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“In the Name of God”
● In his book The Men I Killed, Brigadier General F. P. Crozier related his experiences in World War I and pointed out: “Strange things are done in the name of God, and God is put to strange uses. Military force adopts Him as its protector and inspiration, and so every military campaign becomes a justifiable war, a war of right, with God popularly elected to the side of self-described ‘justice.’” Concerning the clergymen, he notes: “When war breaks out, the pulpit is transformed immediately into a recruiting platform of the subtlest kind. And this kind of military ritual goes on on both sides.”—Pp. 176, 179.
Yet, concerning the early Christians, Dr. William Storey of the Theology Department at Notre Dame wrote in Ave Maria for August 9, 1969: “The pre-Constantinian Church [before 325 C.E.] was devoted to a nonviolent resolution of human conflict.” So the earliest Christians did not join in war, but, rather, were peaceable.—Rom. 12:18.
