Few, If Any, Decisions Are Sinless
by Rev. William N. Lovell
But the Christian pacifist who is committed to the purpose and will of God as shown in Jesus Christ over and against any present crisis situation, whose antecedent causes and effects are complex and manifold, acknowledges his or her inability to provide a responsible solution to every particular evil, monstrous as it may be. Such a pacifist must be willing finally to have failed for not having an answer, in seeming defeat, in order to witness to love as the ultimate purpose of God over all.
Editor’s Note: The editors and directors of The Living Pulpit were deeply saddened by the passing of the Reverend William N. Lovell on May 29, 2008. When we heard the news of his passing, it was only natural that we reread his article from our issue on War. We were struck by the depth and breadth of the ethical dimensions of his decision in 1940 and the thoughtfulness of his reflections many decades later. We were particularly struck by the strength of Bill’s convictions as a young man, despite finding himself at odds with such highly respected theological giants as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and William Sloane Coffin. As a tribute to a great churchman and man of peace, as well as a thought-provoking insight into the making of an immensely difficult ethical decision, we reprint Bill’s thought-provoking essay. We can only shout “amen” to his own words, “I respect still the integrity of the position we took then.”
— The editors of The Living Pulpit
It’s hard to believe that it was almost sixty-five years ago on October 16, 1940, when eight of us students at Union Theological Seminary refused to register for the draft and were subsequently sentenced to a year and a day in jail. The events of that day and of the succeeding weeks and months are still fresh in my memory, although many more current struggles on critical issues of racial justice, oppression, poverty, and war, as well as new theological currents, have taken place since that time and have required — and still require — conscientious action by people of moral concern.
In October of 1940, twenty of us at Union drew up and signed a statement a week before the registration date indicating that even though we were exempt from service as theological students, we were going to refuse to register because conscription under the Selective Service Act was part of the war system with which we could not willingly cooperate in any way. “To us,” the statement read, “the war system is an evil part of our social order.” I don’t feel at home today with some of the naïveté and some of the absolutist spirit of the statement, but that principal assertion sounds as true today as ever.
We sent that statement out far and wide to ministers, friends, other theological schools, and antiwar groups. Then, all heaven broke loose. We were not prepared for the pressure and the publicity. We met, discussed, and prayed day-in and day-out for a week. Eventually, twelve of the group changed their minds. Some registered for the draft by identifying themselves on their registration cards as “conscientious objectors.” Others dropped out of school, thereby losing their theological exemption, and then registered as conscientious objectors (C.O.) prepared to go to one of the Civilian Public Service Camps.
Many people tried to persuade us that we would never be able to pursue careers in the ministry. At the same time, we also received a tremendous amount of support. Some of our families were distraught while some of our families — including my own — were completely supportive. Faculty, which at that time included Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, were respectful of our position but issued a statement indicating that they thought we were wrong in our judgment. The student body continued to be a family. We were not a splinter group in the seminary. One of us was president of the student body and one was president of the senior class. Henry Sloane Coffin, president of the seminary, was pained by our action but was quoted in the press as saying, “It’s a difficult matter to change the minds of graduate students who are sincere young men.” Later on “Uncle Henry” became a warm friend of mine and preached my ordination sermon.
All three of us who were seniors were planning to do our senior theses under Reinhold Niebuhr. We respected his realism although it seemed to many, of course, to be antithetical to our pacifism. I don’t know whether Niebuhr ever reflected on the seeming incongruity of the action we took in view of our being senior students of his. Although we sought in our October statement to act as well as we could in accord with the will of “God through Christ,” we did not understand that our pacifism was a perfectionist position, devoid of the potential of negative consequences. Few, if any, decisions are sinless.
The initiative for our action came from the several of us who were in a socialist-pacifist cell in which we studied, prayed, organized, and shared our pro-labor, pro-socialist, pro-Gandhian convictions, and tones of all those perspectives appeared in our October statement. The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters League were very important to us.
In November 1940 we were sentenced to a year and a day in jail and sent to Connecticut to the newly opened Danbury Federal Correctional Institution, which of course is a euphemism for a prison. We were released on good behavior in September, 1941, declining to take registration cards with us. We could not accede to the request of the trustees of the Union Seminary that if we came back to school we would promise to avoid any further publicity. As a result, five of us transferred to the Chicago Theological Seminary and three returned to the inner city ashram in Newark, New Jersey, which was an early forerunner to the East Harlem Protestant Parish. Those three all served second and longer sentences.
We were released on good behavior from Danbury, but it wasn’t exemplary in all respects and I’m sure the warden was glad to get rid of us. Life was not difficult for us; we didn’t do “hard time,” which was the lot of many of our inmate friends. But one must realize that enforced living in a confined, isolated community with no outlet is itself punishment. We made life difficult for the warden, however, and some of us ended up in solitary confinement for a few days on other matters of conscience. Among the things we did in prison was to try to form an inmate council, and we refused to work on Student Anti-War Day in April 1941. In response to this, the warden declared it a holiday for everyone and held a patriotic meeting. We were a tightly knit and disciplined group, making no decisions without reaching an anguishing consensus, and the freedom to be one’s own self was something each of us had to recover in the months and years afterward.
Now, to reflect a bit on the political atmosphere of the times. Would I take the same position if I had known then what we know now about Hitler and the Holocaust? I don’t know. Others may have had more foresight than we did. In 1940, however, the Keep America Out of the War movement, under Norman Thomas’s leadership since 1937 or 1938, was still strong. Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against Japan did not come until December 1941. We were in and out of jail before then. President Roosevelt was apparently warned by Einstein of the ominous escalation of persecution against the Jews but did nothing about it then. Hitler and his advisers decided on the “final solution” some time in 1942. Perhaps we should have known, and I say that in embarrassment, knowing how many German people later were to say the same thing. But the imminence of the Holocaust and the intended extermination of the Jewish people were not yet in the public mind, nor were they in ours. I respect still the integrity of the position we took then.
To reflect further, I will continue to act vigorously for social and political reasons against such wars as in Vietnam and Iraq, but the Christian pacifist should take a position that goes beyond our thinking in 1940. Our thinking at that time was heavily tilted against war as a “method” for solving disputes, even though in principle it was against “the will of God.” It was against the “totalitarian” nature of conscription in peacetime and held the belief that permanent peace was possible, if enough people were committed to the ways of nonviolence. This was as much a pragmatic position as a principled one.
But the Christian pacifist who is committed to the purpose and will of God as shown in Jesus Christ over and against any present crisis situation, whose antecedent causes and effects are complex and manifold, acknowledges his or her inability to provide a responsible solution to every particular evil, monstrous as it may be. Such a pacifist must be willing finally to have failed for not having an answer, in seeming defeat, in order to witness to love as the ultimate purpose of God over all. Such a position, I would like to think, is mine today.
