Pepperdine professors are speaking out against the war and dispelling myths about the peaceful perspective.
By Kimiko Martinez
Lifestyles Editor
A young mother clutches infant twins in her arms while two small children cling to her side. A framed picture of her husband, in full military uniform, seems to watch over his family although he is quite clearly somewhere far away.
Like so many other military families who are torn apart during wartime, the suffering seems evident in their eyes.
Although this may be the scene in thousands of homes within the next few months as America prepares for an impending war with Iraq, this particular family moment was captured in a 1944 family portrait of Pepperdine professor Dr. David Dowdey. He was the oldest of the four children, all under age five.
Dowdey recalls staring at that same picture at his father’s funeral last month, as a military honor guard draped his father’s casket with an American flag. As they precisely, dutifully folded the flag into a small triangle of stars and stripes and presented it to Dowdey, the oldest child, he remembered the “great sacrifice” his family made when his father served.
Like so many other children with parents in the military, Dowdey recalls what set his father apart from the rest of the soldiers marching off to war — pacifism. His father was a “conscientious objector” during World War II, which placed him in non-combative duty.
PATRIOTIC PACIFISM
“My father did his duty to his country and he was honored for that,” said Dowdey, a professor of German language and literature. “It’s important to do our duty, while at the same time not supporting combative force.”
Like so many other American pacifists, Dowdey recognizes the precarious juxtapositioning that is occurring between patriotism and pacifism.
While the post-Sept. 11 media has just recently begun covering and presenting alternative viewpoints as viable options for the American public, the last year-and-a-half has all but shunned pacifists, disregarding their voices as unpatriotic and un-American. As in generations past, where war objectors were labeled Communist sympathizers and weaklings unwilling to fight, the current political climate has adopted the “if you’re not with us, then you’re against us” attitude, rejecting anyone with anti-war views, regardless of the reasoning,
“I have nothing against being patriotic and doing my duty,” said Dowdey, who grew up in the Church of Christ, which has pacifist roots that date to the last 19th and early 20th centuries. “My father served, and I also served when it came time.”
Dr. Richard Hughes, religion professor and director of the Pepperdine Center for Faith and Learning, stresses that although pacifists are morally opposed to war, they’re not necessarily opposed to America.
“Pacifists can be the most avowed patriots,” Hughes said. “You love your country, but you don’t want your country to take a life.”
Dr. Doug Swartzendruber, chair of the Natural Science Division, said it this way: “Pacifists are willing to die for their country, but they’re not willing to kill for their country.”
“JUST” BECAUSE
But as with any generally categorized viewpoint there are varying degrees of beliefs in this department. Pacifist beliefs range from absolute to “just” war pacifists.
Former Pepperdine President Dr. David Davenport described the theory in a Washington Times article in September, saying “the doctrine of a ‘just’ war in Christian thought accepts the New Testament teaching that civil authorities are ‘an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.’ ”
Citing early Christian writers such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, a “just” war is suppose to meet several criteria, including “a just cause, with wrongdoing on the part of the one attacked; a legitimate authority carrying out the war; and a good purpose, such as the advancement of good and the avoidance of evil.”
Rev. William J. Danaher, a professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Tennessee university Sewanee, further clarified the viewpoint in his 2001 Sewanee Theological Review article, writing the basis for a “just” war is that “it would be unloving not to intervene when our neighbors are threatened by violence, aggression, or tyranny.”
Many pacifists, however, reject this notion. In a growing list, 100 Christian ethicists voiced their opposition on The Nuclear Reduction/Disarmament Initiative Web site, www.nrdi.org, by stating “We, the following Christian ethicists, share a common moral presumption against a preemptive war on Iraq by the United States.”
And hundreds of other religious educators, church and military leaders, and lay people have voiced similar concerns on the NRDI Web site, as well as other peace sites and through letters addressed to President George W. Bush.
Swartzendruber, who is Mennonite, one of three historical peace churches along with the Quakers and Church of Brethren, said he believes it’s wrong to try to rationalize war in any way.
“How can Christians participate in good conscience?” Swartzendruber questioned. “From the peace church perspective, why even try to justify it from a Christian perspective. There ought to be a divorce between the two concepts.”
MOVEMENT MYTHS
Pacifism doesn’t seem like a concept that would be difficult to understand, but there are some very common misconceptions about it.
“Pacifism is the most misunderstood word in the entire political lexicon,” wrote Rabbi Philip J. Bentley, honorary president of the Jewish Peace Fellowship and dean of admissions and student life at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale, N.Y., in his article “Pacifism: Now more than ever,” which appeared in the San Francisco periodical Tikkun.
As is often the case, the word “pacifism” is confused with “passive,” which come from two very different roots. “Passive” comes from the Greek word for “suffering” and “pacifism” from the Latin word for “peace.”
Dowdey, Swartzendruber and Hughes were all quick to point out the assumptions people make about their beliefs, ranging from the hippie anti-war protestors to people who just roll over and let things happen.
