(322)S12E22 Great Works: War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ by David Dodge
Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, I want to read a portion of a work from David Dodge entitled War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons I wanted to include this work isn't because it's necessarily more profound than the other ones. But one of the things that you find, especially in this in this period from like the sixteen hundreds to today, is that a lot of lot of pacifists tended to be universalists, Unitarian, you know, those sorts of things. And David Dodge was actually a Presbyterian, and so he comes from a sort of a different swath of individuals.
Derek:You know, the reformed groups tended to be more buddy buddy with the state and oftentimes were not against violence. In fact, Luther was even saying, Hey, you know, it's your Christian duty if if there aren't enough hangmen, like, Hey, you should be a hangman and be a good one too. And so he kind of goes against the grain here, and I thought he would be a good voice to add to this. So I'll go ahead and read his this short excerpt and and then discuss it a little bit at the end. Humanity, wisdom, and goodness at once combine all that can be great and lovely in man.
Derek:Inhumanity, folly and wickedness reverse the picture and at once represent all that can be odious and hateful. The former is the spirit of heaven and the latter the offspring of hell. The spirit of the gospel not only breathes glory to God in the highest, but on earth peace and goodwill to men. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, but the wisdom from beneath is earthly, sensual, and devilish. It is exceedingly strange that anyone under the light of the Gospel, professing to be guided by its blessed precepts, with the Bible in his hand, while the whole creation around him is so often groaning under the weight and terrors of war, should have doubts whether any kinds of wars under the Gospel dispensation, except spiritual warfare, can be the dictate of any kind of wisdom except that from beneath, and much more so, to believe that they are the fruit of the divine Spirit, which is love, joy, and peace.
Derek:An inspired apostle has informed us from whence come wars and fightings, they come from the lusts of men that war in their numbers. Ever since the fall, mankind have had naturally within them a spirit of pride, avarice, and revenge. The Gospel is directly opposed to this spirit. It teaches humility, it inculcates love, it breathes pity and forgiveness even to enemies, and forbids rendering evil for evil to any man. Believing as I do, after much reflection, and as I trust prayerful investigation of the subject, that all kinds of carnal warfare are unlawful upon Gospel principles, I shall now endeavor to prove that war is inhuman, unwise, and criminal, and then make some general remarks and state the answer and answer several objections.
Derek:One, war is inhuman because it hardens the heart and blunts the tender feelings of mankind. That it is the duty of mankind to be tender hearted, feeling for the distress of others, and to do all in their power to prevent and alleviate their misery is evident not only from the example of the Son of God, but the precepts of the Gospel. When the Savior of sinners visited this dark and cruel world, He became a man of sorrow and was acquainted with grief, so that He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He went about continually healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, raising the dead, as well as preaching the gospel of peace to the poor. Love to God and man flowed from his soul pure as the river of life refreshing the thirsty desert around him.
Derek:He was affectionate not only to his friends but kind to his enemies. He returned love for their hatred and blessing for their curse. The Apostle exhorts Christians saying, Be ye kind and tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Authority and abundance might be quoted to show that the spirit of the gospel absolutely requires the exercise of love, pity, and forgiveness even to enemies. But who will undertake to prove that soldiers are usually kind and tender hearted and that their employment has a natural tendency to promote active benevolence while it requires all their study of mind and strength of body to injure their enemies to the greatest extent.
Derek:Is it not a fact that those who are engaged in the spirit of war, either in the council or in the field, are not usually so meek, lowly, kind, and tender hearted as other men? Does the soldier usually become kind and tender hearted while trained in the art of killing his fellow men or more so when engaged in the heat of battle, stepping forward over the wounded and hearing the groans of the expiring? Does he actually put on bowels of tenderness, mercy, and forgiveness while he bathes his sword in the blood of his brother? Do these scenes generally change the lion into the lamb? It is a fact, however, so notorious that the spirit and practice of war do actually harden the heart and chill the kind and tender feelings of mankind that I think few will be found to deny it and none who have ever known or felt the spirit of Christ.
Derek:Number two. War is inhuman as, in its nature and tendency, it abuses God's animal creation. Though God has decorated the earth with beauty and richly clothed it with food for man and beast, yet where an all devouring army passes, notwithstanding the earth before them is like the Garden of Eden, it is behind them a desolate wilderness. The lowing ox and the bleeding sheep may cry for food, but alas, the destroyer hath destroyed it. The noble horse which God has made for the use and pleasure of man shares largely in this desolating evil.
