just war concept and american churches in the american antiwar movement-1974

8/3/2019 Just War Concept and American Churches in the American Antiwar Movement-1974

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THE JUST VIA R CONCEPTAND .ANERI CAN CHURCHESIN THE

ANE1U CAN A.l~TnJAR MOVEHENT1965 ..1971,

byBruce Hiller

An essay submitted to the faculty of MillsapsCollege in partial fulfillment of the require-ments for the degree of 3achelor of Arts withhonors in the Department of Political Science.

$(" ':, Hississippi1974


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION.............. ~.. Page 1

II. HISTORICAL Sl~Y OF THE JUST WAR ..Page 2

III. THE CHURCHES AND VIETNAl1A. The Churches and the Cold War Before 1965age 6B. The War years ................................. Page 14

IV. PHILOSOPHICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS Page 4 1

v. COrrCLUSION .. . . .. . .. . '.. 1 Page 58

FOOTNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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INTRODUCTION

The thesis of this paper is that the moral issues surrounding theAmerican intervention in Vietnam caused the alienation of a significantand influential segment of American religious leadership from the policiesof the United States government in Indochina. The religious oppositionto the Vietnam War brought a further development of the historical conceptof the jU8t war. This concept began in Christian thought with St. Augus-tine, and the tradition was carried on and enriched by St. Thomas Aqu1.naaand obher-e such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. This doctrine is ameans whereby religious thinkers have attempted to subject particular warsto moral judgment; in the Vietnam conflict, the government and policiesof the United States came under heavy moral scrutiny from many of the mostimportant elements of American religion - Catholic, Protestant, and J ewish.

This paper deals with the nature of the religio~ reaction to the Viet-nam War, and with the question of why the strong religious opposition wasmanifest in this war and not in others. Much of the clergy in the UnitedStates had participated actively in the civil rights movement with muchevident success. This had begun a practice of religious involvement insocial problems, and it had convinced many of the effectiveness and evenmoral necessity of such involvement. Advanced COmmunications, especiallyteleviSion, had moved the war from the battlefield to the living room, andhad impressed the horrors of war on millions of Americans, especially themost morally sensitive. The Vietnam period was an important time of moral.evolution for America and American religion.


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HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE JUST WAR DOOTRINE

The doctrine of the just war became an important one for American re-ligion in the Vietnam period, and this paper explain~ how various aspects

(of this doctrine appeared in religious opposition to the Vietnam war. Be-fore the actual history of the opposition is given, however, it will be help-ful to summarize the historical evolution of the doctrine of the just war.

The just war doctrine first appears in Christian thought with Saint Aug-ustine 054 - 430). Out of his writings came four principles which must beobserved in deciding on the justice of a particular war: (1) the war mustbe declared by a legitimate authority; (2) it must be waged to oppose injus-tice; (3) it must be fought with maximum effort to distinguish fighters fromcivilians; (4) it must be the last resort atter peaceful means have failed.lJust and acceptable ends of a war would be securing peace, punishing evil,or uplifting the good. Unjust and unacceptable ends would be inflicting

Augustine, however, believed that the state was given secular authority by

God, and thus probably would have counselled actual resistance to the stateonly in the most extreme cases.

Augustine believed that all men desire peace, and that even those whomake wars and enjoy conflict do so to obtain a certain kind of peace whichis suitable to them. And he was very much concerned with the suffering andha.rd.3hipwhich even just Wars bring. He said in The City of God:

it is the wrong-doing of the opposing pa~y which compels th~wise man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though itgave rise to no war, would still be a matter of grief to man be-cause it is man's wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who thinkswi th pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, ac-knowledge that this is misery.The doctrine of the just war was expounded further in the 13th cent.ury

by Thomas Aquinas. He gave three criteria by which to judge the justice or


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a war in his Treatise ~ Faith, Hope, and Charity: (1) the authority of thesovereign who commands the waging of the war - since force is acceptable inguaranteeing domestic peace, so it is acceptable for a legitimate sovereignto direct force against others in external relations; (2) the requirementof a just cause for war - those who are attacked must deserve it; (3) thedemand that the belligerents haTe a right intention. Aquinas accept~d Aug-ustine's position on which goals were acceptable and which were unacc~ptaol~.

Aquinas expanded the discussion of the just war by emphasizing tohatthere are times when man must choose between two evils, and that it is mor-

ally acceptable to resist the commands of the state in certain c Lrcums tanc es ,He acknowledged that war was sinful and undesirable in itself, but he never-theless believed that "it is sometimes necessary for a man to act otherwisefor the common good of those with whom he is fighting." (from the Treatise~ Faith, Hope and Charity) So, for Aquinas there were times when the con-viction that all war is evil must givawayto just wars.

Yet, on the other hand, there are also instances in which it is betterto resist authority than to obey unjust laws or support an unjust war. Inh is T rea tis e 2!! Law, Aquinas said that a law was just if its end wa s thecommon good, if its author had not exceeded his power in making the law, andif the subjects were burdened proportionately and in keeping with the commongood. If they do not meet all three of these criteria, "such laws do notbind in conscience, except perhaps to avoid scandal or disturbance " Also,when dealing with laws which are contrary to the Divine good, "laws of thiskind must in no way be observed, because as stated in Acts 5:29 'we oughtto obey God rather than men.' It Although Aquinas believed that secularauthorities were responsible to God tor interpreting what is necessar,r tor


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Page 4the common good, "if a case arise in which the observance of that law wouldbe hurtful to the general welfare, it should not be obeyed."

So, in dealing with the just war Aquinas believed that wars could beunjust, and such wars were not binding in conscience and could be repudiatedby adhering to a higher power. He also contributed the idea that man JItIlstsometimes choose a course which is not moral in itself, because the alter-natives may be even more immoral.

K artin L uther ( 148 3 - 1546) contributed much to the evolution of theideas on the proper relationship of church and state. Luther advanced thedoctrine of the priesthood of believers, the belief that each Christian wassaved by falthand was a priest unto himBelf. This furthered the idea thatsecular and! or Church authorities could be resisted by appeal to a higherprinciple. On the subject of authority, he said,

They have invented this, that pope, bishops, priests, clois-ter folk are called the spiritual estate; princes, lords, artisans,and farmers, the secular state. That's a fine custom and hypocrisy,but it shouldn't overawe anyone. For this reason: all Christianstruly belong to the spiritual estate and there is no differenceamong them except that of calling we are all consecrated byba.ptism to be priests, as St. Peter sa.ys, "You are a royal priest-hood and a priestly kine;dom."

As this statement shows, Martin Luther was also interested inmaking an end to the struggle between secular and spiritual power. Theclose alliance between the German state and the Lutheran church in the Re-formation began a Protestant tradition of strong support for the secular State.The conflict between liberty of conscience and obedience to the state wasto plague men for centuries to come.

The religious movement led by John Calvin in the 16th century made im-portant contributions to the questions of war and obedience to the state.The Calvinist churches often had to struggle against secular authority forwhat they considered allegiance to a higher principle, as their troubles in


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Page 5England, Ireland, Germany, and Eastern Europe demonstrate.

G'alvinists have also demonstrated a great opposition to war itself, but"in practice the repudiation of war has meant generally for Calvinists notan absolute refusal to participate in a war believed to be, in justice, un-avoidable, but a real effort to establish a 'just and durable peace.'" 2

T he Calv inist tradition emphasiz ed representatiT e gov ernment and humanliberty, so the Calvinist~ were influential in the advancement of liberty ofconscience. Another aspect of Calvin's religion miEbt help to place thesovereignty of God in opposition to the state - his concern for the power-less and suffering. Calvin once said, "To prove ourselves to be God's child-ren let us beware that we lend our helping hand to such as are wrongfullypersecuted and that according to the ability that God giveth us we do succorsuch as are trodden under foot."

In the United States there exi~ted a long tradition of respect for theindividual's liberty of conscience, expressed by concern for the freedom o treligion, press, and speech. These and other conditions had prepared theway for the religious opposition to the war in Vietnam.

A modern contribution to the doctrine of the just war appeared just be-fore the large-scale American intervention in Vietnam began - Pope John XXIII's ecyclical Pacem in Terris. That document declared that "in this age of ourswhich prides itself on its atomic power, it is irrational to believe that waris still an apt means of vindic ating violated rights."


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had participated in the KoreanW'ar,II18.IlY Americansfeared Chinese expansion-ism. Chiang Kai-shek seems to have been viewedby manypeople in the UnitedStates as "the Christian general,"3 and this maywell have accentuated supportfor the Nationalist Chinese and ~toked opposition to the Communists. Chiangwas a Methodist and his governmentwas heavily favored by Christian mission-aries in China, and these factors have helped distort Americanideas abouthis govermnent. Another important factor was the support of Chiang by thehighly influential Luce press.

