![]() What actions did they offer as alternatives that would not violate their beliefs?.In the Revolution, how did peace churches explain their refusal to contribute to the war effort?.What is the religious basis for pacifists' opposition to war, bearing arms, and, for some groups, taking oaths?.2 When they refused to sign the required oaths of allegiance to the United States, pacifists were fined, imprisoned, and condemned as Loyalists and traitors. For Quakers, Mennonites and other sects, the scriptural command "Do not swear" (not referring to cursing) is clear-"let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No," i.e., be truthful, period, without the need for oaths. Oath taking involves swearing to the truthfulness of one's words and intentions, which implies that one might not be truthful unless taking an oath. Allegiance was not the issue, oaths were the issue. "Members of the historic peace churches," concludes historian Richard MacMaster, "refused to accept military service, to hire substitutes, or to provide weapons for others to use with a degree of unanimity that would never be matched again in any American war." 1Īnother mandate opposed by many peace churches was taking oaths of allegiance. Could one repair equipment for the army? pay the fine for refusing to join a militia unit? close one's business as required on official days of prayer for the war? use the state's paper money issued to fund the war? The answer often was no, and they supported each other in maintaining fidelity to their beliefs. And beyond direct military service, they struggled to define just what constituted support for the war effort. But to the pacifist churches, hiring substitutes was still contributing to war and thus unacceptable to God. ![]() ![]() As the colonies mobilized for war, they required able-bodied men to serve in the militias, allowing them to hire substitutes (who would still have to fulfill their own service). She identified as a pacifist, socialist and member of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World.Īnd according to Lelyvard, Gandhi the pacifist was a wife-beater, denied sex to his wife for decades, was purported to be a "celibate" living life as an ascetic, but actually was a pedophile who ritualized sleeping naked with underage girls in order to test "the ferocity of his sexual desires," and at one point left his wife for a male lover.While religious pacifists strove to live peacefully and often separately in the American colonies-as depicted in the pastoral scene at right of a Moravian settlement in Pennsylvania-their principled opposition to war would be harshly challenged during the Revolution. Think Progress » Bush Said His Nominees Won’t Change Their Minds In 20 Years 2005Ī pacifist is working in some job which gives him access to important military information, and is approached by a German secret agent. I Can’t Live With Or Without You | ATTACKERMAN 2008Įlvis (#41): being a pacifist is not a sign of weakness. One such person whom no one could credibly describe as a knee-jerk pacifist is retired Army Col. Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week « Blog 2008 Why do you beleive that to be a pacifist is wrong? Vernon Smith on Globalization, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009Īn objection to coercion rooted in pacifist-anarchism evolved into the objections to coercion that inform modern libertariansim.Īnother Herring, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009 ![]() If you accept this, it leads to what I call pacifist-anarchism, a view I was committed to for a while in high school and my first year of college. Philocrites: Imagine all the Statements of Conscience. If the term pacifist means "strongly opposed to war except in rare circumstances" then Channing was a pacifist, as is almost everybody.
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