Derek:The horse rushes into the combat not knowing that torture and death are before him. His sides are often perforated with the spur of his rider. Notwithstanding, he exerts all his strength to rush into the heat of battle, while the strokes of the sabres and the wounds of the bullets lacerate his body. And instead of having God's pure air to breathe to alleviate his pains, he can only snuff up the dust of his feet and the sulfurous smoke of the cannon, emblem of the infernal abode. But if such is the cruelty to beasts in persecuting war, what is the cruelty to man born for immortality?
Derek:No wonder that those who feel so little for their fellow men should feel less for beasts. Number three, war is inhuman as it oppose oppresses the poor. To oppress the poor is everywhere in the scriptures considered a great sin. That war actually does oppress the poor may be heard from 10,000 wretched tongues who have felt its woes. Very few comparatively who are instigators of war actually take the field of battle and are seldom seen in the front of the fire.
Derek:It is usually those who are riding on the labors of the poor that fan up the flames of war. The great mass of soldiers are generally from the poor of a country. They must gird on the harness and for a few cents per day endure all the hardships of a camp and be led forward like sheep to the slaughter. War cannot be prosecuted without enormous expenses. The money that has been expended the last twenty years in war would doubtless have been sufficient not only to have rendered every poor person on earth comfortable so far as money could do it during the same period, but if the residue had been applied to cultivate the earth, it would have literally turned the desert into a fruitful field.
Derek:The vast expenses of war must be met by corresponding taxes whether by duties on merchandise or direct taxes on real estate, yet they fall most heavily on the poor. In times of war, the prices of the necessities of life are generally very much increased, but the prices of the labor of the poor do not usually rise in the same proportion. Therefore, it falls very heavily on them. When the honest laborers are suddenly called from the plow to take the sword and leave the tilling of the ground, either its seed is but sparingly sown or its fruit but partially gathered. Scarcity ensues, high prices are the consequence.
Derek:These are some of the evils of war at a distance but when it comes to their doors, they fly from their inhabitations, leaving their little all to the fire and pillage, glad to escape with their lives though destitute and dependent. Thus does war not only oppress the poor, but also adds multitudes to their number who before were comfortable. Number four, war is inhuman as it spreads terror and distress among mankind. In the benign reign of Messiah on earth, the earth will be filled with the abundance of peace. There'll be nothing to hurt or destroy.
Derek:Everyone will sit quietly under his own vine and fig tree having nothing to molest or make him afraid. But in times of war, mankind are usually full of anxiety looking for those things which are coming upon our wicked world. One of the most delightful scenes on earth is a happy family where all the members dwell together in love being influenced by the blessed precepts of the gospel of peace. But how soon does the sound of war disturb and distress the happy circle? Who can describe describe the distress of a happy village suddenly encompassed by two contending armies?
Derek:Hundreds of cannon are vomiting destruction in every quarter, the hooves of horses trampling down everything in their way, bullets, stones, bricks, and splinters flying in every direction, houses pierced with cannon shot and shells which carry desolation in their course. Without multitudes of men rushing with deadly weapons upon each other with all the rage of tigers plunging each other into eternity until the streets are literally drenched with the blood of men. Five. War is inhuman as it involves men in fatigue, famine, and all the pains of the mutilated. There, on the field of battle, thousands of mangled bodies lie on the cold ground hours and sometimes days without a friendly hand to bind up a wound.
Derek:Not a voice is heard except the dying groans of their fellow soldiers around them. No one can describe the horrors of the scene. Here lies one with a fractured skull, there another with a severed limb, and a third with a lacerated body, some fainting with the loss of blood, others distracted, and others again crying for help. If such are some of the faint outlines of the fatigues and sufferings of soldiers, then their occupation must be an inhuman employment, for they are instrumental in bringing the same calamities on others which they suffer themselves. And of course, it is unfriendly to the spirit of the gospel and wrong for Christians to engage in it.
Derek:Number six. War is inhuman as it destroys the youth and cuts off the hope of gray hairs. Mankind are speedily hastening into eternity, and it might be supposed sufficiently fast without the aid of all the ingenuity and strength of man to hurry them forward. Yet it is a melancholy truth that a great proportion of the wealth, talents, labors of men are actually employed in inventing and using means for the premature destruction of their fellow beings. No pen, much less this writer's, can describe the inhumanity and horrors of a battle.