However, around the time of Pope John XXIII's ascendancy, Catholic at-titudes toward international relations began to change. Pope John issued hisencyclical Pacemin Terris, which manyCatholics took to be "a clear call fortotal pacifism in a nuclear age.,,4 Pope John stated in that famous document,as quoted above, that war was unacceptable in the nuclear era. The supportof the Catholic Church for such projects as the ColdWaragainst Communismwas clearly decreasing, although the Church has never abandonedits oppositionto those elements of Communismhich challenge the Christian conception ofman. This notable decrease in support nevertheless was to be an element inthe future Catholic opposition to Vietnampolicies in the United States.

Fundamentalist religious thought - Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish -strongly emphasizedanticommunismas a major source of eTil,5 and such leadersas the ReverendBilly JamesHargis and the ReverendCarl McIntyre, as wellas the Catholics' Cardinal MindszentySociety, enthusiastically promulgatedthe anticommunist gospel. The political influence of the fundamentalists,moreover, is greater than their small numberswould seemto indicate.6

SomeProtestant groups maintained a pacifi8t stand during the ColdWar.TheQuakers, for instance, "opposed the draft, ,NATO,he arms race, inde&dthe whole direction of Americanforeign policy. ri1'


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Other Protestants supported the Cold War policies in general, but wantedto use less harsh rhetoric, and to emphasize the nation's "moral strength.n8Protestant reluctance to wholeheartedly endorse the Cold War indicated toRichard Barn~t that "the prewar pacifist tradition still was (tairly strong)in the mainstream of American Protestantism" but perhaps this is overstatingthe case, especially since, as Barnet points out, "The antimilitarist notebecame weaker as the Cold War continued ,,9

Another important element in understanding Protestant attitudes towardforeign policy is the role of John Foster Dulles. Dulles, who was Eisenhower'spowerful secretary of state, had served as an international affairs arbiterfor the organization that was the procursor of the National Council of Chur-ches. This group became "one of Dulles' principal forums for the strategyof keeping the peace by threatening war. ,,10 Dulles' influeme over the mindsof American Protestants is emphasized in a study by Erne~Lefavor whichfound that Dulles, "more than a : n : y other person, was responsible for shaping

11the mind of the Protestant Churches respecting the postwar world."By the time of the Johnson-Goldwater campaign of 1964, several important

developments had taken place in the churches of America and in the.land it-self. During the civil rights movement of the early1960s clergymen hadtaken active parts in the political struggles in the Negro cause - Dr. MartinLuther King, of course, is the most outspoken example (Dr. King, significantly,will later denounc e the U. S. role in Vietnam in very strong term:l). Thusthey had begun the practice ot involvement with secular issues which was topave the way for religious activism in the peace movement. Another importantaspect of the churches' relationship to the government at the time was theeffect of the Kennedy Administration on the society and on the churches inparticular. The new national concern about and federal support for the cause


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of civil rights certainly made clerical activism easier. But the foreignpolicy ,of the Kennedy Administration was strongly anticommunist and he gavespecial emphasis to building up the American military establishment; more-over, the country had just lived through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missileconfrontation, and the Berlin prohLems , In this situation, one might expectthat the churches would support a strong Cold War policy, and it is likelythat most clergymen and laymen alike did support this idea. However, as itwill become clear, an influential segment of organized religion was placingan increasing interest in international affairs and opposition to the ColdWar was beginning to manifest itself. American church people had, for in-stance, been exerting sustained pressure on the President and Congressto end nuclear testing.12

An indication of stronger pressures on American religion to questionCold War assumptions came in a speech by O. Frederick Nolde, director ofthe Horld Council of Churches' Commission on International Affairs, to ameeting of the U. S. Conference of the Iforld Council of Churches in mid-1964.Nolde denied that Communism was a monolithic force, denounced the U. S.-Soviet" space race, ".called for an end to the continued isolating of the People'sRepublic of China from the world family of nations, and criticized high mil-itary budgets, calling for "mor-e speedy progress in balanced disarmaments.n13He also pointed to the necessity of extending concern for human rights out-side national boundaries. In a prophetic statement, he foreshadowed the daywhen some American churchmen would begin to feel that the U. S. was violatinghuman rights in Vietnam and to connect domestic racism and the government'sVietnam policies:

The myth that human rights, especially equitable race relations


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and religious liberty, are a matter only of national concern JIIIl8tgive way to the recognition that international involvement inwhat happens in any country har4 very considerably diminished thearea of domestic j urisdiction.

Nolde's comments illustrate that considerable intellectual ferment on thesubject of international relations Was beginning in American churches.

Some clergymen spoke out clearly to actively participate in the 1964election, often in opposition to~the policies of Republican Barry Goldwater.The New York Times found in an infoTInal poll in 1964 that "More than 700Episcopal Bishops, clergymen and laymen have attacked Senator Goldwater'sposition on civil ~ight8, although they did not endorse either of the Prea-idential candidates." The Times also found that 79 Boston area clergymenand theologians "condemned the Goldwater nomination," that Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr., and other civil rights leaders had endorsed President Johnson,

Iand that a bipartisan New York City Jewish periodical was calling for Gold-. 1 5water' s defeat.This unusual partisanship on the part of clergymen and religious organ-

izations was based partly on opposition to Mr. Goldwater's civil rightsstance, as the above data indicate. However, it seems that an even strongerreason for religious involvement was concern over foreign policy issues - andVietnam was a very important issue in the 1964 election. An editorial in theChristian Century, an influential ecumenical journal, stated that religiousopponents of Senator Goldwater "did not choose but were forced into a tem-porary party alignment by the candidacy of ~ international policl which evenin its announcement sent tremors through an a1rea~ shaky world.,, 16 ( empha-sis added) This "indicates that by 1964, in an eleotion in which Vietnam ww san issue, religious involvement in political affairs was beginning to focuson foreign policy and at least some of this activism tended to oppose a strong


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Vietnam program such as that put forward by Mr. Goldwat~r (which vas similarto that'later carried through by the J ohnson and Nix on Administrations) .

Another-important development in American religion around the time ofthe 1964 P~esidential campaign was "the emergence of a fundamental splitbetween many clergy and many lay men and women" over the issue of the churches'involvement in social issues.17 "Indeed," said one observer of the phenom-enon,. " i t ' one were to ask what is the most controversial question facing theChurch in America at this juncture, the answer would probably be the involve-ment of the church and, in particular, the clergy, in the political strugglesof the time.,,18 The reasons for this divisiQn will be explored in detaillater, but it should be pointed out that this division would become decid-edly more pronounced after the Vietnam escalation. The feelings of many laypeople on this matter were probably summarized accurately by Senator Gold-water, who declared just before the election: "The leaders of the churchdon't have much time to worry about morals if they're worrying about par-tisan politics.n19 Those lay people who opposed social involvement by thechurch may have been a majority in 1964, as Leroy Davis of the School ofTheology for Laymen in Cincinnati thought that year.20 However, oppositionmay not have been as widespread as Davis believed; a 1957 Gallup poll showedthat 47% of the American people believed that religious institutions "shouldexpress their views on day-to-day social and political questions," and thatfinding had dropped by only 7 percentage points, to 4 0 % , by 1968. The 1957poll found that only 44% of the American people - not a majority - wantedchurches and synagogues to "keep out of political and social matters," andthat figure had risen 9 percentage points to 54% by 1968.21 Thus, it appearsthat the laity was probably about evenly divided on the question of social


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and political 8C,tivism on the part of the clergy in 1964.The viewpoint of the activist clergy was expressed well by Leroy Davis,

and his statement illustrates many of the attitudes that were leading ~clergymen into the political arena by 1964:

Basic to Christianity is a certain social consciousness that in-cludes convictions about the oneness of humanity; the need for in-telligent and loving concern and action; the willingness to shareand, if necessary, to carry the burdens of other persons and evennations; a strong judgment against selfishnes5; and the obliga-tion to assist those who are less fortunate. These concerns comeinto the open when the issues of life - of basic human life - arethe subject of relevant preaching and theologizing, but when thishappens the gospel is thrust ~ediate1y into the maelstrom ofpolitical concern and emotion.2

Davis felt that, clearly, a majority of the clergy shared this view of Chris-tian social responsibility, but this is doubtful. But, nevertheless, in theyears ahead there would be at least a vocal minority who would feel that "theissues of basic human life" were presented emphatically by the American in-tervention in Vietnam, and there would likewise be another vocal minoritywho opposed political activism on the war.

