March/April 2003

War talk is fashionable again in America. President Bush has alerted the nation that he intends to be rid of Iraq as an irritant in the Near East. Congress has endorsed that intent. Armaments are stockpiled in the region.
Already anti-war protesters have marched. Pacifists have tried to dissuade the government from its war plans. This willingness to oppose the powers that be raises again the historic views of conscientious objectors to war. This article reviews those Christian beliefs that object to war and violence, particularly in reference to American law.

Even in peacetime conscientious objectors to war are often labeled as unpatriotic. In times of war they are called cowards, traitors, or worse. But in good times and bad, in peace and even during war, we must protect the rights of people whose honest beliefs, for whatever reason, place them out of kilter with national sentiment.

In every mob there are those craven folk who would never dare alone to attack a victim. They are the ones who make the loudest noise, who talk the most about their bravery. Courage—real courage—is apt to be calm. The one who shouts and gesticulates most stands in danger of dissipating his energy. Whistling in the dark or when passing a graveyard is a small boy’s way of showing that fear is not in his heart at all, of advertising his courage.

I am very concerned, not only with the way our government is enacting “religious liberty” laws, but also the way that some are proclaiming these as triumphs of religious liberty.
In an article titled “Religious Freedom Act Passed in South Carolina” this statement is made: “Regardless of the amendment, the act which was passed is still an excellent example of what states need to be doing to pass religious freedom acts.”

or more than 300 years the Amish, also referred to in this country as the Old Order Amish or “Plain People,” have practiced a way of life that revolves around their deeply held religious beliefs. Believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible, these intensely private individuals point to Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world,” as one of the bedrock Bible verses for their lifestyle and attitude of separation from the world. It is a lifestyle that rejects most of the trappings that come along with modern living. Dressed in plain (some might say old-fashioned) clothing, the men wear broad-brimmed black hats and plain-cut trousers, and the women wear bonnets and ankle-length dresses—they reject all that might get in the way of practicing their faith.

While the Christian Coalition correctly argues that the phrase “wall of separation between Church and State” nowhere appears in the U.S. Constitution, our Constitution does contain these words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Many religious persons at some point in their working life encounter a conflict between a requirement of their job and their religious conscience. Employers sensitive to the religious convictions of their employees often make an effort to alter the job requirements so as to remove this conflict. However, some employers fail to make such changes, even when doing so would impose no significant cost on the employer. I would like to share two examples that have recently come to our attention at the Christian Legal Society.

One would have thought that the modern university campus would be open to differences of opinion and critical thinking. However, Cynthia Maughan, an English graduate student at the University of British Columbia (UBC), fears that the modern university may not be as open to differences of opinion as she once thought. She is now embroiled in a row with the UBC that has become legal rather than merely academic.

A Christian family living in the Soviet Union sometime in the mid-twentieth century gathers with a few close friends to take part in an illicit activity—Bible study and prayer. The door bursts open, and the KGB storms in. The frightened group is herded off for interrogation, possibly worse. This was a scene that characterized the continuing Soviet repression of religion.

Where we will be when you read these words I cannot quite say. It was not lightly that we chose to banner “war and peace” on the cover of this issue. Of course that bannering relates to the personal moral dilemma faith and patriotism can create in times of state violence. Not since the paranoia of the cold war rivalry between the United States and the Soviets has there been such a sense of imminent danger...of the individual carried away on the shoulders of war. After all, that was a big part of the premise to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”—that forces beyond the individual, even beyond a leader’s control, can inflame war or create peace.