The great theologian C. S. Lewis found himself helpless to rebut the pacifists.

[NOTE: Since publishing this essay, I have realized that my pacifist stance was in error. First I adopted the "neessary evil" doctrine of certain Orthodox theologians, and then after moving from the Orthodox Church to the Catholic Church, I realized the rightness of the Church's Just War doctrine. Therefore, I have inserted some "rebuttals of myself" at various points in this essay, to show how my views have changed since I wrote it.]

Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis was perhaps the foremost Christian apologist in the English-speaking world. An “apologist,” in this context, is someone who defends and promotes Christianity. It was Lewis’ book *Mere Christianity* which helped lead me to the Christian faith. Thus, in part, I may literally owe my life to Lewis, to the extent that he helped me convert.

Lewis’ works have been very important in showing that there is actually an intellectual case to be made for Christianity. Lewis is not a tub-thumping evangelist. He is not a theological homeopathist who tries to water down Christianity until it has almost dissolved. Nor is he one of those people who writes ponderous, indecipherable articles in theological journals. Despite the handicap of an academic background, he writes lucidly and eloquently, conveying his message intelligibly without talking down to anyone. He also wrote some novels, but nobody’s perfect.

Having myself had reason to know how powerful Lewis is at the art of persuasion, I read with interest an essay of his which tried to refute pacifism in terms of Christianity. Since I think that pacifism is part of Christianity, I was of course interested to see what Lewis had to say by way of rebuttal. Significantly, Lewis’ arguments were fairly weak. This is significant, because in a good cause, Lewis is capable of mustering all his eloquence to establish his point. Only in a bad cause would a great writer and speaker such as Lewis perpetrate so many errors.

I would like to consider some of Lewis’ arguments against pacifism. I am not attempting here to prove the case for pacifism. My objective is to show how even C. S. Lewis came up short when he tried to attack pacifism from a Christian perspective. Lewis’ failure tells me that the Christian militarist position is fairly untenable, since if the truth was on his side Lewis would have been able to invoke his well-known forensic skills in order to establish his point beyond doubt. If even C. S. Lewis failed when he assaulted the citadel of pacifism, then maybe the case against Christian pacifism is fairly weak.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: Lewis actually does an OK job, in many places, to expose twentieth-century pacifism and its errors.]

In Lewis’ defense, I will mention that he seemed to realize that his essay against pacifism was not ready for prime time. He gave a speech based on this essay to some Oxford pacifists in 1940, a time when the relevance of his topic was obvious. However, Lewis never published the essay, and it apparently didn’t get published until 1980, when Lewis’ American editor issued a new edition of an essay collection entitled *The Weight of Glory* (*The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses,* New York, HarperCollins, 2001).

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: You can't blame Lewis for not using his full rhetorical firepower against a group of Oxford pacifists. I doubt their position was backed by particularly weighty arguments, so it would have been a waste of intellectual ammunition to craft a perfect argument to rebut them. If you're shooting fish in a barrel, a .22 is sufficient; you don't need a howitzer. Since Lewis was addressing a specific audience, he was quite right to craft his arguments for that audience. The 'pure pacifist' position I defended in my essay was rarer than I assumed at the time, and even the 'pure' position is vulnerable to some of Lewis' arguments.]

The main arguments which Lewis gave against Christian pacifism were these:

Lewis declares that “[t]he main contention urged as fact by Pacifists would be that wars always do more harm than good.” This particular pacifist does not say this. My view is that killing people in war is wrong. As to whether wars accomplish a greater good or not: Taking the life of a human being for the sake of a greater good (with possible narrow exceptions concerning criminal prosecution of the individual or *personal* self-defense) is extremely immoral. I don’t see why the burden of proof is on the pacifists to show that wars never accomplish a greater good. The burden is on the militarists to show that killing people can be justified in light of some supposed future good. It is the militarists who make predictions about the wonderful things that will happen if we fight a given war. Militarists base their case for war on predictions about future benefit. It is the militarists who must have the burden of proof.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: The proposition that "wars always do more harm than good," which even at the time I wrote this essay I realized was an indensible proposition, is actually the position of many secular pacifists, and also of many religious pacifists. Far from being a "straw man," this position is sincerely held by many well-meaning, if not particularly clear-thinking persons. Lewis was probably on solid ground in directing himself against this position, since it is surprisingly popular, from that day to this.

[Once we grant, as even I did, that wars sometimes do more good than harm, then the question of whether to go to war in a particular instance is a prudential judgment to be made by secular authorities applying the "just war" criteria. I spoke of the dangers of waging war improperly, but there's the opposite danger of failing to wage war when war is called for, eg., the delay Western countries in recognizing the threat of Nazi Germany.]

