A Cautious Patriotism

The American Churches and the Second World War

Gerald L. Sittser

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780807857137, 9780807823330
• eBook ISBN: 9780807864548
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

World War II was a turning point in twentieth-century American history, and its effects on American society have been studied from virtually every conceivable historical angle. Until now, though, the role of religion — an important aspect of life on the home front — has essentially been overlooked. In A Cautious Patriotism, Gerald Sittser addresses this omission. He examines the issues raised by World War II in light of the reactions they provoked among Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Unitarians, and members of other Christian denominations. In the process, he enriches our understanding of the relationships between church and society, religion and democracy. In deliberate contrast to the zealous, even jingoistic support they displayed during World War I, American churches met the events of the Second World War with ambivalence. Though devoted to the nation, Sittser argues, they were cautious in their patriotic commitments and careful to maintain loyalty to ideals of peace, justice, and humanitarianism. Religious concerns played a role in the debate over American entry into the war and continued to resurface over issues of mobilization, military chaplaincy, civil rights, the internment of Japanese Americans, Jewish suffering, the dropping of the atomic bomb, and postwar planning.

Originally published in 1997.

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CHAPTER ONE: THE CRISIS

It has often been called “the last good war.” Most people who lived through the Second World War drew a straight and clear line between the side that was right and the side that was wrong. Evidence was easy to come by. Germany and Japan were the guilty aggressors: totalitarian, expansionist, evil. America and its allies, with the exception of Russia, were the innocent defenders: democratic, peaceful, good. There was little doubt in the minds of most Americans about the justice of their cause.

World War II was the kind of war that the American churches could have supported without reservation. Clearly the United States was above blame, or so it was assumed at the time. It had avoided belligerency and, until 1940, lagged behind in military preparation. It had tried to remain neutral and refrained from practicing brinkmanship. It took a Pearl Harbor to force the nation to fight. Never had America been pushed so relentlessly toward war. Never had America been so slow to respond. The churches, then, had every reason to be singlemindedly patriotic. Considering their record in other wars, such patriotism would have been the expected response.

It was surely the response of the vast majority of Americans. Business leaders, journalists, entertainers, and politicians did not hesitate to proclaim America’s innocence, extol its virtues, and denounce the enemy. They only reinforced the pressure put upon Christians in general and church leaders in particular to give unquestioning and uncritical support to America’s war effort. Any hint of questions, criticism, and caution would have been interpreted as disloyalty and betrayal, especially in the eyes of America’s super-patriots, of which there were many.

The churches, however, were not fanatically patriotic, nor were they unpatriotic. For perhaps the first time in the history of America at war, they lived in the tension of a “cautious patriotism.” They were devoted to the nation but not without ambivalence and reservations. Church leaders in particular did not want to let the war undermine their greater loyalty to God, justice, humanitarianism, and peace. However severe the crisis, they tried to resist being overcome by patriotic fervor. As we shall see, they could have followed very different courses of action.

The End of Christian Civilization?

That a crisis was looming before America seemed beyond question. Rein-hold Niebuhr, a professor at Union Seminary, prolific author, and ubiquitous presence in American religion, was one of many who saw it coming. In February 1941 a small group of Christian leaders, Niebuhr among them, founded a new journal called Christianity and Crisis. Niebuhr argued in the first issue of the journal that the name was appropriate considering the times in which Americans were living. Having already faced a series of crises over the past thirty years, America was facing another crisis that was more serious and severe than any that had gone before. It was a crisis that challenged the future of Western civilization. He explained: “We mean the Crisis itself; not the crisis of some segment of the social order, but of the whole social order. We mean that as Protestant Christians we stand confronted with the ultimate crisis of the whole civilization of which we are a part and whose existence has made possible the survival of our type of faith and our type of church. . . . The inconceivable has happened. We are witnessing the first effective revolution against Christian civilization since the days of Constantine.”¹ The crisis, Niebuhr went on to argue, was precipitated by the ideology and aggression of Nazi Germany which was threatening such cherished American traditions as democracy and freedom. It was exacerbated by America’s reluctance to enter the war and defend Christian civilization. The crisis exposed Americas loss of nerve, shallow thinking, cautious leadership, and lack of political realism.

