Faith and War

How Christians Debated the Cold and Vietnam Wars

David E Settje, David E. Settje

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780814741337
• eBook ISBN:
  9780814741344
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: North American History

Throughout American history, Christianity has shaped public opinion, guided leaders in their decision making, and stood at the center of countless issues. To gain complete knowledge of an era, historians must investigate the religious context of what transpired, why it happened, and how. Yet too little is known about American Christianity’s foreign policy opinions during the Cold and Vietnam Wars. To gain a deeper understanding of this period (1964-75), David E. Settje explores the diversity of American Christian responses to the Cold and Vietnam Wars to determine how Americans engaged in debates about foreign policy based on their theological convictions.
Settje uncovers how specific Christian theologies and histories influenced American religious responses to international affairs, which varied considerably. Scrutinizing such sources as the evangelical Christianity Today, the mainline Protestant ,Christian Century, a sampling of Catholic periodicals, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Church of Christ, Faith and War explores these entities' commingling of religion, politics, and foreign policy, illuminating the roles that Christianity attempted to play in both reflecting and shaping American foreign policy opinions during a decade in which global matters affected Americans daily and profoundly.

1
Christianity and the Cold War, 1964–1968

Introduction

In September 1964, Billy Graham held the Greater Omaha–Council Bluffs Crusade. Graham told the 16,100 participants that teenage rebellion, sexuality, and a collapse of law and order endangered the United States, and he emphasized that this situation paved the way for Communists, who were “just waiting until we get soft enough” with moral standards and anti-Communist vigilance to swoop in and conquer America. The Cold War continued to threaten America and demanded action from Christians to help defeat communism. A conservative Christianity during the 1960s undergirded U.S. public opinion about Cold War policy and thereby assisted the government in its continued faith in containment theory. Yet fellow Christians in the United Church of Christ disagreed. United Church Herald editors cautioned that “political zealots” in the United States who warned that the government and society did too little to protect against communism were the real domestic threat because they rejected the democratic system with “a fervid willingness to take the law” into their own hands. They argued that curtailing open debate and constantly promoting fear of communism harmed innocent citizens with false hysteria. Despite scholarship showing that the Vietnam War prompted some Americans to begin to question Cold War hostilities, such liberal Christian editorials demonstrate that a push against this worldview had been initiated even earlier. Religious standpoints played a role in shaping and reflecting public opinion, but they also teased out some of the tension and disagreement inherent in this culture war dialogue.¹

By focusing our examination primarily on the periods August 1964–December 1964 and January 1968–December 1968, periods of time during presidential election years in which Christian Americans frequently voiced political opinions as they readied to vote with the rest of the nation, we can see how Christians addressed the Cold War in relation to their particular theological positions and historical legacies. Because most Christians felt that communism's doctrine of atheism needed to be combated, religious institutions added important reflections to the national conversation. Government officials, anti-Communist organizations, and even popular culture sources were rife with language about fighting the “evil empire,” warnings against Communist atheism, and declarations that the “Democratic Christian world” had to combat this sinister force. Scholars have clearly demonstrated that this religiously charged language was used to mobilize U.S. society throughout the Cold War. For example, historian and former director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council, William Inboden, has shown that Harry S. Truman spoke publicly at the beginning of the Cold War and throughout his presidency about using America's spiritual strength to help defeat atheist Communists. Richard Nixon, too, added a religious component to his foreign policy when he utilized the evangelist Billy Graham's anti-Communist messages to justify the United States' actions around the globe. Moreover, while histories of American Christianity have made clear that churches and religious leaders employed the language of a holy war when describing the Cold War, they have tended to focus on the 1950s and early 1960s, without pulling this important thread through the Vietnam War.² Most studies have failed to look at Christian Americans' viewpoints into the 1960s to see why and how they employed this language of a holy war and crafted a theology to fit this ideology well into the 1970s. In addition to shedding light on the religious component of this conservative message, this study's examination of the religious rhetoric of the 1960s and 1970s adds to our growing understanding of the conservative political resurgence that started in the 1960s by contributing a religious voice to the conversation.³