And they must bear a heavy burden. If a person is accused of committing a capital crime in the past, there is an elaborate system for finding out if the person actually did the crime or not, and even with this elaborate system, the wrong person could be convicted. If we are destroying human lives in the name of causing something good to happen in the future-and this is the basis of any war, at least if we judge by the rhetoric of militarists-then the militarists have to prove that the future benefits will accrue without side-effects.

This task of proving future events is impossible. World War One (in which Lewis served) is an example. When Britain entered that war, it was thinking in terms of defending Belgium and France. The militarists, not being able any more than anyone else to predict the future, did not realize that the war would revolutionize Russia, paving the way for the Stalin dictatorship, and that the war and the punitive peace treaty would sow the seeds of the Hitler dictatorship and another, more horrible war. And the supporters of the Second World War didn’t know that, by driving the Japanese out of China, they were laying the ground for the takeover of China of Mao Tse Tung, who murdered Chinese people by the millions, to an extent which the Japanese would never even have thought of. The supporters of the Afghan guerillas in 1979 to 1989 didn’t know that they were paving the way for the Taliban and their terrorist allies. Given their horrible record when it comes to predicting the future, it is fair to say, not only that the burden of proof is on them, but that there is no way for them to meet that burden.

Lewis also invokes names from English history: “If I am a pacifist, I have Arthur and Aelfred, Elizabeth and Cromwell, Walpole and Burke, against me. I have my university, my school, and my parents against me. I have the literature against me, and cannot even open my *Beowulf,* my Shakespeare, my Johnson, or my Wordsworth without being reproved.” If Lewis were a pacifist, he would have to oppose “the almost unanimous authority of England.”

Of course, having the world against you is not necessarily a problem if you’re a Christian. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). It was Lewis himself who compared the world to enemy-occupied territory (the enemy being the Devil) and who compared Christians to a resistance movement in enemy territory.

As to the opposition of one’s parents: “For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:35-37).

As to *Beowulf:* that was a poem about a hero who killed a supernatural monster. As to Samuel Johnson, he may be a good authority to cite to Englishmen, but he is not a good authority to cite to Americans, because his essay “Taxation no Tyranny” denounced the American Revolution. As to Shakespeare, a pacifist would certainly find Shakespeare against him, but so would a supporter of democracy, or someone who thinks that Jews care more for their daughters than for money (see “The Merchant of Venice) . Shakespeare was a great poet but a lousy political philosopher.

As to Cromwell, pacifists should rejoice that the Butcher of Drogheda is against them.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: Lewis made a tactical error by arraying worldly wisdom against the pacifists, because he opened himself up to sanctimonious attacks like mine, which focus on how pacifists are being so pure in resisting worldly pressure. The fact is, as Lewis himself discusses, pacifists are sometimes following the current of worldly interests, not swimming against it. Whatever may have been the case in 1940s England, U. S. pacifists, at least since Vietnam, can rely on a sympathetic worldly audience.]

In discussing Jesus’ opinions about war, Lewis has to confront the Sermon on the Mount. Lewis quotes what Jesus said in that sermon: “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Lewis certainly should have known that the major pacifist denominations-particularly the Quakers-have traditionally interpreted this remark as containing an implied exception in favor of the enforcement of the law by police and judges against individual wrongdoers. Such state-sanctioned violence against individual criminal suspects is endorsed in the Christian Scriptures, as Lewis points out (Rom. 13:4, I Peter 2:14).

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: Lewis's citations are directly on point, and show the legitimacy of the secular authorities wielding the sword in defense of justice. This doesn't mean that Christians should automatically cooperate with every action of the government, but it *does* mean that Christians can't repudiate the government's sword-wielding authority as inherently illegitimate. As for the tension between acknowledging the government's authority for wielding the sword of justice and allowing a personal vocation of peace on the part of individual Christians, the Catholic Church supports genuine individual vocations for peaceful living, as long as these vocations aren't abused. The Church also supports religious freedom for conscientious objectors, in that it urges governments to give such people some useful work for the country which does not involve bloodshed.]