This crisis had been a long time coming. It began with the close of the First World War. America had entered that war to make the world safe for democracy. It became clear in the postwar settlement emerging from Versailles, however, that the world had not been made safe for democracy but for nationalism, greed, and vengeance. In the war’s aftermath America was plunged into a period of political disillusionment and isolationism, social experimentation, and financial prosperity. It also experienced cultural conflict. Having won the war in Europe, Americans declared war on each other. Different groups tried to claim America exclusively for themselves. The battle between fundamentalists and modernists may be the most notable now, but it was certainly not unique then. Conflicts raged between radicals and conservatives, newcomers and old-stock Americans, bohemians and traditionalists, religious confessionalists and positive thinkers. The Scopes trial, the Red Scare, the Ku Klux Klan, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, speakeasies, Al Capone, and self-help religion captured the attention of the country and created points of tension in American society.

The Stock Market crash mitigated, but did not erase, those conflicts. It also created a crisis of another kind. The Great Depression appeared to show that Americans were facing troubles that could not be overcome by traditional—supposedly Protestant—values. Hard work, common sense, and fair play were apparently not enough to reverse the descent toward economic ruin. The repeal of Prohibition and the popularity of Hollywood, mass marketing, and consumerism only confirmed the impression that America was slowing slipping away from the influence of traditional values. By the middle of the decade the shadow of Nazism, Stalinism, and Fascism began to fall over Europe. Soon most of Europe was engaged in war. Eventually the greater part of it was absorbed or conquered by the Nazi war machine.

Thus the Second World war followed closely behind a series of crises in American society, as Niebuhr intimated in the first editorial of Christianity and Crisis. Christian leaders were certain, however, that the war was not simply another in that series of crises, the last and perhaps worst of a string of catastrophes. They used the word “crisis” frequently and self-consciously to show that the Second World War was unlike any event that had occurred in Western history. They believed that the war was inaugurating a new phase in history. It was an event of such violence, trauma, and portent that Western civilization would never be the same, would be forever changed for good or evil, would be forced, by the sheer magnitude of the conflict, to determine its destiny once and for all. It was, as the word implies, a judgment and a turning point.

Religious leaders regarded the war as a unique event, different in kind and worse in degree than other periods of upheaval in history because it symbolized a clash between two opposing ideologies. The whole world had been gradually divided between two ways of life. Only one would emerge the victor. “One way of life,” a statement from the Council of Bishops of the newly created Methodist Church read, “exalts the State as supreme, subordinates the individual to its demands, makes men selfless cogs in a relentless machine crushing out all semblance of personal worth and freedom. The other, based upon the principle of the sacredness of personality, proclaims the intrinsic worth of every man, and for every human being the fullest freedom consonant with the same freedom for all others.” The democratic way of the West was engaged in a battle to the death against the forces of totalitarianism. “The totalitarian way would unify and organize by conquest, the democratic way by consent. The former is bent not only upon the conquest of territory, but mastery also over the minds of men. ... It clashes with the fundamental principles of our Christian faith and seeks deliberately to destroy Christianity as its avowed enemy.”²

Writing for the Commonweal, a Catholic weekly, British historian Christopher Dawson propounded the idea that Nazism represented a resurgence of the kind of paganism that had overrun Rome in the fifth century Yet there was a difference. The “old barbarism” of the invaders of the Roman world was culturally inferior to Roman culture and could therefore be won over to a different, better way of life. The new powers were “armed with all the resources of modern scientific technique which are inspired by a ruthless will to power that recognizes nothing save that of their own strength.”³ Editor L. O. Hartman of Zion’s Herald, an independent Methodist weekly, believed that “paganism and Christianity are at each other’s throats.” “Both,” he added, “cannot survive. One or the other is destined to perish from the earth, if not forever, at least for thousands of years to come.”⁴

Such pronouncements came from many religious quarters. Leaders of the United Lutheran Church in America passed a resolution saying that the crisis symbolized a new and dangerous capitulation to godlessness. “God has been left out of the lives of men,” the statement read. “Therefore, mankind is reaping the harvest of its apostasy, in judgment, discipline, and vicarious suffering.”⁵ To John Mackay, president of Princeton Seminary, the war manifested a trend to substitute “man for God as the ultimate object of loyalty, and to enthrone human relativities in the place of the divine absolutes.” He predicted that the war would bring about changes in society so radical that he and his contemporaries were witnessing the “end of an era.”⁶ Other church leaders argued that the war was precipitating a crisis on a whole range of fronts—in the ecumenical movement, in missions, in the progress of liberal religion, or in the spread of religious liberty.⁷ Whatever the nature of the consequences, the crisis of the Second World War was as severe as anything that Western civilization had ever witnessed.