During the 1950s, many American religious institutions had supported U.S. antagonism toward all things Communist because of communism's atheist ideology, though a minority (especially among Protestant leaders of the ecumenical movement) had resisted the arms race as antithetical to Christian ideals and dangerous for the world. This small group of committed opponents grew by the 1960s and generated a fuller Christian debate about the Cold War. Some conservative Christians continued to view communism as a monolithic Other wedded to expansionism and bent on oppressing its citizens and especially religious freedom, in line with the traditional Cold War viewpoint that called upon containment theory and a bold foreign policy to stop Communist aims, both political and religious. Other Christians questioned this worldview, and in increasing numbers. They argued that communism was not a global monolith and instead sought cooperation with Communist nations in order to reduce tension and especially the danger of a nuclear war, often drawing on particular biblical mandates of peace as God's will. Additionally, they insisted that the United States must first address problems within its own foreign policy before it could continue as a free example to the rest of the world. Morality and Christian obligation played into both points of view, despite their differing opinions. Conservatives believed that Christians had a moral responsibility to combat the evil force of communism, while their liberal counterparts argued that morality dictated reduced global tension and more cooperation with Communist nations. For most Christians, the Cold War was a moral issue, though they hardly agreed on what that meant.⁴

While the Cold War had burned hot through at least the Kennedy administration, it had cooled a bit by the mid-1960s. The near nuclear catastrophe of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequent improved communication between Moscow and Washington in part explained the reduced tension. The United States and the Soviets also had internal and external problems to address, which led them to focus attention away from the standoff that so dominated the 1950s. Under Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union also reduced persecutions within Russia, especially those previously aimed at Christian institutions and believers. This, too, served to soften the American point of view. Yet, at the same time, the two nations remained wary of each other, continued to carve the world into spheres of influence, and maintained the arms buildup. Debates within the churches were thus mirroring those in which American policy makers were engaged: hard-line traditionalists backed containment theory as still necessary while moderates argued for a new approach due to changed circumstances.

This national debate over Cold War foreign policy, including American Christian attitudes, intensified during the 1960s because of global events. The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia clouded perceptions of the true nature of communism and of what U.S. foreign policy should do to combat the Cold War. The Soviet Union had seized control of Czechoslovakia in 1948 and thereafter supported a Communist puppet regime. This rigid system began to crumble in late 1967 because of an internal student movement that combined with political dissidents' demands for reform. In January 1968, the Central Committee took heed of this uprising and replaced Antonin Novotny, a dictatorial Soviet-style Communist, with the more moderate Alexander Dubcek. The new government attempted to balance its traditional Communist control with liberalized reforms, efforts that found global approval simply because they signaled change and challenged Soviet control. Christians especially found heartening a trend toward more tolerance of religious belief. This attempt at self-rule came crashing down on 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union, backed by its supporters in Prague, invaded the nation. Though it took almost two years for the Soviets to regain their previous hard-line control, by the end of 1968 few questioned the fact that they would succeed or could ignore the oppressive tactics used against Czech resistance. For Americans discussing the Cold War, this proved a setback for those seeking dialogue with Communists and proof positive for conservatives of Communist expansionism.

Yet, at the same time, Communist rifts contributed to a more liberal thinking. Almost from the rise of Mao Zedong as the People's Republic of China's (PRC) leader following World War II, friction erupted between the PRC and the Soviet Union over leadership of the Communist world. China followed a harder line than did the Soviet Union when it came to rhetoric and support for revolutions. The Soviets, leery of confrontation with the United States, often tempered their enthusiasm, while the PRC held fast to its advocacy of all wars for national liberation. This situation was further compounded by the USSR's presence in the United Nations and the PRC's exclusion from it until 1971. Though often outvoted and ostracized at the UN because of U.S. leadership, the USSR took the organization seriously and worked with it when possible. In contrast, the United States managed to keep the PRC out of the UN by propping up the exiled Chinese government then located in Taiwan, which Mao had defeated, as the UN China representative. The PRC's exclusion from world dialogue further intensified its renegade philosophy when it came to supporting a “global Communist effort.” In addition, the Sino-Soviet relationship was strained because of disputes along their shared border, a region that both sides had armed and occasionally skirmished over. U.S. officials and many “average” Americans recognized this tension within the Communist camp, which led some to cast aside faith in a philosophy that framed a Communist monolith as an enemy because this characterization did not ring true anymore.

