Prayer and Patriotism 1/18/42
Scripture: Matthew 26: 36-46.
Dr. Fosdick calls attention to the table of contents in an old theological volume. It begins like this: “Chapter one, Hell; Chapter two, Hell continued.”
Mr. Hitler may maintain that war is the normal estate of men and nations. One of the reasons for our present armed engagement against his forces and allies is that most of us do not believe Mr. Hitler’s thesis. Our nation has taken up arms reluctantly. We are determined to prosecute the struggle with a will, but there is very little silly sentimentalism about it. To most of us, the event of two major World Wars in a lifetime is Hell, and more Hell.
One of the leaders whom Canada trusts has said, “Difficult though it may be, we must turn this country into a nation of killers.” Those are grim, if not heartbreaking words, to all who feel the destructiveness of meeting killing with killing, and yet have not been able to demonstrate the sufficient strength of other methods of stopping or circumventing violence.
Many are going to be troubled in these days over the relevance of Christ’s utterances in such a world as ours. “God is love,” “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him,” [Matthew 6: 8], “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin,” [Matthew 6: 28], “Be not anxious,” “Love your enemies,” [Matthew 5: 44]. “Love never faileth.” Can one believe that? What does the character of Christ, with his serene trust in the Heavenly Father and his great good will toward people have to do with this stern and bloody world?
We are in the grim business of mastering the skies, that men, women and children may be driven underground; of blockading whole populations so that their starvation and death shall bring them, or their allies, or their masters to terms. We are in a contest for a victory of might. Dare we as Christians, pray for that victory? Only if that victory is right. And a right victory is what the victor chooses to make it.
How did Jesus pray when tragedy was ready to envelop him and the little band of those who followed and agreed with him? You remember the story of his agony in Gethsemane. You remember how he prayed, a little apart from the faithful disciples who wearily accompanied him to the garden; and how, after one period of prayer, he returned to pray some more. “Again a second time he went away, and prayed saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be done.” [Matthew 26: 42]. Only the brave can pray like that! Perhaps only those can truly pray who know that the source of their comfort, their confidence, their courage - is in God.
I, for one, believe that Christ’s spirit and his interpretation of life are ultimately and necessarily right. And there are a number of considerations that keep me in this belief. I do not believe that war is blessed. We resort to it only when we have failed to find and use constructive methods of dealing with other nations. War means loss to all parties involved in it.
I believe with a sociologist who writes that a world founded on Christian principles is the only world “which will be found practicable in the long run if men are to live together. --- We must have a Christian world, or we shall have social chaos.” I think that those who continue to believe this, can be patriots with undefeated morale.
We say that we struggle in defense of our liberties, in defense of our democratic way of living. Those liberties and that democratic freedom are being seriously strained by our very war effort. If they are to be restored and permanently protected it must be our concern to see that they are promoted and extended to the whole world.
If we believe that the only “livable” world is a Christian world, we must redouble our missionary effort to let the world know the name and salvation of Christ. We must practice Christian ethics in our dealings with people of other lands. We must have the human understanding of them and sympathy with their feelings and problems that shall cement bonds of friendship rather than drive wedges of antipathy.
If we are to pray for victory, let us pray humbly and penitently as those who know they have failed to carry Christ’s gospel far enough, in their own lives, and to the world of men and nations. (Illustrate). Let us pray confidently, trusting in a God whose goodness is ultimate and will surely triumph in the end in the lives of all peoples who will listen to what He says must be done. Let us pray as those who plead with all the earnest sincerity of their souls for another chance to make a Christian world. Let us pray as those who begin to plan right now for the constructive peace that is to follow this struggle.
The publisher of a well-known metropolitan daily newspaper has severely condemned the meeting of a group of Christian ministers and laymen in his city to talk over some of the basic considerations of a fair and just peace. He maintains that, engaged in a total, all-out war, we must bend every resource, every nerve, every thought to winning the war. I can not agree with his position. In the first place, the meeting was scheduled before the outbreak of war. Furthermore, if we come to the end of the struggle with nothing but our hates, our bitterness, our triumphs and sacrifices on our minds, what possible chance is there that we shall be able to think in terms of a workable, lasting peace? It wasn’t done successfully after the last world war!
It seems to me that Christian patriotism should be realistic enough to think in terms, not along of the next few months or years, but in terms of generations ahead of our time.
Christianity is not other-worldly. It is eternal, beginning with the here and now. It is not fanciful nor utopian. Our pagan secularism is utopian. Our secular assumption has been that all we need is more science to master the world; all we need is more knowledge and education to banish illiteracy; all we need is more economic prosperity, enough of the world’s goods to make our material welfare secure. Then shall we be saved! Can you think of anything more utopian than that? Marvelous strides in the creation and improvement of aircraft - only to find that achievement raining death from the skies. Marvelous strides in education only to find that knowledge may be used for hellish ends in many walks of life (illustrate). Marvelous provision of most of our people’s physical needs only to discover that it is all mockery unless the character of the people is taken to account.
“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.” That is realistic; that is not utopian. That is grim, honest, good sense. God’s universe, in its order that will not be defied, has a way of pounding that into us when we forget it for long.
When Jesus prayed, his prayer was an earnest search for God’s will, for the coming of God’s kingdom, for the chance and the strength to do what God would have done. There is nothing silly or sentimental about a soul walking straight to death on a cross for the glory of God’s way. The struggle with the world’s evil is no idyllic bed of fragrant roses. It is often a crown of misunderstanding and thorns.
Through the ordered processes of God’s universe, our economic life cries out, “Get together, or you’ll starve.” Man’s concern for physical health says “Get together, epidemics know no boundaries.” Scientific research cries out, “Get together - all great discoveries are now international in their effects.” This very war thunders at us, “Get together - you are lost until you learn how to get along as one decent human family!”
Yes, patriots ought to pray. Patriots will play into the hands of the very devil if they depend alone on the might of man’s arm and mind and will. Patriots ought to pray in desperate, penitent earnestness that another chance will be given, from the throne of God’s grace, to make a world that shall be Christian in spirit. And if Christian in spirit, then surely Christian in deed.
---------
Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 18, 1942