A few comments should be made here on the churches' view of the conflictin Vietnam itself in the early 1960s. Many churchmen were undoubtedly intenton maintaining the integrity and credibility of American commitments aroundthe world and therefore tended to support the American government's backingin the Diem regime in South Vietnam.. Another important concern of religiouspersons was the belief expressed in an editorial in 1963 in the liberal Chris-tian Century:

In the event of a communist takeover in South Vietnam the fate ofthe Catholic minority is already sealed. About a third of the coun-try's Catholics are refugees from the Communist takeover in NorthVietnam. They know wha~3was the fate experienced by their rela-tives who did not flee.

Although this was an oversimplification of the actual situation in Vietnam,


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the fear was undoubtedly real, especially among Catholic persons in theU. S. However, the main thrust of the editorial was that the South Vietnameseregime of the Catholic Diem and the Nhus (also Catholic) "should (not) beallowed to continue.,,24 This is an early appearance of criticism of an Amer-ican-backed regime in the South, and the opposition to the repressive Diemgovernment indicates the presence, at least in this journal, of a concernfor the freedoms of South Vietnamese; thus, strong criticism of the governmentin the South was present among some American church people, though theystill supported an anticommunist line in foreign policy.

This was the situation in American religious groups at the close of1964: a history of anticorrununism and support of the Cold War, a growing con-cern for international affairs, and increasing political involvement. Thestage was set for what was soon to be the active involvement of religious

leaders and organizations in the struggle against the American war in Viet-nam,


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B. THE WAR YEARS"Once more in the Vietnam crisis we seem to be observing the Christian

churches in their familiar role of opposing all wars except the one th~ arein By what right has the church of Chriet ISO long accepted cruel guerillawar in Vietnam, fought by American conscripts alongside unwilling Vietnamese,as a war nominally for liberty?

" the church still professes to have a social mission, backed by adivine power, riot recognized by ethical culture societies. What is it do-ing to justify that belief to itself or to wistful observers like myeelf?

" in an age of nuclear weapons the church at beet argues the questionof our intervention in Vietnam in terms of Walter Lippmann or JosephAlsop.o.Where is their message to a nation, to a world, already on the brinkof Wqrld War III? Has the Christian church no answer to communist progressbut the bombs of which we have enough to destroy the world?"l- Norman Thomas,April, 1965.

The churches in America were to find themselves increasingly confronted. ,with questions and sentiments like these as the agony of Vietnam grew to be

a national obsession. Following are some of the answers given by Americanclergymen during the years of the war.

The year 1965 brought the introduction of more U. s . troops in V ietnam,raising the 1964 total of 23,300 to 184,300, and the casualty figures showed1,369 of those killed, 6,114 wounded. President Johnson began large-scalebombing raids on North Vietnam, and started an aggressive prosecution of thewar on the ground.

We have already seen that many clergymen had become involved in politicsthrough the civil rights movement and the 1964 election, and that they werebecoming profoundly interested in international affairs.. Vietnam had been


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a major issue in the Presidential election, so the churches had already be-gun to be concerned about that particular situation. However, in early 1965an antiwar petition which was circulated in the area of Washington, D. C., gotonly 10 5 signers out of the 70 5 religio~ leaders approached. The petitionrequested President Johnson to initiate action which would lead to a Vietnam-ese cease-fire. The response to the petition is significant, though, in itsecumenical nature. The signers included one Roman Catholic priest, six rab-bis, nine Baptists, 40 MethOdists, five Presbyterians, and 44 others, includ-ing come laymen. One clergyman, Dean Francis B. Sayre of the EpiscopalWashington Cathedral, wrote an explanation of his reluctance to sign, anexplanation which was to become familiar in later debates about clerical in-volvement in politics: "As a minister I don't feel competent to know aswell as the President' s techni.cal advisers what should be done." In replyto Dean Sayre, the influential Protestant ecumenical journal Christian ~-~ showed its already strong antiwar stance by editorializing: "Doea

1 a Christian need technical skills to determine whether ceasing to kill humanbeings is better than killing? we know as much as we need to know aboutVietnam to conclude that we cannot beat our way out of the blunder we stum-bled into in southeast Asia.,,2 Strong opposition to the war, with deep con-cern over the destruction of human life, was beginning to manifest itselfamong religious leaders at this time.

It was also in early 1965 when Jesuits Daniel and Philip BerFigan be-came the first Catholic priests to openly oppose the war in Vietnam.3 Thesewere the two men who were to become "well known as the shock troops of thepeace movement, the idols of the Catholic New Left, the Church's most militantand prolific writers on pacifism and c1 viI rights. n4 F ather Philip Berriganmade the following statement, which would have been considered harsh even


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We have never admitted that the war is a civil war, becauseadmitting thie would be tantamount to admitting that we had noright to be there, that no recognized government had invited us in,that we were opposing international agreement, and the increasingscale o r our aggression was punishing a popular uprising. Theract is that we broke the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and have nopresent intention of returning to them, tftat we do seek a wider warand prove it amply by our daily actions. 5

Father Berrigan was also incensed at the lack of activism against Americanparticipation in the Vietnam war on the part of the U. S. churches:

The American Church, in regard to Vietnam, has alreadyreached the measure of default of the German Church under Hitler,and a position far less defensible, since in speaking of theimmorality of Hitler's aggressive wars the Ge~ Church had tooonfront a totalitarian regime, and we do not.Few religious leaders would have gone so rar in their comments as did

Father Berrigan, but many themes important to the religious leaders' role inthe peace movement can be seen in these statements: deep disaffection withthe Saigon government, the concern over apparent violations o r internationallaw, a view of the Vietnamese revolutionaries as representing a genuine "pop-ular uprising," a horror at the increasing scale of violence, and the beliefthat churches had a profound responsibility to oppose what many saw as animmoral national policy.

The Berrigans, who were to find themselves "leaders of the entire peacemovement,"7 continued their work throughout 1965, despite persecution fromthe Catholic hierarchy. Philip Berrigan was ordered in the spring of thatyear to be silent on the subject of Vietnam, and he complied for three months.The action taken against his brother Daniel late in that year was much moreserious.

Father Daniel Berrigan was associate editor of Jesuit Mission and awell-Imown social activist. In late 1965 he was ordered by his superiors


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to withdraw from an antiwar group called Clergy Concerned About Vietnamand he was transferred to "a prolonged assignment" in Cuernavaca, Mexico,his "church I f e(J.ui valent of 91 beria. ,,8 (a similar Msignment was given toFather Daniel Kilfoyle of St. Peter's College, who had also been active inthe peace movement) Dr. Abraham Heschel of the Jewish Theological Sem1na.ry:,and the Rev. Richard John Newhaus, two of Father Berrigan's associates inCl.ergy Concerned, issued a joint statement saying: "We find it difficult toappreciate a form of religious authority that is exercised in a marineroffensive to our common Jewish and Christian understanding of human dignity. ,,9Christian Centurz felt that "the evidence is convincing" that the two priests'reassignments were "a highhanded exercise of ecclesiastical authority tosilence priests who champion unpopular views of United States involvementin the Vietnamese war.10 There was considerable protest within the Churchof this treatment of Father Berrigan, however, and he was allowed to returnto the United States early the next year; Kilfoyle was also allowed to re-turn and resume activities with the peace movement. Nevertheless, otherpriests were sent away or ordered to get out of Clergy Concerned.ll

There was more involved in the Berrigans' protests than opposition tothe war alone. Ms. Francine du Plessix Gray believes that the extreme formand passionate content of their protests were "a uniquely Catholic phenom-enon ," because "their anger is just as much directed at the blind nationalismof their Church as at the Vietnam war. ,,12 Daniel Berrigan described his andPhilip's situation in the Catholic Church like this:

We were members of a church whose main word, whether we likedit or not, was revolutionary. The revolution only really began to


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,march much later. No matter, the bomb was buried; it needed onlyto be detonated And then the sixties arrived, and the Vietnam warf'ueled itself' into a f'ury. The Catholics joined communities ofprotest across the nation, a f'ire wall against that monstrousf'ireRevolution? Ihe score (let me be arrogant f'or a moment)is not a total loss. JOne should not conclude from the Berrigans' experiences, however, that

most American Catholics were against U. S. Participation in the war. MoatCatholics, especially in the hierarchy, supported President Johnson's warpolicies. For example, in 1965, when-Francis Cardinal Spellman of New Yorkduring a visit in Saigon was asked to comment on the United States' policyin Vietnam, he declared, ''My country, may it always be right. Right orwrong, my country. , , 1 . 4 And the American Catholic bishops remained silent onthe Vietnam issue throughout 1965.