Derek:Hundreds are parrying the blows, hundreds more are thrusting their bayonets into the bowels of their fellow mortals, and many, while extricating them, have their own heads cleft asunder by swords and sabers, and all are hurried together before the tribunal with hearts full of rage and hands died in the blood of their brethren. Number seven. War is inhuman as it multiplies widows and orphans enclose the land in mourning. The widow and fatherless are special objects of divine compassion and Christianity binds men under the strongest obligation to be kind and merciful towards them, as their situation is peculiarly tender and afflicting. A father of the fatherless and a judge of the widow is God in His holy habitation.
Derek:To be active in any measure which has a natural tendency to wantonly multiply widows and orphans in a land is the height of inhumanity as well as a daring impiety. I will venture to say that no one circumstance in our world has so greatly multiplied widows and fatherless children as that of war. In times of war, thousands of virtuous women are deprived of their husbands and 10 thousands of helpless children of their fathers. The little tender children may now gather round their disconsolate mothers, anxiously inquiring about their fathers, remembering their kind visages, recollecting how they used fondly to dandle them on their knees and affectionately instruct them. But now they are torn from their embrace by the cruelty of war, and they have no fathers left them but their Father in heaven.
Derek:Surely Christians cannot be active in such measures without incurring the displeasure of God who styles himself the father of the fatherless and the judge and avenger of the widow. So this work is actually one of the works that I had considered reading in whole here for for this season, and it might be something that I come back to and end up reading the whole work. But I think this excerpt taken from Michael Long's Christian piece Nonviolence is is a a good summary and and what's your palette for what you're gonna get in Dodge's full work. So I just wanna highlight a few things from what Dodge said. First, I think it was really interesting.
Derek:Two of the the main themes here that we pulled out were war is inhuman because it oppresses the poor, and war is inhuman because it creates the widow and orphan. And these are two classes of people that in the Bible God is very defensive of. He avenges them. And and so Dodge argues that, look, you know, and James even says, like, what is true religion but to, you know, help the the poor and the orphan or the the widow and the orphan. And and oftentimes poverty and widowhood and orphanhood go together.
Derek:Right? And so Dodge is like, hey, look, war does it is the absolute antithesis of true religion, of Christianity. Christianity helps the poor, helps the widow, helps the orphan. War creates them in vast numbers. There's there's nothing that creates more widows and orphans more quickly than war.
Derek:You know, right now, the the war, the conflict in Gaza with Gaza and Israel is going on. I'm recording this, I guess, in March 2024. And what it's like 15,000 kids. 15,000 kids have been killed. And that's something that Dodge probably didn't face nearly as much, right?
Derek:Dodge is just talking about widows and orphans, and God knows how many widows and orphans have been created in this war, just in this country of whatever land of 2,000,000 people, right, in Gaza, it's like 30 or 40,000 people dead already, lots of widows, lots of orphans, not to mention just bereaved family members. But on top of that, like, Dodge was was writing this in like 1815 when there wasn't a whole lot of civilian casualties directly from war. But today with with bombs and missiles and and everything, in some ways it's easier to be discriminate, but then it's also easier to be much more destructive if you don't care to be discriminate like we see with Gaza. And so you have a new class of people, just the slaughtered the slaughtered children. And I think Dodge was horrified by war two hundred years ago.
Derek:I think he'd I can't imagine what he would think about war today. Of course, World War II and and was one of the best examples of civilian casualties and all that other kind of thing, but just the amount of widows and orphans created in war and the amount of poor, which he highlights, he says, look, it's the poor people who get conscripted. Think about how the army entices people into it. Right? Hey, we'll pay for your college or else you can, you know, you can choose to get a hundred thousand dollars in debt or, you know what, we'll pay for your education.
Derek:Just come fight for us. There are so many different things that the army uses and we explored this in our propaganda season in the race section McNamara's Folly and how they lowered IQ standards and recruiting practices and other sorts of things, how they lure in vulnerable people groups. And so Dodge recognized this, he's like, the vast majority of people are poor people fighting basically to make other, to fight against other poor people to help make other people poor, and they're fighting for the people who are making money off of these wars and for their conflicts. I think Blaise Pascal has, you know, something similar like, why would I cross the sea and fight, you know, your prince for my prince type of thing. I forget who it was who has but there there are lots of famous quotes out there like this, but Dodge highlights that same sort of ideology.