However, Christian pacifists often hold that law-enforcement in the traditional sense is separated by a vast moral gulf from the mass slaughter of war. If Lewis had wanted to do some research into the historical position of many Christian pacifists, he could have looked at the Declaration issued by many weighty Quakers in Richmond, Indiana in 1887. This Declaration is not popular with every branch of Quakerism, but it represents the views of many orthodox Quaker groups, and its section on peace has not been nearly as controversial among Quakers as the other sections. The Declaration declares: “We feel bound explicitly to avow our unshaken persuasion that all war is utterly incompatible with the plain precepts of our divine Lord and Lawgiver, and the whole spirit of His Gospel, and that no plea of necessity or policy, however urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals or nations from the paramount allegiance which they owe to Him who hath said, ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 5:4, Luke 6:27).” However, the Declaration also says that “[w]e owe much to [the] blessings [of civil government]. Through it we enjoy liberty and protection, in connection with law and order. Civil government is a divine ordinance...instituted to promote the best welfare of man, hence magistrates are to be regarded as God’s ministers who should be terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well. Therefore, it is with us a matter of conscience to render them respect and obedience in the exercise of their proper functions.”

In “refuting” the pacifist position, Lewis pays no attention to the frequently-expressed distinction maintained by Christian pacifists between the “proper functions” of government, including law-enforcement on the individual level, and functions which no government should have, such as war. Instead, Lewis points out that the Christian Scriptures approve of “the magistrate’s use of the sword,” while failing in any way to address the distinctions mentioned above. Lewis simply assumes that pacifists adopt an uncompromising interpretation of turning the other cheek, so as to rule out parental discipline of children and so forth.

Not only does Lewis rebut a position which many pacifists simply do not hold, but he also declares that he will not take any pacifist seriously unless that person has “become a pauper” by giving everything he owns to the poor. Such, Lewis asserts, is the literal interpretation of Jesus’ words. Therefore, since Lewis attributes to all pacifists a literal interpretation of the injunction to turn the other cheek, a consistent pacifist must also be a “pauper” or else Lewis will contemptuously dismiss him as an “inconsistent person.” This is very convenient, since the most prominent groups of Christian pacifists, the Quakers and the Mennonites, are *not* paupers, so Lewis has excused himself in advance from any necessity of even listening to them.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: I remain uncomfortable with arguments like Lewis's demanding purity from others but not from oneself. However, such arguments seem a fairly obvious response when one has been exposed to the insufferable sanctimony of some self-proclaimed pacifists. I can see how Lewis could have been frustrated enough to fire back at his pacifist antagonists.]

In saying that a literal interpretation of Jesus’ words requires people to be paupers, Lewis is presumably alluding to Jesus’ words to the rich man in Mark 10:21-“sell whatever you have and give to the poor.” Is this an injunction that Jesus was addressing to the young man, or is an injunction that Jesus intended all Christians to keep? True, after the rich guy left, Jesus made his well-known remark that the salvation of a rich person was as difficult as a camel going through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:25). Jesus adds, however, that “with God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27).

In considering the “literal” interpretation of Jesus’ words to the rich man, ascertaining Jesus’ intention becomes problematic. If it is true that Jesus asked this one person to become a pauper, it is also true that Jesus didn’t ask *all* his followers to become paupers. Take a look at Zacchaeus the rich tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Convinced of his sins, Zacchaeus surrendered himself to Jesus: “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” What is Jesus’ reply? If He wanted all His followers to be paupers, he would have told Zacchaeus to give up the rest of his wealth. Instead, Jesus told Zacchaeus: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” A “literal” interpretation of the Zacchaeus story, as Lewis interprets literalism, would mean that every Christian must give up stolen property and give *half* of their wealth to the poor. And what about Paul’s injunction: “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). A “literal” interpretation of this passage is that Christians have a duty *not* to be paupers. Yet Lewis claims that literalism would automatically result in Christians becoming paupers.

I think that, to put it mildly, there is room for interpretation on the subject of becoming a pauper, and Christians, even literal-minded Christians, can legitimately hold a diversity of viewpoints on the subject. Even if pacifists are literal-minded about the Sermon on the Mount (and many pacifists allow a non-literal interpretation), then that is no excuse for not listening to a Quaker merchant on the subject of pacifism simply because the merchant isn’t a pauper.

Let us lay aside, therefore, Lewis’ demand that pacifists become paupers for the sake of consistency. Obviously, Lewis himself does not insist on consistency, or else he would not have joined the Anglican denomination, which has traditionally changed its religious and political colors in response to the political needs of the moment.

Lewis says that Jesus’ injunction to turn the other cheek had “an understood reservation in favour of those obviously exceptional cases which every hearer would naturally assume to be exceptions without being told.” Some pacifists, as I have discussed, may be willing to accept this in the context of magistrates enforcing the law. Lewis would have us believe that there was also “an understood reservation” in favor of war.

Lewis says that Jesus’ “audience were private people in a disarmed nation, [so] it seems unlikely that they would have ever supposed Our Lord to be referring to war. War was not what they would have been thinking of. The frictions of daily life among villagers were more likely to be in their minds.”

