The question has been raised “Is the Unitarian Universalist Association a Peace Church?” The answer is complex, but the answer is something like "No, but we may be evolving into one." First and foremost we have, unlike the Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren, no formal doctrine of non-violence. Like other Christians, our Universalist and Unitarian forebearers inherited the peace pronouncements of Christ, but like most were ambivalent as to their meaning. Occasionally U's and U's spoke out in varying strength against specific wars, but they were just as often bellicose. A review of our historic responses to various wars might be useful.
During the Revolutionary War the liberals of the New England Standing Order, those who would evolve into Unitarians, were preponderantly Patriots and many took up arms. Ministers supported the cause from the pulpit and often served as officers in Militia units.
On the Universalist side John Murray served with pride as one of Washington's first chaplains. Philadelphia's Benjamin Rush ardently served the Patriot cause, allied with Benjamin Franklin opposing the old Quaker establishment, which was both pacifistic and tended toward the Tories. We, of course, stake our claim to the Founders who later in life became or espoused Unitarianism like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
In the post Revolutionary period some Universalists began taking explicitly pacifist positions. In Pennsylvania, where early Universalism partly grew out of German Anabaptist pietism, Rush, now espousing pacifism, led the local conference to adopt a peace resolve that among other things called for a cabinet level “department of peace” and called for the abolition of the militia. This resolution was not repeated by other conventions, nor was it binding on its members. But it was the first a many general peace resolution adopted by various Universalist bodies over the next century.
Those who would become the founding generation of independent Unitarianism, like William Ellery Channing, opposed the War of 1812. Although they occasionally used the language of pacifism and opposition to war on principle, they acted, however mainly out of regional and political loyalty. They were, after all, New Englanders whose economic interests as a trading and maritime region were devastated first by Jefferson’s Embargo on trade with warring European nations and then by the war itself. They also distrusted the motives of the "War Hawks," mostly Southerners and Westerners bent on territorial expansion accompanied by the expansion of slavery. As New Englanders they never shared the vision of a continental nation and feared being swallowed up in an expanded nation. More over they were Federalists, deeply suspicious of the French Revolution, Anglophile by birthright, and loath to enter a war that could do nothing but support Napoleonic ambition. Many became involved in the abortive New England session movement that resulted in the Hartford Convention.
In the aftermath of the war, some New England clergy, by then Unitarians, would take to heart the anti-war tone of some the 1812 rhetoric. There was rising interest in ideas like Wadsworth's "commonwealth of nations, brotherhood of man." Besides, a peace policy melded nicely with mounting sectional distrust of the ever expansionist South.
It was during this period that the Universalists produced the figure that gives us our greatest claim to a true pacifist tradition, Adin Ballou. His doctrine of "Christian Non-Resistance" became the foundation upon which Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King built the ideas of passive resistance and non-violence. Meanwhile Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was laying out the broad outlines of civil disobedience.
The Mexican War once again drew the scorn of New England Unitarians, but support from outpost churches in places like New Orleans and Charleston. Figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson were loud and eloquent in opposition to territorial expansionism at the point of a bayonet. Once again this was often posited in terms that sounded pacifistic. An example can be found in Edward Hamilton Sears's "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" written shortly after the war which includes the words:
"And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.
Peace on the Earth,
Goodwill toward Men!"
The peace rhetoric of the early 19th Century inevitably clashed with a growing body of Abolitionist thought among New England Unitarians in the years leading up to the Civil War. Many liberals tried to reconcile both convictions. Others, like Emerson, in the face of attempts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law in the North became increasingly embittered. Some even once again toyed with Northern secession, so disgusted were they at Southern power in the Federal government. Others came to support violence to prevent the expansion of slavery in the west and end it in the east. The Unitarian worthies who financed John Brown come to mind.
When war did finally break out, the majority of Unitarians and Universalists followed their regional interests. In the North many became, somewhat ironically, ardent Unionists. They went to war with the enthusiasm of crusaders, as evidenced by Julia Ward Howe's powerful "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Those who did not fight supported the effort in other ways as Henry Whitney Bellows's work with the Sanitary Commission and Universalist Clara Barton's service as a nurse.
Support for the war caused movement along the semi-permeable membrane separating Unitarians from their allies in social reform, the Quakers. Ardent Quaker abolitionists like the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, came over to the Unitarians for the duration and they were undoubtedly passed by pacifist Unitarians moving in the other direction.
