Jesus Christ

In this military vignette, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on April 19, 1943, John Joseph Stoudt depicts the religiosity of men confronting their own mortality. The Chaplain employs the clearest ritual means of communicating the weight of their task, the nature of their profession: Communion. In taking up the body and the blood, the gathered soldiers experience camaraderie in a common meal, and unanimously acknowledge of the enduring, indisputable value of sacrifice; both God’s and their own.

Foretelling a time of cultivation, Isaiah prophesies, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” One cannot plow a field with a sword, nor prune a tree with a spear. In this article, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on March 8, 1943, John Knox contrasts the promotion of good with the destruction of evil, particularly in conflict. Promoting good is insufficient; the conduct of war and the creation of peace are distinct phenomena to be pursued with discrete tools.

Against the seemingly gentle assertions of pacifism, those who truly want to love in our world must understand there remains a need of coercion to maintain a minimum of justice and to preserve those innocents whom the unjust would ravage.

The story of Christmas is a story of hope realized. God came to earth as a man in the person of Jesus the Christ, thus confirming the prophecy delivered to Eve, the promise given to Abraham, the kingdom foretold to David. And so, in that spirit, says Edward L. Parsons in this piece, Christians living through the Second World War should put their faith into action to help bring peace to the world. With the Prince of Peace as their savior and model, Christians can restore order and bring justice to their fellow image-bearers.

Francis P. Miller claims the church cannot stand by and optimistically assume that the state will pursue justice without the assistance of a religious ethic.

This article about the viewpoints of Christians & the Church in response to World War II was originally published in Christianity & Crisis on June 15, 1942.

This article about the morality and justification of World War II and the Church was originally published in Christianity & Crisis in 1942.

Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) leads to the core question: who is my neighbor? Although he answers with a parable, Jesus surprisingly does not directly define the term but, rather, he demonstrates something greater. But drawing lessons from this parable today presents a challenge. The world is much bigger, the problems often larger, the potential danger much higher, opinions more varied, and the methods and means at our disposal far more vast. As the scenario is changed, how does the lesson in the parable influence what we do? What if the Samaritan showed up a few minutes earlier, while the robbery was occurring? What is the appropriate response then?