In early 1965, religious leaders began to ask more and more questionsabout the U. S. government's commitment to the South Vietnamese regime. Oftenthe criticisms were apparently more "practical" than "moral," such as doubts

about America's military capacity to achieve victory. But religious leaderswere also disturbed because of the apparent lack of support for war amongthe American people, and the secrecy surrounding Vietnam policy was unsettling.And as American death tolls mo~ted, religious leaders and others began toask more and more about exactly what it was that the American governmentwanted in Vietnam; "vague salutes to freedom, ,15 wer~ increasingly inadequateas explanations of U. S. policy.

The National Council of Churches issued a proposal to employ the UnitedNations to achieve a Vietnam settlement, while O. Frederick Nolde of the Com-mission on I nternational Affairs of the World Council of Churches appealedfor immediate negotiations. Another call for negotiation was sent to offi-ciala of the Johnson Administration by the United Church of Christ's Council


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for Christian Social Action's 27 elected members, by the head of the Univer-salist Association, and by staff and officers of the Methodist Board of Chris-tian Social Cone ems .16

One important religious leader who began in 1965 to oppose the JohneonAdministration's Vietnam policies was the Rev. Dr. Hartin Luther King. Hebegan to express concern over the Vietnam situation in mid-year; on July 2 .he went so far as to say that the war "must be stopped" and that there "mustbe a negotiated settlement. We must even negotiate with the Vietcong (theNational Liberation Front, the revolutionary forces in South Vietnam)", whichthe President was refusing to do. iVhile King said on this occasion that "Wecan never accept Communism," he also believed rTWe're not going to defeat Com-munism with bombs and guns and gases We must work this out in the frame-work of our democracy. ,,17

In early August, King called again for a negotiated settlement, saYing,rTWar is obsolete. No nation today can win a war. It is no longer a choicebetween violence and nonviolence. It is a choice between (non) violence andnonexistence.n18 A few days later he reiterated his belief that the U. S.should agree to negotiate with the National Liberation Front (NLF), and saidhe would continue to speak on Vietnam as an "ordinary citizen" and as a clergy-man in the J udeo-Christian prophetic tradition.19

On August 12, King announced that he was sending appeals asking for anend to the war to Hanoi, s'aigon, the NLF, Washington, Peking, and Hoscow.His action had the unanimous approval of the executive board of the SouthernChristian Leadership Council, the civil rights organization headed by King.And in a speech in Birmingham that day, he suggested that President Johnson"consider halting the bombing of North Vietnam" and declared that he wanted


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Washington to give "unconditional and unambiguous statements" on the willing-ness of the U.S. to negotiate with the NLF~ However, the failure to negotiatewith the NLF was the only actual criticism he had of the President's warpolicies, and he went so far as to say that his letter to the various govern-ments would "make it clear that President Johnson has demonstrated a greaterdeSire to negotiate than the Hanoi and Peking governments. ,,20

But, of more importance for our understanding of King's position, healso explained why he had held back for several months before publicly com-menting on the war (his wife had been participating in peace demonstrationsprior to that time, however). His explanation is illuminating:

We have neither the resources nor the energy to organir-e de-monstrations on the peace question. It's physically impossible togo all out on the peac e question and all out on the Civil Rightsquestion.

I held back until it got to the point that I felt I had tospeak out. The time is so potentially destructive and dangerousthat the whole survival of humanity is at stake.

The true ene~ is war itself, and ~eople on both sides aretrappe~ in its inexorable destruction.2

In early November, he again connected his opposition to war with hisposition as a clergyman: "I have made it very clear that as a minister ofthe gospel I consider war an evil. I must cry out when I see war escalatedat a:ny point." He also raised another point of concern to him - his beliefthat "we are coming to a very tragic point in this country when we confusedissent with disloyalty, and accuse dissenters of being traiters.,,22

The reason King has been quoted at some length above is that his state-ments illustrate many of the concerns which were important to the religiousopponents of the war; he was also widely recognized as a courageous man ofconscience and a moral leader. He was the holder of a Nobel Peace Prize.And his early positions are important because he was to later influence othersand because his thinking on the Vietnam issue seams to parallel many others.


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Four main observations should be made from his statements above.First, King was supporting the peace movement (to a limited extent at

this time) not as merely an "ordinary citizen," but as a "minister of thegospel" in the prophetic tradition. This showed that he was thinking of thewar in highly moral terms and that he would not refuse to attack the Ameri-can government over the war if that were necessary. Furthermore, he hadbegun to criticize the "inexorable destruction" inherent in war, which wasitself "obsolete" and the "true enemy," and had started to do so out of moral.compulsion - "I held back until it got to the point that . ! . felt !~ospeak ~;" ",! must cry out when I see war escalated at any point." King,as with many other clergymen, believed as early as 1965 that the church inAmerica had a religious obligation to address it self to the problems of theVietnam war.

Second, his positions reveal the growing sense of internationalism withinthe church which we noted in the background section. He calls again and againfor a negotiated settlement, which reflects a belief in the need for inter-national laws. Also, for the next few years, many persons in the peace move-ment would demand a negotiated settlement, and would oppose unilateral U.S.withdrawal, which was being advocated by many student dissenters. The atmos-phere of the Cold war was also losing its hold on the minds of many religiousleaders - Comnuni sm cannot be defeated "with bombs and guns and gases " Dr.King's statements also show deep concern over the destructiveness of moderntechnology, particularly nuclear weapons: "The time is so potentially destruc-tive and dangerous" that the only choice for humanity is between "(non) violenceand non-existence"; "No nation today can win a war." King also provides anexample of the transnational consciousness which had been growing - for himnothing less was at stake than "the whole surviv of humanity." (This did not


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seem then so much like hyperbole as it does in retrospect; great-power con-frontation over Vietnam was a much-feared po~sibility at the time.) This~tatement shows that King was looking at humanity, not tribe or clan or na-tion, as the modern "survival group," an important, concept which is treatedat some length below.

Third, King and others were beginning to see connections between Viet-nam and domestic prolems. The refusal of the Johnson Administration to make" unconditional and unambiguous statements" on their willingness to negotiatewith the NLF was beginning to raise questions about the candor of the high-est officials of the American government and about whether their intentionswere really peaceful. The integrity - the legitimacy - of the Johnson Ad-ministration was beginning to erode in the eyes of many persons. Mr. John-son's :infamous "credibility gap" had begun to open. .K ing ex pressed concernover the government's response to dissenters, as did many other religiousleaders. This raised even more question~ about the candor and legitimacy ofthe Administration, and many persons felt that dissenters were being mistreat-.ed and unfairly maligned for expressing their convictions.

A fourth and final observation about King's statement~ on the war isthat his opposition brings up several considerations about the relationshipof the factor of race to the Vietnam intervention. One is the fact that thecivil rights movement and the peace movement were aometdmes similar and evenoverlapping. As we have seen, clerical activists had enjoyed tremendous suc-cess in the civil rights movement and the 1964 election; those campaigns hadgiven clergymen experience with political work and had gotten them activelyinvolved in the social and political issues of the ,day. The hope was oftenexpressed that success in the earlier political battles could be emulated bythe peace movement. The peace and civil righte crusades had akso been over-


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lapping in that many of the same humanitarian motivations were present andmany. individuals had participated in both movements - King, for instance.When King gave his support to the antiwar movement, he brought with him notonly his personal prestige but some of the moral authority of the civilrights movement, as well. His presence would also encourage black peopleand civil rights leaders to oppose Mr. Johnson's conduct of the war. Theunanimous support of SCLC's executive board for his appeal to various govern-menta is one illustration of this. Secondly, Dr. King touched on problemsof diverted resources when he said it was "physically impossible" to givefull effort to peace work and civil r-Lght.swork. The corollary problem wouldbe that national resources would be diverted from social reconstruction athome to mass destruction in Vietnam, a point which King himself would empha-size later. Thirdly, there is the question of racism in the United States'Vietnam policy. King himself did not make such a connection publicly in1965, although he would do so later. Nevertheless, the fact alone that thecountry's greatest civil rights leader would feel morally compelled to speakout on the problem of Vietnam would seam to indicate possible affinitiesbetween the two problems he was attacking. A link between white racism inthe U. S. and the Vietnam war was being made in 1965, and it would have muchwider appeal later. Probably the most visceral example in 1965 comes fromPhilip Berrigan:

Do you honestly expect that we could so abuse our own Negrocitizens for three hundred and forty years, so resist their moraland democratic rights, so mistreat, exploit, starve, terrorize,rape, and murder them without all this showing itself in foreignpolicy? Is it possible for us to be vicious, brutal, immoral,and violent at home and be fair, judicious, beneficient, andidealistic abroad?23Issues like these were raised by King and many other religious leaders

in 1965. King's experience typifies the experience of IIl8IlY' other religious


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peace activists. His stance became increasingly antiwar, and in this heparalleled and proceeded many others.