The horrific carnage of the war, however, motivated a renewal of pacifist thinking. Julia Ward Howe founded Mother's Day as sort of strike by mothers to keep their sons from being wasted in war. The long post war peace--the usual frontier Indian warfare not withstanding--fostered a more pacifistic tone. The growing Social Gospel movement warmed in Universalism and spread by the likes of Jenkin Lloyd Jones and the Western Conference certainly abetted anti-war sentiment. There was considerable, though by no means unanimous, opposition to the Spanish American War on the grounds of principled anti-Imperialism and the old suspicion that this was just a cloaked re-assertion of Southern expansionism (indeed a lot of Southerners anticipated the annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico as states with leadership provided from the old planter aristocracy.) Others, however, particularly the loyal Republicans of the Boston Brahmin variety of Unitarians, supported the notion that the war was one of liberation and spreading of democratic ideas.
The story of the Unitarians in the First World War has been told and re-told. Pro war sentiment dominated. The greatly admired John Haynes Holmes, once mentored and groomed for leadership by Samuel Atkins Eliot of the AUA, tried to offer a mild “conscience” resolution at a meeting of the National Conference of Unitarian Churches. The Conference president, William Howard Taft, stepped down from the chair to issue a blistering rebuke, and succeeded in crushing the motion. Subsequently the AUA essentially disfellowshiped Holmes, David Rhys Williams and a handful of other pacifist ministers. It also denied financial support to congregations that supported the dissenters. Today, we tend elevate Holmes to a heroic figure and often site him for our peace credentials forgetting that his was a lonely and persecuted voice. As a denomination William Howard Taft's fierce patriotism carried the day.
Once again, however the grim reality of war nurtured pacifism, as did the rise of Humanism. Humanism flourished because the horrors of war caused many to abandon faith in a God who would allow such carnage. If God could not, or would not, prevent war, it was up to men to do so. Many embraced the League of Nations--although once again the Boston elite were its most ardent opponents. The rising influence of both World Federalism and Technocracy among the Humanists gave new expression to hopes for building institutions that would prevent war.
On the other hand, by the late 1930's there was wide spread recognition among liberals and leftists of the totalitarian menace of Nazism. The many ethnic Jews among the Humanists early alerted their allies to the grim reality of German anti-Semitism. Some Unitarians and Universalists thus became "pre-mature anti-fascists." Others including the conservative Boston old guard and Midwestern isolationists actually subscribed to the view that Hitler was a bulwark against godless Communism and provided a voice and some leadership for the "America First" movement.
These differences were swept away by the attack on Pearl Harbor. With only a tiny pacifist remnant protesting, Unitarians and Universalists signed onto the war effort with genuine enthusiasm.
The carnage of World War II exceeded anything before imaginable. Whole continents had been laid waste. Uncounted millions were dead, millions more displaced and destitute. The post war specter of Atomic weapons and a world polarized into hostile camps made the actual obliteration of humanity imaginable. This led to a sharp rise in pro-peace options, often led by returning veterans who had witnessed the horrors first hand. Most noticeable was the wide spread support for the United Nations among Unitarians and Universalists. It seemed the dawn of World Federalist dreams. "United Nations Sundays" became a staple of Unitarian Churches and the UUUNO one of the most popular affiliated organizations.
Reverence for the UN caused a split over Korea. Many Us and Us saw the North Korean attack on the South as a replay of Hitlarian territorial aggression. When Truman was careful to frame defense of the South as a United Nations action against aggression, he earned the support of many. On the other hand pacifist voices were stronger and less likely to be stilled. A vocal minority opposed the war from the beginning. The long and bloody stalemate swelled their ranks.
In the 1950’s the development of the hydrogen bomb and increasing east-west tensions gave birth to the “Ban the Bomb” movement. Originating in Britain, with the support, by the way, of some important British Unitarians, the movement quickly spread to the US. Many ministers and congregations responded to its appeal, passed resolutions and joined marches. As an organized body the UUA was adopting resolutions generally in support of disarmament. This string of anti-war activity would grow over the years and include support for the Kennedy-Khrushchev Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, anti-proliferation efforts, down to opposition to Reagan’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and the common declaration of congregations that their properties were “nuclear free zones.”
During the same years Unitarian and Universalist support of the Civil Rights movement was re-inoculating the faith with the principles of non-violence propagated by Adin Ballou. This was particularly strong in the already united youth movement, LRY, which was also breeding the next generation of ministerial and lay leadership.
