A Pledge Every Bishop, Priest and Minister Should Make to Jesus
“I cannot and therefore will not use my ministry to bless, sanction or support any war.“
-Composed by Rev.John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964)
“It is admirable to denounce war in general, but it is not enough if denunciation of war in general can be changed into approval of a particular the very instant that this particular war is imminent? Somewhere there is a fundamental fallacy here. War, like slavery, cannot be wrong in one place and right in another place. War, like religious persecution, cannot be justifiable for Englishmen and unjustifiable for Germans. One and the same thing cannot be right and wrong, just and unjust, at one and the same time. Here in the fact of war do we have a perfectly simple and well-understood social phenomenon. It has presented the same general characteristics and followed the same processes of action from the ancient day of clubs and stones to the modern day of Zeppelins and super-dreadnoughts. Those who engage in it, on the one side or the other, engage in identically the same work of plunder, pillage, destruction, deceit and murder. Now is this thing called war right, or is it wrong? Study it—judge it on its own merits—put aside all the ambitions, prejudices, emotions, illusions and fears of nationalism—and what must the verdict be!”
– Rev.John Haynes Holmes, New Wars for Old, 1916 (13 editions)