One of the most moving stories of the religious action in the peace move-ment is that of Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist. Religion was

I .the dominant power ~n his life, and he brought a deep religious passion tohis two great concerns - civil rights and the peace movement. 24 On November 2,1965, he doused himself with gasoline or kerosene in front of the Pentagonand set himself ablaze. He gave his life, said his wife afterwards "to ex-press his concern over the great loss of life and human suffering caused bythe war in Vietriam."25 The ~ashington Post reported several weeks later thata stamp bearing Morrison' s picture was on sale in North Vietnam,26 and a vis-itor to Hanoi in 1968 reported that on the wall of every classroom hisgroup visited was a portrait of Norman Morrison.27

While he was certainly an extreme case, Morrison is a very clear exam-ple of a person deeply, passionately, religiously opposed to the U. S. role

in Vietnam. These words, written shortly he-fore his death, describe somethingof his outlook, and explain some of the motivation of the religious peaceactiv ists, especially the Quakers:

The Church of the Spirit is always being built. It possessesno other kinq of power and authority than the power and authorityof personal lives, formed into a community by the vitality of thediv ine human encounter.

Quakers seek to begin with life, not with theory or report.The life is mightier than the book which reports it. The mostimportant thing in the world is that our faith becomes livingexperience and deed of life.2~The first Jewish opposition to the government's Vietnam policy also came

in 1965. In June, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, an influentialReform Jewish group, assailed U. S. policy as a violation of the United Nationscharter.29 Two days before, the Conference was told by Rabbi Leon I Feuer


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of Toledo that Reform rabbis should "always be in the vanguard - even tothe point of civil disobedience - in the struggle to abolish forever thehorrors of war." He also criticized a step-up in the fighting of recencyby the U. S. and tenned recent American peace overtures "arbitrary.,,30 Therewas some opposition to this action among American Jews, as was demonstratedby Rabbi Louis LNewman, who attacked the conference 'a action and declared,"Let us hold up our President's hands in the hour of crisia.,,31 Many Jewishleaders and laymen were to take part in the peace movement in the years tocome.

Inter-faith action was frequent. In May of 1965, 900 Protestant, Cath-olic, and Jewish leaders carrying signs conducted a silent six-hour vigil be-fore the Pentagon.32 The clergymen were 'appalled by the human tragedy andsuffering involved in the struggle in Vietnam"; they were disturbed over theescalation of the war, especially the bombing, and called for peace talkswhich would include the NLF.33 In mid-year, a "Clergymen's Emergency Commit-

tee for Vietnam" - representing 3,000 Cat.ho.Hc s , Jews, and Protestants -Bent a 12-member "ministry of reconciliation" to Vietnam.J4 The religiousopposition to the war was becoming strong and broadening, as well.

Many factors contributed to the increased concern among clerics: thecontinual stepping-up of the war, student protests, and even President J ohn-son's vitriolic denunciations of dissenters all contributed. The draft andthe moral problems confronting draft-age young men were important in havingclergymen become more actively antiwar.

In December, the National Conference of Churches, "the most importantProtestant organization in the United States,n35 asked for an end to thebombing of the North as a preliminary to peace talks, called for joint peaceefforts by the UN and "concerned" members, and declared that U. S. policy would


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not bring peace. And this major Protestant body revealed an important trendof thought in American religion by connecting Vietnam policy with white racism:

We believe that if the United States follows a unilateralpolicy in Vietnam, no conceivable victory there can compensatefor the distrust and hatred of the United States that is beinggenerated each day throughout the world because we are seen asa predominantly white nation using our gverwhelm1 rg militarystrength to kill more and more Asians.)By the last of 1 9 6 5 , clerical opposition to the war was becoming more

and more militant, because of the increase in the level of fighting and sk ep-ticism over the intentions of the U. S. government. In early November, agroup of distinguished churchmen formed a g roup called Clergy Concerned AboutVietnam (later Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam) was formed. RabbiAbraham Heschel, a respected Jewish scholar and spokesman for the group, said,"I have previously thought that we vere waging war reluctantly, with sadnessat killing so many people. I realize now that we are doing it now with pridein our military efficiency."37 In its first public meeting, the group declaredthat "the conflict in Vietnam, according to our religious convictions, isnot a just war." The group began to stage rallies, vigils, fasts, etc., toprotest the U. S. involvement in Vietnam. "The clerical composition of thisgroup had considerable shock value in a country where, by and large, church-men had stayed away from politics. ,,38 Catholic participation in this group,for a variety of reasons, was small.

Polls on religious opinions on the war are few, but it should be helpfulto see how the American public in general was reacting to the Vietnam situa-tion in 1 9 6 5 .

A Harris poll released in early February showed that 8)% of the Americansapproving the "retaliatory bombings of North Vietnan," 15% wanting "eventual"negotiations but not at that time, and 79% believing "that a United States


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withdra~al from Asia would 'doom' South~ast Asia 'to a Communist takeover.,H39Harris gave the following characterization of the mainstream of popular

opinion at that time:We should shore up the effort of the South Vietnamese to

resist further Comm~st advances, use retaliatory air strikesonly untiQ' w~ have made enough show of power so that the Comm~st8can see we will not yield, then finally negotiate a settlement.By April, the Harris poll was finding 5 7 % in support of Johnson's poli-

Cies, 43% opposed.41What did these polls mean? "All they prove," in James Reston's words

later in the year, "is that the American people rally round the flag introuble. ,,42 People had become accustomed to following the leadership ofthe President in foreign affairs. Substantial clerical opinion, however, wasalready sharply critical of U. S. policy, as we have just seen. Nevertheless,as Newsweek put it, flthe majority of clergy and laymen alike doubtlesssupports the Administration" on the war at that time.43

Religious action in the year 1965 has been treated at some length be-cause of its particular importance. Many of the important issues, such asbombing, racism, the fIust war" doctrine were raised in that year; many ofthe important leaders were coming to the fore; many of the forms of protest -rallies, vigils, symbolic destruction - appeared; opinions on the war, thedraft, and the right of dissent had been formed and had already begun to har-den; the clerical activists passed from their euphoria of success in civil

rights and the 1964 election to increasing moral opposition to the policiesof the govermnent. The peace movement was born, and clergymen were alreadytaking their places in it. For the next years, brief~r summaries will suf-fice to indicate the level and direction of the peace movement and its reli-giOM element.


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1966 found the U. S. making peace overtures to the North Vietnamese, whorebuffed them. The war escalated as the Americans and South Vietnamese stop-ped the Communist advances of the year by heavy boni>ing and increasing num-bers of "search and destroy" missions in the South. The Congr-es ef.onal, appro-priations for the war were over $13 billion that year, and U. S. troop levelsrose to 385,300. Out of that number,5,OOB were killed and 30 ,0 93 werewounded.

in 1966, relief work in Vietnam by American religious organizations hadbegun to increase rather rapidly. A Mennonite Central Relief Committee had

a small relief and medical team in South Vietnam since 1965,44 and othergroups such as the American Friends Service Committee began to make moreefforts as the war went on and casualties mounted up.

T he situation at the beginning of the year was tense. "The moment isc ruc L al ;" said Yale's chaplain William Sloane Coffin, "for it may well bethat (if) we decide on all-out escalation of the war in Vietnam,then toall intents and purposes of the human soul we may be s~'45 The ClergyConcerned About Vietnam again called for an end to the bombing, negotiationswith the NLF, and an end to escalation. In a telegram to President Johnson,Clergy Concerned also asked "that economic development for humane purposesat home and abroad be given budgetary priority over military spending."46Here we can see developing a connection between domestic improvement and thediversion of funds, not only to the war, but to "military spending." Thefocus of the peace movement and the church was coming to include basic ques-tions about the struc tur-e of American society itself.

