Protestantism and the Causes of War by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 2, 1915

Protestantism and the Causes of War

By Editor

The Western-Watchman of St. Louis, Mo., in its Editorial department in its issue of August 12, quotes approvingly an editorial utterance from the Church Times (Catholic) of London, which seeks to place the fundamental blame for the present military upheaval upon Protestantism. We quote: “Protestantism as a definite creed was, to all intents and purposes, dead, but it created a mental condition which remained. . . . When the lust for increased power prompted him [the German] to prepare for conflict, Protestantism put no religious or moral restraint on him. It seems to have done nothing to check wild natural impulses. The creed that has proved such an unmistakable failure is not at all likely to gain any fresh ground either in Germany or elsewhere.” The editor of the Church Times seems to have been looking in only one direction for fundamental causes of the war when he settled upon Protestantism as the cause, or to have completely forgotten the religious leanings of Catholic Austria, of Russia, and of Italy. We also have anti-Roman England battling against anti-Roman Germany. Moreover, we see pro-Roman Italy fighting against pro-Roman Austria, and Mohammedan Turkey fighting against both Protestants and Catholics, and Romanists and Protestants united in fighting her. Surely the editor of the Church Times was near the end of his anti-Protestant arguments when he set forth Protestantism as the cause of the war. If Protestantism is blameworthy for not restraining Germany, who or what is blameworthy for not restraining Austria and Italy? If Protestantism puts no moral or religious restraints upon the warring nations, we may ask, without seeming impertinent, what restraints Romanism put upon men during the past centuries when the Papacy was seeking, by force of arms, to bring the whole world under her dominance. The Pope exercised no restraint upon the king of Bohemia, for instance, when he ordered him to exterminate the Hussites, nor upon the leaders of his own legions when he sent them against the Waldensians and Albigenses; nor upon his servants who, by fire and by sword, eradicated Protestantism from southern France and Spain, and carried devastation and slaughter through the Netherlands. No, we do not find that Catholicism has any greater moral or religious restraint in the matter of military activity than has Protestantism; and it is not Protestantism, nor is it Catholicism nor Mohammedanism, that is directly responsible for this war; but we are living in that day long foretold when the minions of the evil one are stirring up the nations for the last conflict.