Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1917-11-21
THE CHRISTIAN
WITNESS


Oberlin, published in The North AM
erican Student, May 1910.
The great naiofity of the American
people lieve that the time has come
when til, United States must enter the
war The United States has entered the
war and the question is, How SHAH the
Christian witness in war bear his testl-
meny in the great Christian EpterpTiseT
as In the first place. he bears his testi-
mony by fighting from a Christian motive
in the face of strong temptation to flght
better world He feels that by fighting
he will help to create a situation IN when
the common fatherhood of God and the m
ternational brotherhood OF all men VIII
find more perfect expression. The state
ment that it is democracy against mon
aPchy is perhaps only part OF the truth
The present var may turn out 10 De only
a large item in great world movement,
the introduction of an era of internal rev.
oltiTit Ii and class conflict that viii include
all nations and more or less baptlze all
nations in hood
we must not forget that entering the
war to secure q better world logically
commits US to the securing of a better
America The establishment of the Christ
ian world ideal will involve changes in
our own land. 1t means the purifying OF
American life from the gross social and
Industrial injustice. OF which we are TINS
day guilty. Prussia designates not sinlp-
~ a geographical territory, but dlspoSl-
tion--a disposition which is found in all
parts of the world and from which the
position of the strong to override the
wea4l. Our gross traffic in the daughters
Of the poor, our unjust treatment Of the
negro, the Industrial wrongs inflicted on
those who have no effective, orderly
I1ea,ls OF protest are to be put away from
American life as this rising tide OF the
less privilege classes surgeS on around
the world
from the Christian witness in war is IN
vincibie love for the enemy in face of the
tempetation to hate him.
This brings us to the great paradox of
the Christian life-the Christian friendly
to the man whom he must regard as an
enemy. friendly to the man who has set
himself resolutely against the good for
which the Christian man resotutely
stands. And yet it is this paradox that
is so clearly found among the central as
sertions of JeuSuS
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor, and hate
thine enemy; but I say unto you,
Love your enemies.
The Christian witness in war asserts
himself resolutely against the enemy with
force of his being, physical and spiritual,
to bear against the enemy, with un-
failing good will. Force is absolutely
moral. 1t is no more good or bad
than is electricity. Moral quality appears
only in the disposition of the man who
uses force. Force may be applied to
the mutiation of the body, as it is by
the surgeon or to the destruction of the
physical life, as it is by the eXecutioner
and there is no immortality in the act so
long as the disposition of him who per-
fo,med it is free from all i'll win.
The Christian soldier, in friendship
wo11aos the enemy. In friendship he kills
the enemy In friendship he receives the
wound inflicted by the enemy. Heskeeps
his friendly heart While the enemy is kill
ing him. His heart never consigns the
enemy to hell. He never hates. After
he ka; wounded the enemy he hurricS to
his zoe at the earliest possible moment
with all the friendly ministration possible.
The Christian in war looks forward also
with an indestructible hope that some
time and somewhere he and his enemy
shall find common ground and move for
ward shoulder to Shoulder in some great
enterprise of God.
(2) The Christian witness in war bears
his Christian testimony by the daily prac-
tic@ OF Immortality in the face of death.
If the life beyond is to be vital reality
which means most to us in the present
life. We look forward to a social i'm
mortality and not merely to an individual
We lock forward to the future life, not
as personal bliss conferred as a reward of
merit not to unaHoyed happiness, but
rather to new and larger opportunity
to work with others at great enterprises
fer the common good-enterprises which
will present many perplexing problems
and lay heavy responsibilities upon us
The truly Christian man, the man fit for
immortality, has long found his chief
satisfaction in working with other men in
OK lIJS5loAC v - eLbd Gbt ally C0SL lOF the
common good In entering the army, he
has put himself in readiness to make a
supreme sacrifice for the common good
The Christian testimony to the Great
Enterprise is borne in war by fighting
for better world in the fact Of tempta-
ton to fight from some lesser. motive; by
temptation TO hate; by the daily practice
Of immortality in the face of death. What
is before us, we do not know The
war upon which we have entered may be
over in a few months. 1t may, through
some unexpected shifting of world condi-
tions, be entering upon a longer and
bloodier, period than that through which
it has already passed. If it shall be
soon over Cod grant that the experience
we are now passing through may teach
us, in peace to apply ourselves with all
the energy and self sacrifice that we
would show in war, to the prosecution
o. The great Christian Enterprise
Whether this great war be near it's end
or still near it's beginning, the birth
pangs CT a New Age are upon the world
The call is for men and women with the
ght Of the New Age on their faces. This
hgtr is on their faces because Christ
their leader has shared with them His
vision of day when all men in the day,s