The ambition of negotiating disarmament agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union further clouded Cold War philosophies by the 1960s. Under Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, the notion emerged but never made headway because of American distrust of the Soviets and contentious relations over several international issues. The Eisenhower administration had come close to a treaty in 1955 but decided that the Soviets would not abide by it and so abandoned negotiations. Under the Kennedy administration, hot spots such as Berlin, a contentious city because West Germany controlled West Berlin in the heart of East Germany, took precedence and underscored this mistrust. Tension about Berlin, for example, overshadowed a Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in 1961 that was supposed to consider disarmament. By the middle to late 1960s, little had been accomplished, a reality that played into both conservative and liberal points of view. While conservatives saw this failure to reach an agreement as proof that a strong stance against communism was needed and that Communists could not be trusted, others viewed the mere possibility of a disarmament agreement as evidence that Communists did not represent the total evil previously portrayed and wanted to soften anti-Communist rhetoric in order to promote an arms limitation that might make the world safer. Conservative Christians helped support a right-leaning anticommunism within the government, while liberal Christians questioned this very same policy on moral grounds, long before the harsh lessons of the Vietnam War.

Opinion on the Cold War thus ran the gamut within Christian America, though most stances were informed by specific Christian worldviews. Historian David F. Schmitz, in his examinations of U.S. alignments with rightwing dictatorships and the resulting conflict between American ideology and practical security concerns during the Cold War, argues that by the 1960s and 1970s American foreign policy experts no longer agreed about this strategy or the idea of combating communism at any cost. Many American Christians struggled with the same dilemma, though couching their positions in the context of their religious tradition, beliefs, and ideologies.⁵

Conservative Christians and the Evils of Monolithic Communism

As we have seen, the traditional Cold War view of communism insisted that the Soviets and Chinese led this international movement and that it endangered all freedoms. Many Americans, including conservative Christians, who maintained a fear of monolithic communism fought to keep the United States hostile to all things Communist. While the mere worry about monolithic communism on the part of conservative Christians adds little new information to our understanding of conservative opinion on this issue, it lays important groundwork for enabling us to see how this dread of a worldwide Communist force was intensified by conservative religious principles. In other words, this secular/political view of the world provided a foundation upon which conservative Christians could link their religious convictions to events in the secular, international arena. Indeed, conservative Christians' depiction of a monolithic Communist Other that threatened the United States was not couched simply in secular terms but added strong religious language to the conversation as well. As we seek to discern the motivations of the American Right and learn more and more about its resurgence beginning in the 1960s, we would do well to remember that religious institutions framed much of this dialogue in religious terminology. In turn, this religious language undergirded a national trust in America's traditional Cold War foreign policy. Conservative Christians characterized communism not only as evil but even as an agent of Satan. This kind of language became part of the American dialogue about communism: secular politicians, columnists, and everyday Americans routinely employed it without feeling any need to prove its validity because the churches had done so for them. Amidst the liberalism and revolutionary activity of the 1960s, conservative Christians offered a counterpoint that intensified people's fears about fighting communism as not only a political battle but a religious crusade against the devil.

Christianity Today, for example, embodied a conservative agenda regarding foreign policy during the 1960s with a 1950s posture against communism that continued to view it as a monolithic threat to the globe that targeted Christianity in particular. Though the periodical claimed to serve the evangelical conservative movement and not focus on political concerns, it commented on politics and global affairs as they pertained to the spreading of the Christian message. To its editors and writers, the Cold War was both an American diplomatic and military effort and a Christian crusade against evil. They backed the government's firm stance against all things Communist because of these beliefs.

