after the entry of the U.S. into the World War I, the Federal council of Churches adopted a liberal declaration as to the recognition due to conscience. During the war, the Council itself and the larger churches and their leaders have done rather less than nothing to give effect to their own declaration. On the whole, it has been a problem to get them up to the level of the War Department's policy, and it is but sober truth that it has repeatedly proved easier to get some measure of understanding of the position of conscientious objectors from officials of the U.S. Department of Justice or of the War Department. In the second place, it has been almost a commonplace of the more intelligent Christian apologists that while the violence of war must be used to restrain the criminal nation, other forces must be invoked for its redemption and for the guaranty of lasting peace.