Derek:A second thing I'd highlight here, early on in the work under point one, you know, war is inhuman because it hardens the heart and blunts the tender feelings of mankind. What what Dodge said there reminded me so much of Augustine. Right? Augustine is one of the first ones to really articulate that, hey, you know what? Christians can go to war if they're fighting for the state.
Derek:Because if they're fighting for the state, they can do so dispassionately. You know, Augustine was even against self defense and he said, look, if if somebody comes into your home and you're you're trying to protect your property or your family, he said, there's no way that you can kill that aggressor without hatred in your heart. Right? Because you're doing it to protect something, you're doing it on behalf of something like with with these other desires in your heart, and so you vilify this enemy in your heart and you can't kill him in love. But if you do it for the state, you know, you're you're kind of a dispassionate actor at that point, where you at least have the potential to be because you just say, well, you know what?
Derek:I was given orders and I'll go ahead and and go kill for my king. Of course, there are lots of problems with that, you know, thinking of Nazi Germany and everything else and just this idea that, yeah, okay, given orders, can go do it dispassionately. But beyond beyond the following orders type of thing, the the big issue here that Dodge highlights is, but people don't do that. Like, actually creates hatred in your heart. Like, people don't do this dispassionately.
Derek:And even just look at the the way that the military has changed its training or and such, and we talked about this in our very first season on non violence. You know, moving you look at old World War II films, documentaries and things, and you'll see that prior to training for World War II, a lot of times the army is like using these circle targets. What do they do? They they change the targets to silhouettes because they realize that guys are having a hard time killing other human beings and so you have to you have to help to dull their senses so that we we dehumanize the enemy and we turn them into objects. And that's what Dodge highlights here.
Derek:He's like, you know, he doesn't directly speak against Augustine, but it's it's like, Augustine, you are, I I don't know what you were thinking, but you were either really naive or self deceived or just purposefully making this ridiculous argument that you can fight for the state dispassionately. Finally, on a on a lesser note, something that is interesting is that a lot of times, pacifism ends up leading towards a certain respect for the treatment of animals, sometimes veganism or vegetarianism, but at least more of a humane treatment of animals. Like, there there's something about it that drives one to say, you know what? Violence against humans is bad, but like all of creation is God's creation and and there's a there's a valuation of all of God's world that just starts to kinda happen when you become a pacifist. And it's interesting that Dodge, you know, he highlights the the inhumanity towards that it creates within a a person and that it abuses God's animal creation.
Derek:And that is inhuman, right? People a lot of times with like serial killers and stuff, they're like, well, you know, that serial killer would torture animals and stuff when they were when they were younger. So, yeah, killing animals is inhuman even though animals aren't human because humans were not made to torture and mistreat animals, like it does something to the human heart even when they kill something other than humans. Particularly in, you know, I'm not saying necessarily humane slaughter, I don't know, that's a that's a question that you can consider for yourself, but something like war where you have this vicious, torturous, horrible situation for animals and the the treatment of animals as objects, it it does do something to one's humanity. And so it's interesting that Dodge argues that, like he talks about the torture that there is for horses and stuff.
Derek:And then, of course, he says, now if it's that bad for beasts, think about what it's like for men. And a lot of reading through this work, lot of what I was thinking about a lot of the time is World War One. You know, Dodge talking about how it decimates war decimates the landscape. I think of images of World War One. I can't remember that one battle where they like blew up a whole hillside and stuff in was it The Netherlands?
Derek:I think. But it it just decimated decimated the landscape. And you can see before and after pictures, and even craters are still there today, like you can see it from satellite or aerial views. And and so war, like Dodge is writing this when war wasn't really that bad compared to what we then ended up seeing in World War one and on. But in regards to animals, you know, this is one area where things have changed a bit.
Derek:We don't use horses to the extent that that we've that we used to use them and stuff, and we're we're starting to get robots. So this is one area where things have changed a bit. But that being said, you know, we you could argue that we just we just do the harm to the animals on the front end now with all the the animals that we use for testing, for testing of weapons, for testing of biological components, for, you know, whatever else. So I don't know that it's any better today. It's just we don't actually send animals into battle too much.
Derek:So that right there is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to David Dodge. He's got a whole work, War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ, which you can check out, it is in the public domain, and I will link a copy of that in the show notes. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network.
Derek:Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.