Maintaining a fear of monolithic communism was crucial to the way Christianity Today ultimately added its brand of faith to the conversation. In 1964, excerpts from a pamphlet written by John C. Bennett, president of left-leaning Union Theological Seminary, prompted Christianity Today to criticize him and to explain why they believed their fear of a monolithic foe was justified in the midst of the new realities presented during the 1960s. A few satellite nations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America had begun to resist Soviet and Chinese leadership despite their continued communism. Bennett explained that “the changes under Communism make the old ‘red or dead’ contrast quite meaningless today. Polish ‘red’ is different from Chinese ‘red’.” Without a giant monolith to threaten the United States, Bennett and others felt that the U.S. could cooperate with some Communist countries who did not like the USSR or PRC, either, thereby reducing global tension. Bennett had argued such a position since the 1950s, demonstrating that even then a rift brewed within Christianity regarding Cold War policies. Christianity Today chided that Bennett's assertion “may not be so true as he thinks.” Poland had recently convicted a Polish-American author, Melchior Wankiwucz, of “slandering the People's Republic of Poland,” which Christianity Today's editors saw as evidence that “there is no true freedom under Communism wherever it prevails.” Wankiwucz had been arrested because the elderly novelist, correspondent, and journalist had a large following and had spoken out against the Communist government. Wankiwucz had fled Poland during the Nazi invasion and settled in the United States, but returned to his homeland in the 1950s because he missed it. The Communist regime initially lionized him for returning, but he grew increasingly vocal about condemning the oppression of intellectuals and free speech, which led to his 1964 arrest, a sure sign according to Christianity Today that nothing had changed within the Communist bloc. Referring to the fact that Bennett lived in New York, the editors concluded that “red may not be red in some sectors of New York, but evidence persists that it remains red in Poland no less than in Russia.” Where Bennett saw tension between Poland and the Communist superpower as evidence against a Communist monolith, Wankiwucz's plight told Christianity Today that, regardless of inter-Communist squabbling, Communist nations were united in oppressing dissent within their countries. They added to the culture war over foreign policy an insistence that all Communists everywhere endangered human freedom.⁶

Christianity Today's reporting of the Pueblo affair in 1968 continued to propagate this fear of monolithic communism. On 23 January 1968, North Korea seized the U.S.S. Pueblo, an intelligence ship that they claimed ventured into their territory but that the United States insisted had never left international waters. One American died attempting to defend the ship, the crew was held by North Korea for nearly a year before being released, and North Korea possesses the ship to this day. A Christianity Today editorial reflected the periodical's traditionalist Cold War point of view, which suspected all Communists of being in league, and asserted that, rather than an action by North Korea, this event personified a global Communist action merely played out by the North Koreans. A 1968 book review in Christianity Today well summarizes its opinion about the threat of communism: “True, the Communist thrust in the world is broken into nationalistic expressions and is less politically monolithic than it used to be. Yet whether monolithic or fragmented, the communism emanating from both China and Russia clearly represents imperialistic perils as dangerous to a democratic society, as any that have appeared in recent history.” This writer's statement, reactions to the Pueblo affair, and the Bennett rebuttal exemplify how Christianity Today framed its views throughout the 1960s about communism as a dangerous monolith.⁷

The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia added fuel to this anti-Communist fire. Editorials throughout the year leading up to the invasion hardly indicate a blind reactionary impulse from the evangelical periodical. At first, writers applauded the Czech reforms and hoped for at least an easing of anti-Christian persecution. In August, when it still appeared that a new, freer Czechoslovakia might emerge, an editorial rejoiced at the fact that these reforms had come “not through revolution, in the usual sense, but through evolution. This might give pause to those who think that only the exercise of military force will reverse the tide of Communism.” This hope for a peaceful end to Communist oppression evaporated when Soviet tanks invaded Prague. To an American religious community already leery of Soviet aims, this confirmed that “the Soviets cannot understand or tolerate any brand of socialism other than their own. To them, moderate socialism is a dangerous dilution.” Though Christianity Today was staunchly anti-Communist and persistently condemnatory of the Soviet Union,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Christianity and Foreign Policy, 1964–1975
• 1 Christianity and the Cold War, 1964–1968
• 2 Christian Responses to Vietnam, 1964–1968
• 3 Christianity Confronts Cold War Nixon Policies, 1969–1973
• 4 Christian America Responds to Nixon's Vietnam Policies
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author