The Vietnam War proved to be a watershed event. Never in the Twentieth Century had the United States entered a war with such a significant portion of the now united Universalists and Unitarians, committed to pacifism or at least anti-war in orientation. Individual ministers and congregations were early opponents, protesting when protests were yet rare. West coast congregations began offering “sanctuary” to draft resistors, a movement that spread across the country. The national leadership of the UUA was against the war, as demonstrated by their dramatic unfurling of an anti-war banner from the Beacon Street headquarters and the publication by Beacon Press of the Pentagon Papers. General Assemblies resolved first for peace, and then openly for American withdrawal from the war. But this was far from unanimous. Many still believed this was another example of standing against aggression and drawing from the lessons of World War II compared Vietnam to Czechoslovakia and Poland. The debate was bitter. Congregations were split. Ministers both for and against the war were sometimes forced from their pulpits. In the end, anti-war sentiment was overwhelming, but only because many—and we still don’t have reliable figures of how many—war supporters left their churches and the UUA.
After the Vietnam War, Unitarian Universalism became increasingly identified both in its own mind and in public perception, with a pro-peace, anti-war position. Yet events would complicate matters. The fall of the Soviet Union seemed to herald a new era of peace unbound by bi-polar geo-political maneuvering. President George H. W. Bush proclaimed an era of a “New World Order” that seemed to some to echo longed for global cooperation. He met Iraq’s territorial grab of Kuwait with United Nation’s condemnation and a carefully built, broad international coalition that included Muslim states. Many UU’s were inclined, under the circumstances, to support the resultant Gulf War, particularly because it was brief and the president stopped well short Baghdad and pressing his own territorial conquest. On the other hand, many other UU’s opposed the war on general pacifist grounds and on political grounds related to anti-imperialism and issues around the Arab-Israeli conflict. Demonstrations against the Gulf War were relatively few, but many were hosted or supported by UU congregations.
The events of 9/11 were a horrible shock. In the aftermath, many UU’s joined in general support of “The War on Terror”, at least as far that meant going after Osama Bin Ladin in Afghanistan. It seemed to many as reasonable self-defense. Others argued from the beginning against an “eye for and eye” retribution. What support the War on Terror may have had among UU’s dwindled quickly when it became evident that George W. Bush was turning away from Afghanistan and setting his sights on Iraq. His relentless march to war there, ignoring many of the niceties and restraints of his father, along with the bold assertion of a new doctrine of pre-emptive war and unlimited presidential power to pursue the war, has virtually totally eroded what residual support the war may have had among Unitarian Universalists.
Although not without it supporters, the overwhelming majority of members in the pews, congregations and the denomination itself has voiced opposition to the war. Any survey of local anti-war action shows that in community after community that action is often centered in or supported by UU Congregations and their ministers. Large contingents of UU’s have participated in all of the national peace marches. UU’s have been among the most vocal and loyal supporters of Cindy Sheehan and her mother’s campaign.
It may be that most “realists” having fled the denomination and our public position so strongly identified with opposition to war, thus attracting war opponents to our ranks, that we are drifting inevitably to the status of a “Peace Church.” Our seminaries and theologians struggle to define some uniquely UU theology of war and conflict. Many begin with Catholic Just War theory. Some adopt a position of total pacifism. Others look to Buddhist sources. If we are to eventually evolve into a truly “Peace Church,” we will have to come to some kind of broad theological understanding beyond comforting assertions of the Seven Principles.
But history shows that, despite persistent pacifist tendencies among us, Unitarian, Universalist and UU opposition to any conflict has been largely situational. In our respect for the complexity of life, we are loath to embrace absolutes, including absolute pacifism. We are challenged daily to exercise our consciences. It is not unexpected that we will arrive at wildly varying conclusions and take a range of actions. It is undeniable that our tradition embraces the defiance of authority in pursuit of justice. It just does not compel us to do so.
We may well become recognized as a “Peace Church” but not in any traditional sense. We will never adopt the binding commitment to pacifism of the Quakers or Brethren. But we may well become a religious identity acknowledged for a stubborn and persistent “preference for peace” with a tradition of social activism backing up that preference.
One could predict this would be the course of things. But history has a way of surprising us, biting our deepest beliefs in the ass. The future could hold some event with the power to unite UUs in support of a war, as they supported World War II. Never say Never.
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