This expanding focus was illustrated by Robert Holmes, professor of phil-osophy at the University of Rochester, in an article in Christian Century."The contemporary Christian in this country finds himself in the uncomfort-


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able position of professing convictions which are increasingly difficult torecomile with the expanding military ventures undertaken in his name by the

government." He argued that the present tensions between Chrietian ,principleand foreign policy were so great at present that they "pose a problem towhich every Christian in conscience must attend, because they symptomize athreat to the very conditions under which Christianity itself can survive.,,47Holmes believed that church people should subject their government to judg-

Qment by Christian principles, in specific as well as general terms. Holmes'article indicated the increasing willingness of religious leaders to criti-

cize their government on the basis of higher loyalties.While there was some oppostion from Catholics, the bishops of the na-

tion were still refraining from comment on the war. One of their numbersponsored a peace conference in Washington in early 1966, but such gestureeb~ bishOps were rare.48 However, the bishops silence seemed to have somemeaning nevertheless. As Commonweal, a liberal Catholic j ournal explainedit:

Silence (on the part of the bishops) does not even achieve a sortof bleak neutrality, since it tends to come down on one side ofthe controversy - as a form of endorsement of current ends andmeans, since the popular assumption is that our most prominentmoral leaders would certainly speak out if they saw serious moraldeviations in our conduct of the war.49One exception to the silence in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church

was Lawrence Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore. In a pastoral letter he stressedthe traditional doctrine of the just war and> the "duty" of the Christian "tocare about the overriding moral issues of modern warfare."' On the subjectof Vietnam, he emphasized "that only on moral grounds can our course in Viet-nam be just. If our means become immoral, our cause will have been betray-ed.1t50


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Shehan (and Cardinal Cushing as well) tried to abate chauvinistic patriotism,but there was little moral discussion on Vietnam in specific terms. Common-weal noted at the end of the year: "No significant segment of American Ca-tholicism has been awakened by the Pope' s pleas to stop the killing. MostCatholics, like the bishops, are divided into superpatriots or dazed byatand-ers who admit Vietnam is a great moral issue but seem to have nothing muchelse to offer., ,5l

The continued war was drawing mor-ec r-tt.Lc Lem from all major sectors ofAmerican religion. More and more churchmen were coming to believe that the

war was distracting national resources and concern from domestic problems.Also, the large number of civilian casualties in Vietnam raised questionsas to whether the government's actions there were really helping to advancefreedom and social justice in Vietnam. "Nobody," said a disgusted Dan Ber-rigan , " including our friends and allies - buys our vision of the war."

In early 1966, the National Council of Churches broadened its role inthe peace movement, and began working more closely with Catholic and Jewishpeace groups. The NCC continued to call for negotiations with NLF, anend to the bombing, submission of the conflict to the United Nations, moreopenness from the Administration on Vietnam, and opposition to domestic re-pression.

Many religious leaders, dee~ly disturbed over what was increasinglyseen as the moral dimensions of the Vietnam War, accelerated their condem-

nation of American policy. The bitterness, self-righteousness, and dehuman-izing elements of the war, the "body counts" and massive impersonal destruc-tion, the repression and cynicism at home, were fast eroding the govern-me~t's support on Vietnam.52 In response, however, the Administration of-


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fered little in the way of moral argument. Dean Rusk, for example, toldPhil Berrigan in late 1 9 6 6 : "I leave all morality up to you clergymen. , , 5 3

In late January of 1 9 6 6 , a New ~ Times informal sampling of publicopinion indicated general approval of the just-resumed bombing of the North.5 4

In March, a national poll showed 5 0 % approval of the Johnson war poli-cies, 3 3 % against, and 1 7 % undecided.5 5 A few days later, a poll suggestedthat most Americans would favor negotiations with the National LiberationF ront, although 6 0 % would have preferred all-out war over withdrawal.5 6What these statistics meant is difficult to say, but it appears that sup-port for the war was weakening somewhat.

By May, the President's popularity was at a low point. Some desire formore isolation from other nations was becoming evident and pacifist senti-ment was becoming more prevalent Significantly, by this time most of thecriticism of the conduct of the war was coming not from whose who wanted es-calation, but from those who preferred to take less risks. The "dovish"dissenters were outnumbering the "hawkish" ones.5 7

In September, a Gallup poll found 4 3 % of the people supporting Johnson'spolicies, 4 0 % opposing. This poll also showed the nature of the religiousopposition. Jewish t}pinion waa equally divided, 4 1 % for and 4 1 % against, al-though many Jewish leaders had bitterly criticized the war. Catholic opin-ion supported the President 5 4 % - 3 1 % , and Protestants were opposed, 4 3 % - 3 9 % .The silence of the Catholic hierarchy probably had much to do with the notice-ably lesser amount of Catholic opposition.

By 1 9 6 7 , the cost of the war was rising at the rate of $2 billion a month.Elections were held in South Vietnam that year, making Nguyen Van Thieu Pres-ident and Nguyen Cao Ky Vice-President. By year's end, American troop levels


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were up to 485,600, with 9,378 killed and 62,025 wounded.In 1967, religious opposition grew steadily and began to be widely no-

ticed as the war and the draft aroused ever more vehement protest in the na-tion. Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam became a focus for such re- .ligiously-oriented antiwar activity, and many previously uncommitted relig-ious publications came out against the war. The Roman Catholic journal Criticaddressed the problem in blunt terms: " the war can no longer be consid-ered merely a political issue. Rather, it is a moral issue which American

citizens as individuals must resolve for themselves. To us only one con-clusion seems valid: the United States should get the hell out of VietNam.,,58 American deaths rose to a total of over 13,000 that year, and thecountry was getting angry.

In a sermon in Nov ember, R ector Cotesworth Pinck ney L ewis addressedP r e s i d e n t J o h n s o n , w h o w a s s i t t i n g t h e t h e f r o n t r c w , o n Vietnam. Demanding"some logical, straightforward explanation" for the American role in the war,59Rev . L ewis declared: "rle are appalled that apparently this is the only warin our history which has had three times as many civilian as military casu-alties. It is particularly regretable that to most nations of the world thestruggle's purpose appears to be neo-colonialism."60 This story is notable,because it illustrates the extent of division and the intensity of passioncaused in the United States by the war in Vietnam. It's effects reached in-

.to every area of national life, and was widely perceived as a matter of per-sonal moral responsibility for individual citizens. And the increasinglybeleagured President, conducting an unpopular war, could not escape the bur-den of Vietnam even in Sunday sermons. It would be difficult to underes-timate the significance of Vietnam as a moral issue, a crisis of conscience


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Page 33for government, for religion, and for individual~.

The moral impact of Vietnam also spread into the civil rights move-ment. This was dramatically illuet.rated in April, when Martin Luther King,who had once vowed never to appear on the same platform with "Black Power"advocate Stokely Carmichael, abandoned that promise and appeared with Car-michael at a rally at the U N to denounce the war in Vietnam. While Kingnoted that only 10 million Americans at most explicitly opposed the war,he emphasized that the opponents included many of "our deepest thinkers inthe academic and intellectual community." America, "which initiated somuch of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world," had become "an archcounter-revolutionary nation." Cried the world famous civil rights leader:"Let us save our national honor - stop the bombing. Let us save Americanlives and Vietnamese lives - stop the bombing Let oUr voices ring outacross the land to say the American people are not vainglorious conquerors -stop the bombing., ,6l

King's outspoken opposition to the war was particularly significant, be-cause of his personal stature and his position in the civil rights movement.He appeared to be endangering the effectiveness of the movement by so strong-ly and openly opposing the war, but he felt that "If America's soul becomestruly poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam." For King, themoral issue there was far too great to be ignored. But he also felt thatthe civil rights movement and the war were connected, because the war wasdiverting resources needed for domestic improvement and was thus "an ene~of the poor." Also, blacks were dYing in the war in far greater proportionsthan whites relative to the population of the U. S., and the country waa"repeatedly faced with the cruel iroIl1'of watching Negro and white boys


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on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been un-able to seat them in the same schools.,,62

Moreover, King's opposition was significant for its profoundly religiousn~ture. He felt that because of his Christian ministry, he was "bound byallegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism."''We are called," he said, "to speak for the victims of our nation and forthose it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these hu-mans any less our brothers.,,6)

By 1967, there were 26 different volunteer agencies working in reliefprograms in Vietnam, and most were U. S - and religious-based. The largestwas the Catholic Relief Services, and the Protestant's main relief agencywas the Viet Nam Christian Service. Even the conservative World-wideEvangelization Crusade sponsored a leprosarium in Danang.64

By this time, most of the major Protestant denominations felt thatthey should take some sort of position on the war, even if it meant tensionin their churches. In April, the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concernscalled for a unilateral cease-fire and negotiations with the NLF.65 TheSouthern Baptist Convention "received" in June a resolution on world peacefrom the Christian Life Commt.ssd.on , the SBC' s "socially conscious edge" whichwas mildly worded but called for "peaceful settlement of international prob-lems." The resolution emphasiz ed "the personal tragedy, the great sorrow,and the fantastic cost" of the Vietnam war.66

The silence in the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy also began tobreak. The distinguished Roman Catholic Archbishop Paul J. Halliman of At-lanta ex pressed his support of (though not membership in) Clergy and Lay-men Concerned, and mentioned several moral issues on which he felt were so


