REV. CHARLES E. JEFFERSON [1860-1937] was pastor of the Broadway Congregational Tabernacle Church in New York City, and was among the most influential clergymen of his time. In 1906, he helped organize the New York Peace Society. "Militarism and the Church" is a sermon he preached at the Broadway Tabernacle Church on May 3, 1908.
Throw yourself against militarism,
I beg you, with all your might. Do not be afraid of pushing too hard. You
will not push it over. Do not be afraid of being too radical. There are enough
conservatives to render your radicalism harmless. You need not fear that
anything that you may say or do will sweep all the armies from the land or the
navies from the sea. They will survive and flourish long after you are dead. The
friends of Caesar are so numerous and so mighty that the friends of Jesus need
not be afraid of banishing too precipitately the ideals of militarism from the
earth.
Militarism is a growth of many generations. It is
entrenched in national traditions, its roots run down deep into the selfish
heart of vested interests and into the vanities and ambitions of ancient
aristocracies--and into the lowest depths of hell. Do not be afraid of
overturning the system too suddenly. Hosts of men are on hand ready to see that
no sudden or sweeping change is made.
Why
then should you do anything at all? Because if one man throws himself
against a thing against which the heart of God is beating in quenchless
opposition, he will by his example inspire some brother man to hurl himself
also against the same evil thing, and this second man will inspire another and
he another, and all these many others, until at last--it may be generations
off--the number shall be sufficient to bring the accursed thing to the dust.
When I meet the
God of love I do not want to say: "I saw the burden, I realized the weight of
it, I heard the sighs of women, the sobs of children and the groans of men, I
saw nations distracted, despondent, bleeding, I saw the pictures of the poor
peasants in their comfortless huts, but I did nothing against the cause of all
this trouble because the forces against me were too mighty. I knew that many of
the men to whom I preached would not believe me. I knew my labor would be in
vain."
Rather do I pray that God
will give me grace and strength to fight unceasingly and with every ounce of
energy of brain and heart against everything which my own conscience tells me is
contrary to the will of God and the happiness of men, no matter what forces are
arrayed against me and how utterly hopeless the outcome of my labor seems. Paul
failed to overturn the throne of Caesar, but he fought a good fight, he finished
the course, he kept the faith and he won the
crown.
See also History of War and Anti-War
and
Bible Anti-War References Overview