It was natural that church leaders should compare the Second World War to the First, which had come to a bloody conclusion only twenty years earlier. They concluded that it was both worse and different. John Mackay suggested that the real meaning of the war was not simply that the lights were going out in Europe for awhile, as they had during the First World War. “On this occasion it is not a question of lights going out; it is a question of fires belching from beneath, which are predestined, ere they burn low again, to alter the substance and shape of things wheresoever they burn. Not the blackout, but the tongues of flame that leap from Libyan sands and Arctic snows, from tropical jungles and teeming cities, are a symbol of our present situation.” Mackay believed that the war was not simply a conflict between rival imperialisms, as had been the case in the First World War. “This war is a conflict between rival understandings of life, which struggle not primarily for things, but for the souls of men.”⁸ Editor Hartman of Zion’s Herald called it “more serious” than any crisis that civilized people had faced before.⁹ Nathan R. Melhorn, editor of the Lutheran, suggested that the Second World War, unlike previous wars, erupted because common people had been deluded by the vain promises of demagogues who had aroused evil passions in their followers and led them to forsake their convictions about God.¹⁰

Theologians often looked past World War I to search for other crises, more tumultuous still, to which the Second World War could be compared. A statement issued by the administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference began with the bold assertion: “Christianity faces today its most serious crisis since the Church came out of the catacombs.”¹¹ Christopher Dawson argued that the West had not faced such upheaval since Augustine of Hippo lived.¹² William T. Manning, Episcopal Bishop of New York City, declared that the ruthless ambition of Hitler rivaled the rapacity of Genghis Khan.¹³ No event in the ravaged and reeling history of Western civilization, in other words, was sufficiently horrible to rival the Second World War, which towered above them all.

The war was seen as a warning to Americans. It exercised such significant influence largely because of what the American people did not have to face. Though affecting virtually every aspect of American life, the crisis of World War II was kept safely on foreign soil. Thousands of miles separated most Americans and the theaters of operation. The distance between America and the arena of conflict afforded Americans the opportunity—the luxury, really—to think about the meaning and implications of the conflict without having to fight for their very lives. For Americans the outcome of the war never boiled down to a question of survival. They had the freedom therefore to ask bigger questions about the war. They could be more reflective, philosophical, and visionary. That the crisis occurred “over there,” and not in America, reminded the American people of what could happen to their nation if its people were not alerted to and protected from the forces, both military and ideological, that were destroying Europe. The war was close enough to threaten the American way of life—too often taken for granted—but far enough to give Americans the chance to change before it was too late.

This opportunity to reflect on the nature of the crisis motivated the American people to take inventory of America’s soul. To conquer the enemy, the nation would have to marshal its resources as never before. Many Christians believed that these resources would have to be both physical and spiritual. Military might was not sufficient in itself to repel the foe and save Western civilization, for the war was not primarily a conflict between rival armies. Spiritual and moral renewal was even more necessary to win the greater battle of ideas. Religious leaders believed, therefore, that the Second World War provided the church with a rare opportunity to reaffirm Christianity’s importance in America. If democracy symbolized the American way of life, then Christianity was the bulwark of democracy. If liberty occupied the principal place in the American creed, then Christianity was the source, defender, and protector of that liberty. If moral goodness embodied the American character at its best, then Christianity was the foundation of morality.

Christian leaders recognized that the war was pivotal for religion because religion was essential to winning the real war. They wanted the Christian faith and the church to play major roles in the war effort because they believed that religion and patriotism were partners in a divine purpose. They sensed intuitively that Christianity, the assumed cornerstone of America’s heritage, was ripe for revitalization or doomed to failure and ruin. As John Mackay stated, “The destiny of this country is inseparably bound up with loyalty to its national heritage. Apart from faith in God the history of America has no meaning.” Sensing that an epochal moment in history had arrived, Mackay announced: “There are times in the history of persons and peoples, particularly times of tomorrow, when the awakening of a sense of heritage becomes a portent determinant of destiny.”¹⁴

Religion and War

Religion and war have been on friendly terms throughout Western history. In the name of God armies have marauded rival cities, invaded rival nations, and fought against rival empires. That has been true for a religion like Islam. It has been no less true for Christianity While a small stream of pacifism has fed itself into the Christian church since the Apostolic age, the major currents of Christianity have rejected pacifism in favor of a more militarist position. Charlemagne was both a great conqueror and the Holy Roman Emperor, the first of many who were able to combine the two functions without a violation of conscience. Countless popes were not hesitant to marshal military power to defend or expand their authority. Pope Urban II, for example, was the first of several popes who pronounced a divine blessing upon the crusades. The European wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were also fought in the name of religion.