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clear that they needed no debate:indiscriminate destruction and/or methodical extermination of citie8and peoples; the acknowledgment of the courage of the honest sol-dier and the honest pacifist; escalation and overk ill} full accessto all necessary facts from civil and military leadership; the useof international bodies working for peace, like the United Nations.67The depth of opposition was shown by an October Gallup poll which found

that 20 million Americans who had oro e approved of the war had come to con-sider it "a mistake" since 1965. This poll found 4 1 % of American adultsdisapprov ing the war.68

A Harris poll in July had shown that 18% of the whole adult populationwere "extreme hawks," 4 0 % "modest hawks," 36% moderate dov es," and 6% "ex-treme doves." Curiously, Newseek had found that a year before, three timesas many persons favored withdrawal as in 1967.69

At this time most American churches appeared unable to ev aluate theethical implications of the war, and most of the local clergy were stillsilent. Vocal support for the war was appearing, and campaigns to involvelocal congregations and laymen in antiwar activities had been unsuccessful.Furthermore, the impact of clerical dissent on Congress appeared to be smallor nonexistent. Strangely enough, the above-mentioned Harris poll foundthat Catholic laymen tended to be slightly more dov ish than Protestants,70differing markedly from the previous year. This discrepancy is probably dueto inadquacies in polling techniques rather than actual shifts in opinion.Which version is more accurate, however, it is impossible to tell.

The vocal supporters of the war in American religion were becoming moreimportant. Francis Cardinal Spellman, for instance, called Vietnam a "warfor civilization" and called for an unqualified victory. By 1967, the Cath-olic Church in America "had developed an unprecedented division over the


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Vietnam war." Leading Catholic theologians and the liberal Catholic press,opposed the American role in Vietnam,while conservative publications, mostof the bishops, and probably most laymen were in support of the war.7l And

.in Protestant churches, many persons felt that the churches were involvingthemselves too heavily in political activity.

By late 1967 and early 1968, many religious opponents of the war werebecoming bitter and even more vitriolic in their denunciations of the war.And by now, criticism of the war was expanding into harsh attacks on thegovernment and society. In October, 1967, t he Co nf er ence on Church andSociety sponsored by the National Council of Churches, called on religiousleaders to promote a nationwide strike in the event of an invasion of NorthVietnam, to give sanctuary to dra ft d od ge rs, and to accept violence as anacceptable response to certain social evils. In January of 1968, Dr.Benjamin Spock and Yale Chaplain ;~il li am S loane Coffin were arrested oncharges arising from a draft protest, and the ground was being laid for

the first of the major political trials of the Vietnam era.In 1968, Allied forces were unable to gain a decisive victory over the

opposing forces. The Tet offensive in February showed the ability of therevolutionary forces to mount attacks on most of the provincial capitals inthe South, often inflicting heavy damage. American troop levels were 535,500at year's end, with 14,592 killed and 92,820 wounded. The shock of the Tet .offensive, the mounting casualties and financial expense, regular TV cov-erage of the fighting, inflationary pressures, a new tax surcharge, anti-war demonstrators, and the strongly antiwar bids of Eugene McCarthy, RobertKennedy, and George HcGovern all helped to bring home the cost of the warand to shift public opinion against it. President Johnson also raised hopes


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for an end of the war by halting bombing raids on the ~orth in Nove!nber.At the beginning of 1968, before the Tet offensive, the domestic pos-

ition of the Johnson Administration was precarious, in part because of itslack of public credibility. More and more young men, particularly seminar-ians, were protesting the war and the draft, and Johnson could not win sup-port at home for new taxes or Great Society programs. Johnson was in a pos-ition such that any escalation of the war would undermine his own politicalstrength, heading into an election year. "A growing consensus among mature,morally sensitive people (was) that the spiritual integrity of the UnitedStates, rooted as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition," could not be se-cured by the current Vietnam policy.72

The Tet offensive of early 1968 was decisive in turning American opin-ion against the war in Vietnam and the policies of the Johnson Administration.And the candidacy of Senator Eugene McCarthy for the Democratic Presidentialnomination showed that the public was deeply dissatisfied with the JohnsonAdministration. McCarthy's early successes led the President to retire fromthe campaign for the Democratic norr..ination. Religious influences were im-portant to the McCarthy candidacy, because McCarthy's feelings against thewar rose from his own deep religious convictions and his campaign was sup-ported and encouraged by many clergymen.

After Johnson's withdrawal from the race, the nature of religious anti-war activities became obscured. There was still distinctly religious opposi-tion, to be sure, but its religious character was not as important as it hadbeen before. Opposition to the war was now widespread, and Nixon was electedon a pledge to end the war in Vietnam. The antiwar movement now had a muchbroader base, and after the Tet offensive, religious opposition appeared to


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Page 38be "indistinguishable from general public disillusionment with the war. "73The role of religion in the peace movement itself remained much the same,until the movement lost most of its steam in 19 71.

The reasons that the di~tinctly religious character of antiwar protestfaded after 1 96 8 are obscur-ed.; but some tentative guesses can be made. Onereason is that when President Johnson withdrew from the race and decided toresist further escalation of the U. S. role in Indochina, the peace movementhad accomplished one of its main objectives, to turn the attitude of thegovernment on the war around. The successes of the three antiwar Democrats -McCarthy, Kennedy, and McGovern - had shown that there was a desire in thecountry to bring the war to a close, and eventually both Hubert Humphrey andRichard Nixon promised some sort of conclusion to the war in their Presiden-tial campaigns. The nation and the government had accepted. t he p ri nc ip leof ending the war, and some of the urgency of the peace movement began towane. Much of the religious character of protest disappeared in the political

campaigns of 1968, when partypolitics came to the fore, and after that yearthe religious element remained partly submerged in the more general charac-ter of the peace movement. Also, the gradually declining presence of U. S.troops in Vietnam and the resulting reduction in U. S. c as ua lt ie s d ec re as edthe pressures making for opposition to the war, the religious pressure included.

(;)

One notable instance of religious prote~t in 1968 was the Catonsvilleraid. Daniel and Philip Berrigan, along with fi ve others, removed draft rec-ords from a Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland, and burnedthem publicly. After this incident, believed Dan, the Catholics were leadingthe radical fringe of the peace movement.74

In the fall, the American Catholic Bishops Conference insisted on the


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importance of dissent and called for allowing conscientious objection tospecific wars; after this; it was oertain that Vietnam would not be madeinto a "holy war" strongly backed by American religion. Conservativechurchmen, Protestant and Catholic alike, had considered the bishops thelast barrier to the antiwar tide, and that barrier was being neutralized.7 5

In 1969, the U. S. troop presence in 30uth Vietnam began to de-escalate,as President Nixon continued the policy begun by the Johnson Administrationto "Vietnamize" the war, by progressively turning more and more responsi-bi1ity for the fighting over to the South Vietnamese. Troop levels fellfrom 536,100 at the end of 1968 to 475,200 at the end of 1969, to 334,600at the end of 1970, to 156,800 at the end of 1971, to 24,200 at the end of1972.

Peace talks went badly in 1969, and Congress and the nation were shockedby revelations and allegations of U. s . misconduct in Vietnam, especially theMyLai massacre. The year 1970 brought the U. S.-South Vietnamese invasionof Cambodia, and the biegest event in the war in 1971 was the South Vietnameseinvasion of Laos with American air support.

By 1969, "Support for the Vietnam war is not respectable in Americanre1igion."76 Most clergymen and laymen took very little active part instruggling against the war, however. Clergy .and Laymen Concerned had 33,000clergymen who had been connected at .~ )i.1.th their organization, out of atotal of 400,000 in the U. S. Cler~~;:~~J'ship in peace organizations amount-ed to about 10%of the tot.al nwn~J.?~,j:~~~l'\en. Richard John Neuhaus be-'. : ~ ~ ". ~ ~ . '' < / ~ : ~ . L : ~ , : ~ .~:'.~#. ,lievedthat about 5%of the tot ..a.('.. ; ' ' l J . : : : : . : . . . . . . . .:;~~~l'rotesting the war, and 5%were

" .!.~~~~'!~.~:.~.,~~~~,:~-.:,':,:::also actively opposing this prot~t:t.,~i~:, ' ,/,.";'.i:,able character of clerical oppos1-:~~~'!t ),;i' ':'~.'~j,:":~\~:;.~~;;t.~;.:tion to the war is that it had nejl ~.:.;; " us not simply on Vietnam, but'~!~. : " ) ; ; ~ : : , : , . ~ : : , S t . ~ ~ .

on American policy toward Third general.


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Page 40In 1970, the peace movement was losing momentum. Nixon's Vietnandz'a-

tion plicywas bringing American troops home, and Mr. Nixon was also usinghis political skills to disarm theropposition. For example, he suggested toJewish leaders that U. S. support to Israel could be jeapordized if AmericanJews continued to oppose his Vietnam policy. This tactic was remarkablyeffective in silencing many Jewish leaders and laymen. However, at leasttwo national Jewish organizations - the Americian Jewish Congress and theUnion of American Hebrew Congregations - refused to succumb to this pressuretactic of the President.78

In 1971, the peace movement was waning badly. One of the few dis-tinctly religious protests was "A Call to Penitence and Action, If a stronglyw9rded document published by the editors of the Chri~tian CentuEY, Christian-ity and Crisis, Commonweal, and the National Catholic Reporter. It saidin part: " many of earth's millions raise the cry out of their perceptionof oppression by our government, our economy and our armed forces. Espec-ially in southeast Asia, American military might is repeating the crucifix-tion of Christ." This showed a broadened attack on the U. S. Third World pol-icies and American militarism, but it also attacked Americ~ economic imperial-ism - religion in the United States was affected by Vietnam deeply, indeed.

The statement also listed a string of "accusations" against American pol-iCies, including: deliberate ignoral of suffering; deception of the U. S. pub-lic; "v ai n c ha uv in is m" in Johnson and Nixon; extensive bombing; support ofa cruel dictatorship in South Vietnam; excessive civilian deaths; creationof refugees; Vietnamization; ignoring world opinion; diverting needed fundsto the purpose of destruction; and the nature of the American "militarymachine." Although opposition was slacking, it was now very bitter, and its


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Page 41list of sins was very long.

PHILOSOPHIC~L, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL ASPECTSEric Fromm, in a strictly Freudian analysis in 1930, explained the

relationship of religion to government power. An individual usually seesin the rulers the strong and powerful persons in society. He believes intheir good will to him, resistance to their authority is punished, and sohe reveres them and tries to win their praise. Since this is how he oncefelt about his father, he inclines to accept unquestioningly the informa-tion given to him by the rulers, just as he once did for his father.

The figure of God forms a supplement to this situation; God is al-ways the ally of the rulers. \fuen the latter, who are always realpersonalities, are exposed to criticism, they can rely on God, who,by virtue of his unreality, only scorns criticism and by his au-thority, confirms the authority of the ruling class.79Past experience seems to confirm this view. Most Christian churches

had, in previous wars in history, supported their governments and gave moralsanctions to their wars. There had been some notable exceptions, such asProtestant martyrs in Hitler German and French Roman Catholic priests whowere imprisoned rather than support their country's war in Algeria. Never-the less, both Christian and Jewish tradition claimed a long record of sup-port for "holy wars." In fact, one author has recently claimed that:

The source of white imperialism lies in the Christocentric viewof history. Christians see themselves as God's sole elect peoplewho have been commissioned to conquer all other nations in Christ'sname. other nations appear on the hitorical horizon only whenChristians are about to conquer them. 0When World War II began in the United States, the churches reluctantly

supported America's entrance into that war. But they lost much public cred-it for not speaking out against obliteration bombing in German and the nu-clear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A sense of guilt and responsibility


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after this neglect, combined with an apprehension of the tremendous destruc-tion of modern warfare, produced a strong antiwar reaction among Americancl er gym en . 8 1

But what were the reasons that in the Vietnam war "the covenant of faith"was so bitterly in conflict with "the convenant of nation"? Why in ~war were the American churches "prepared to declare our solidarity withthe peoples we have wronged," to an extent unprecedented in American history?Why in this war were many churchmen ready "to face the real bane of a mil-lenium of militarism on the life of the church"?82 These reasons will nowbe explored in more depth.

In war, each side tends to see itself as the embodiment of good, andits opponent as the embodiment of evil. When atrocities are committed, theyare thought of as atrocities only when committed by the enemy, and as neces-sary or inevitable when done by one's own side. And then the actions of theenemy provide a justification for equally harsh or harsher counter-measures."In this way we preserve our own self-image as 8 humane, compassionate peo-ple. I I B )

Every group has a sort of ideology by which it e:xplains the meaning ofexistence. Adhering to this ideology protects an individual from the real-ization that his life is a vary insignificant and transitory event in a vastcosmos. Both sides in the Vietnam conflict had a fervent ideology. It was

Americanism vs. Communism from one side's point of view, and nationalism vs.neocolonialism from the other. Thus, the Vietnam war'took on the nature ofan ideological holy war.8 3a This type of conflict is especially bitter, be-cause the defeat of one's ideology would be a psychological death, the fearof which may be even greater than that of actual death.

The great questions which arise from these conditions are - Why was Amer-


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Page 4 3ican religion not enlisted in the ideological holy war to a far greater ex-tent?

One very L~portant answer to this comes from the concept of the survi-val group. In previous ages the survival group was the tribe, the clan, or(eventually) the nation-state. "The survival unit," however, "suddenly is no longer the nation but has become the human race itself, and for thiswe have no precedent, no previous experience, and no education for dealingwith any such situation.,,84 The" churches had apparently, in the face of mod-ern global problems, evolved a more sophisticated awareness ~ the world,not simply the nation-state, ~ the survival unit than had most of theircountrymen. This enabled them more easily to transcend national boundariesand ideologies in favor of a globally conscious "convenant of faith." Theirloyalty was to the human race before it was to the national government. Theywere able to overcome traditional loyalties which had become conscience val-ues because they felt that "our sur-vival, now depends on our concern for ev-erybody, quite independently of what group they may have happened to havebeen born in. ,,85

Conscience values are independent of evidence, based on strong feelingsacquired in childhood, so this independence by the churches is somewhat re-markable. It appears that something in our modern world was exerting verystrong pressures for a supranational outlook on life. Moreover, antiwaractivities on the part of the nation's noted moral leaders were of greatimportance in Changing somewhat the deeply ingrained, nationalistic consciencevalues of many others in the country.85a

But the religious opposition to the war was not wholly divorced from


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Page 4 4long standing religious tradition. Christian tradition had produced threemajor streams of thought about war: the crusade, pacifism, and the doctrineof thQ Ju~t wa~. The cruoQdifii ap1r1t'8 glor1f1a t1 0n o f W~ h31 beoome o b -solete because of the incredible destructive potential of modern war. Pac-ifism waS still playing a mostly insignificant role, but World War II haddone much to discredit that optio~.86 The doctrine of the just war had beenexpounded, as explained above, by St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and itwas through this tradition that much of the opposition to the war on thepart of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews was channeled.

The IIjust war" doctrine was invoked by religious dissenters as early as1965; the way to the application of this principle was paved in part by thepapal encyclical, Pacem in TerriS, which held that "Ln this age of ourswhich prides itself on its atomic power, it is irrational to believe thatwar is still an apt means of vindicating violated rights." And the trend con- .tinued to develop.

In its first public meeting in November, 1965, the Clergy Concerned AboutVietnam declared in a resolution that, by their religious standards, Vietnamdid not qualify as a just war. And individual spokesmen among religiousleaders were beginning to say the same; earlier in the year, Pope Paul hi~self had issued a peace appeal to the government, fearing that "more graveand tragic deveJ.f>RlJlentsJ1ihgfnt.ome about" in Vietnan if the fighting did notstop.

The theory of the just war, articulated by St. Augustine and evolvedover many years has se ~ ral basic principles.

(1) The war must be waged to correct injustice. That is, it must be. fought in self-defense against outside aggression or a repressive force


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Page 4 5wi t hin one' 9 own cou nt ry.

( 2) V io le nc e must be used only as a last resort.() The means must be compatable with the ends. This means that im-

moral means must not be used, even to achieve just and legitimate goals;t ha t no nc ombatants should not be 'a~tacked directly - the innocent as well asprisoners and the wounded should be protected to the greatest possible ex-tent; and that the gains achieved by the war must exceed the costs of thewar itself.

( 4 ) The war must be waged by legitimate, or duly constituted}authority.These principles, especially the third and fourth, when applied to the

conflict in Vietnam, appeared to many religious leaders (and students aswell) to condemn much of American conduct in Indochina. Of course, therewas no unanimity even in the peace movement on all questions, nor was thereunanimity .among the religious sector. The following sketch of specific mat-ters about the Vietnam war is merely a brief attempt to outline the issueswhich gave rise to religious and moral opposition to Vietnam as an "unjust"war~

First, the goals of the American military intervention and support forthe Saigon regime were called into question. Many clergymen would havejoined Philip Berrigan in his protestation that North Vietnam was "a nationagains

just war concept and american churches in the american antiwar movement-1974

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