But they said pacifism is more of a mindset that provides a basis for action. And depending on the person and their beliefs, that action can be translated in many different ways.
“Pacifists do some of the hardest work to resolve conflict,” Hughes said. “What’s hard about mobilizing an army? That takes no creativity, no thoughtfulness.”
Swartzendruber agreed.
“Many pacifists are committed to being very active in building coexistence and mutual respect, and must, at times, be aggressive, but not to the point of murder.”
Pointing to a religious background and scriptural basis for their beliefs, Swartzendruber said the Mennonites, and other peace churches, “took very seriously the teachings of Jesus as a starting point — loving your neighbors and your enemies, and returning evil with good.”
Joel Fetzer, a political science professor and also a Mennonite, agreed that the whole Bible, not just certain passages, should be taken very seriously.
“When Jesus says to love your enemy, I think that should be taken in a literal way,” Fetzer said. “Its very easy for people to pick and choose among parts (of the Bible) that they agree with.”
Dowdey explained his viewpoint this way: “(Pacifism) . . . appreciates and fosters peace among people in all nations. It rejects the notion of settling conflicts by warfare.”
While he also believes in the same basic Biblical and scriptural foundations for pacifism, he notes, “I am not smart enough to know what God’s sovereignty is all about.”
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Since the Bible calls for believers to reject the ways of the world and to follow Jesus, many peace churches actually call for a strict separation of church and state, both personally and politically. Even members of the Church of Christ in its early years went as far as not voting. And peace church members have been known to not pay taxes in protest of supporting American-aided wars abroad.
“We’re all very implicated in supporting the government when it goes out and kills foreigners,” Fetzer said.
Leo Hartshorn, minister of peace and justice and Missional Church Development for the Mennonite Mission Network, said “Amish and conservative Mennonites adhere to a strict ‘two-kingdom theology,’ which calls for radical separation of the church form the world/culture/state.”
Of course, this doesn’t account for those who have more Evangelical or liberal leanings, but it does give a basis for some of their basic foundations of beliefs.
“Mennonites seek to be world citizens,” said Hughes, who specializes in church history, adding that early Church of Christ and Anabaptists felt the same way. “They shun narrow nationalism,” he said. “Their allegiance is to the cross, and the cross trumps the flag.”
Fetzer sees that call as possibly rejecting much of what many would dub “patriotic.”
“It’s hard to see the difference between nationalism and patriotism,” Fetzer said, admitting that he may be coming from a more radical tradition. “One of the most evil things that human beings did was to organize themselves into nation-states. I feel just as much, if not more of a connection with those in Tijuana than in L.A.”
Although Swartzendruber, Hughes and Dowdey wouldn’t go quite as far as to reject patriotism, which most admit can be defined in many ways, some are shocked to see how American churches have blended Americana with religion.
“I think for some Christians, at least, their real religion is America,” Hughes said. “I’m amazed at the way so many churches mix the cross and the flag. The cross is not an American symbol, and its values in many ways contradict the values symbolized by the American flag.”
WHAT NOW?
And it is perhaps this evolution of American culture and the cross that has led to the extreme hate that many other nations feel toward the United States. Many myths permeate the country’s history and have influenced generations of Americans who’ve never known different.
“Pepperdine is a predominantly white, Evangelical campus where students have been taught there is little difference between the Kingdom of God and the United States of America,” said Marlon Millner, moderator for the AfroPentecostal Thought Group and author of the prophetic anti-war letter to President Bush. “White Evangelicals have a real tough time critiquing the U.S., particularly political conservatives because they believe God ordains whatever America does, and that Jesus believes in partisan politics.”
In his book “WAR is the Force That Gives Us Meaning,” veteran war reporter and foreign correspondent Chris Hedges addresses the myth of war and the forces necessary to sustain support from a nation, including nationalism.
“We demonize the enemy so that our opponent is no longer human,” he wrote. “We view ourselves, our people, as the embodiment of absolute goodness. Our enemies invert our view of the world to justify their own cruelty . . . . Each side reduces the other to objects — eventually in the form of corpses.”
Thinking about what lies ahead, Dowdey admits he has very deep, heartfelt doubts about what could happen in Iraq.
“I have a horror, a deep horror, when I think about what could be unleashed upon the world from the deep network of Muslims if we use what we call ‘preemptive strikes,’ ” Dowdey said. “True, one bullet could have stopped Hitler, stopped the Holocaust, the whole thing. But that was one man, one country. The Muslim network is worldwide.”
Reflecting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hughes wondered why the United States has learned that violence doesn’t work.
“I’m totally convinced this war is going to accomplish exactly the opposite of what George W. has said,” Hughes said. “It’s inevitable that we’re going to war. And the protests are going to mount and mount, and no one is going to pay it a whole lot of attention until a lot of blood has been shed. It’s going to get very personal very quickly.”
It was personal for Dowdey in 1944. And it’s going to get more personal in the next few months as people wave goodbye to their friends, family and colleagues.
Luckily, Dowdey’s father came back. Unfortunately for many, this will probably not be the case.
February 20, 2003