American history has followed the same pattern. North and South were divided religiously as well as economically and militarily during the Civil War. Before the war erupted at Fort Sumter, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists broke fellowship over the issue of slavery. During the war both northern and southern branches of these great denominations gave succor and support to their respective governments and armies. In the First World War the churches embraced a similar patriotic mission. Many clergy were eager to invoke the name of God for the great crusade of making the world safe for democracy. In their enthusiasm the clergy stirred the American people to paroxysms of patriotism.

Scholars have studied the role religion played in every major war in which Americans have fought, with World War II as the one exception. For some reason scholars have overlooked how the churches participated in the war and how the war affected the churches. Why the apparent neglect? First, the more recent past has not received the scholarly attention from historians of religion that it will with the passage of time and the growth of the relatively new discipline of American religious history. Time and expansion will allow religious historians to explore what has already been investigated from other points of view, perhaps shedding new light on old subjects. A religious perspective may help historians to see familiar haunts with fresh eyes, World War II being no exception.

Second, study of the war itself—foreign policy, mobilization, campaigns and operations, postwar settlement—has so dominated scholarly attention that other areas of scholarly investigation have gone largely unnoticed. Some of these neglected topics, like working women and conscientious objectors, have recently attracted the interest of historians. An avalanche of books has followed. But not so in the case of religion and the war. In the eyes of many historians, religion was simply and unobtrusively present during the war, functioning blandly, if at all, to inspire, comfort, and strengthen the American people. But it did not appear to play the kind of conspicuous and major role that, say, conscription, the Roosevelt presidency, or the Holocaust did. Thus scholars have passed it over because its importance seems to pale in comparison with other topics. Even social historians concentrating on the American home front have largely ignored the topic of American religion and the war. Scholars have thereby assumed that religion and the war were only loosely or accidently related, neither one having much impact on the other. It has been customary, in other words, to study American religion in the 1940s and overlook the war, or to study the war and overlook religion.

American Christianity, however, did play a role in the war. It was vital, complex, and creative. It contributed significantly to the war effort. The war also affected American Christianity, in some cases by sending it in new directions, in other cases by correcting the course it had already chosen for itself. Like rationing, religions presence and influence was so diffused and universal that it was often taken for granted. But, again like rationing, its impact during the war was enormous.

The primary and secondary sources on the war are overwhelming. The wealth of sources poses a problem for historians. Given the many stories that historians could tell about the war, how should they organize the material so that they tell one story well without saying too little or too much? Since historians cannot tell the whole story, how can they tell one part of the story and still tell the whole truth?

The purpose of this book is to tell the story of the American churches and the Second World War. As if flying a reconnaissance mission over vast stretches of unchartered territory, it will read the terrain in only one way and sketch only one kind of map. This map will introduce a new question into the study of the Second World War: what was the nature of the church’s patriotism during the war?

Patriotic Options

There would appear to be three possible answers. First,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• A CAUTIOUS PATRIOTISM
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CHAPTER ONE: THE CRISIS
• CHAPTER TWO: PROMISES TO KEEP
• CHAPTER THREE: THE FINE LINE
• CHAPTER FOUR: THE GREAT DEBATE
• CHAPTER FIVE: THE BIG QUESTION
• CHAPTER SIX: CHRISTIAN FAITH & DEMOCRACY
• CHAPTER SEVEN: CHURCH & SOCIETY
• CHAPTER EIGHT: MINISTRY & MOBILIZATION
• CHAPTER NINE: MINISTRY & THE MILITARY
• CHAPTER TEN: CIVIL RIGHTS & THE WAR AT HOME
• CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE COST OF WAR
• CHAPTER TWELVE: SUFFERING BEYOND MEASURE
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE POSTWAR WORLD
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE PROSPECTS OF A CAUTIOUS PATRIOTISM
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX