Church and Nation

When I received and accepted the invitation to deliver the Paddock Lectures for the season 1914-1915, no one imagined that these years were destined to have the historical significance which they must now possess for all time. I was myself one of those who had allowed concern for social reform, and internal problems generally, to occupy my mind almost to the exclusion of foreign questions. I was prepared to stake a good deal upon what seemed to me the improbability of any outbreak of European war. For all who took this view the events of recent months have involved perhaps a greater re-shaping of fundamental notions than was required by people who had thought probable such a catastrophe as that in which we are now involved. I found it impossible to concentrate my mind upon any subject wholly unconnected with the war, while at the same time it would have been in the last degree unsuitable that in my lectures to American Theological Students I should deliver myself of such views as I had formed concerning the rights and wrongs of the war itself, or the questions at stake in it.

These lectures, therefore, represent an attempt to think out afresh the underlying problems which for a Christian are fundamental in regard not only to this war but to war in general--the place of Nationality in the scheme of Divine Providence and the duty of the Church in regard to the growth of nations.

But in a preface it may be permissible to say what would be inappropriate in the Lectures themselves, and first I would take this opportunity of reiterating certain convictions which have formed the basis of a series of pamphlets issued under the auspices of a Committee drawn from various Christian bodies and political parties, of which I have had the honour to be Editor:

1. That Great Britain was in August morally bound to declare war and is no less bound to carry the war to a decisive issue;

2. That the war is none the less an outcome and a revelation of the un-Christian principles which have dominated the life of Western Christendom and of which both the Church and the nations have need to repent;

3. That followers of Christ, as members of the Church, are linked to one another in a fellowship which transcends all divisions of nationality or race;

4. That the Christian duties of love and forgiveness are as binding in time of war as in time of peace;

5. That Christians are bound to recognise the insufficiency of mere compulsion for overcoming evil, and to place supreme reliance upon spiritual forces and in particular upon the power and method of the Cross;

6. That only in proportion as Christian principles dictate the terms of settlement will a real and lasting peace be secured;

7. That it is the duty of the Church to make an altogether new effort to realise and apply to all the relations of life its own positive ideal of brotherhood and fellowship;

8. That with God all things are possible.