The “disarmed nation” to which Lewis referred was presumably the Jewish nation. This is the same “disarmed nation” which, a few decades after Jesus’ ministry, rose up against the Romans in the famous Jewish Revolt of A. D. 70. The rebels lost, but not before the Romans were compelled to send an army into Judea, an army headed by a future emperor.

Josephus, who wrote a famous history of the Jewish Revolt and the events leading up to it, makes clear that there were disturbances in the land, including disturbances Galilee (site of much of Jesus’ ministry) before the outbreak of the Revolt. The tense political situation is made clear in the Gospels themselves, for example in describing Barabbas, whom Pilate released in lieu of Jesus: Barabbas “had been thrown into prison for a certain rebellion made in the city [Jerusalem], and for murder” (Luke 23:19). In other words, the Revolt was hardly a bolt out of the blue, but took place in the context of persistent discontent against the Romans and the Jewish authorities who collaborated with them, discontent which existed at the time of Jesus’ ministry. The villagers who listened to Jesus may very well have been thinking about uprisings and wars. At the very least, there is no evidence for Lewis’ assumption that only private grudges would be in the audience’s mind.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: The appropriate response to the pacifist interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is to draw the distinction between turning the other cheek in quarrels involving only one's own personal pride (a good form of self-denial) and turning the other cheek in response to injustice against *others,* an attitude which may partake more of callous indifference than of Christian charity. Waging war to defend an ally against aggression, or using violence, even deadly violence, to defend a woman against a rapist, may not necessarily be a violation of the cheek-turning injunction, because one is not fighting for personal pride or honor but (at least potentially) out of selfless love for others. At least we can say that the matter is more complicated than my simplistic pacifist analysis of the Sermon on the Mount.]

Lewis reminds his audience that their pacifism may have been influenced, albeit unconsciously, by self-interest. “[P]acifism threatens you with almost nothing,” while military service involves “pain and death...ill lodging, cold, hear, thirst and hunger...It threatens *every* temporal evil...”

In other words, the British government did not persecute pacifists by requiring them to do military service against their consciences. This is quite true , but Lewis fails to mention that the treatment of pacifists in World War II England represented an almost unprecedented wartime tolerance for pacifists. The laws of England were much less harsh to pacifists during the middle of the Blitz than the laws of the United States today, and the treatment of English pacifists in the Second World War provides a very startling contrast to the usual treatment of pacifists in wartime.

British law in World War II (unlike American draft laws up to the present) recognized “selective objectors”-those who believed that a particular war was immoral but who would accept the morality of some other war. American law, in contrast, insists on putting selective objectors in prison. British law would allow conscientious objectors to be completely exempt from any kind of government service, except for certain duties imposed on all civilians. American law, by way of contrast, requires conscientious objectors to “earn” their exemption by serving in the military in a noncombatant capacity or by doing some type of civilian “alternative service.” Since many conscientious objectors do not think they have to “earn” the right to obey Christ’s commands against war, many “absolutist” pacifists have undergone persecution.

Most countries which have conscription treat pacifists badly. The special status of English pacifists during World War II is a highly unusual situation.

The usual treatment of pacifists is better reflected by looking at the history of the persecution they have undergone for their beliefs. In England itself, pacifists had traditionally gotten a hard time of it. Anyone who thinks that the life of a pacifist is a bed of roses should consult the 1711 memoir of the Quaker sailor Thomas Lurting, entitled “The Fighting Sailor Turn’d Peaceable Christian,” which is available on the Web at

http://www.voicenet.com/~kuenning/qhp/lurting.html

Lurting was a sailor, and he became a Quaker and a pacifist while serving on a man of war. He and some other Quaker sailors went to meet the captain of the ship:

“Then I went with a great Dread of God upon my Mind, but clear of all fear of Man; for blessed be the Lord, all fear of Man was taken away. And when I came upon the Deck, I set my Back against the Geer-Capstan, with my Face towards the Captain, where he had a full view of me; standing there awhile, I turned my Head to see who was coming after me, and when I saw my Friends there behind me, my very Heart leap'd for Joy, and I was overcome with the sight of them... In a little time comes the Lieutenant, and says to one of them, Go down to thy Quarters; his answer was, I can Fight no more: The which was what he looked for; for he was our great Enemy. Then he goes to the Captain, and makes the worst of it, saying, Yonder the Quakers be altogether, and I do not know but they will mutiny, and one says he cannot Fight; then he ask'd his Name, and came down: He first heaved his Hat Over-board, and took hold of his Collar, and beat him with a large Cane, and then dragged him down to his Quarters. Then the Captain goes upon the Half-Deck again, and call'd to his Man to bring him his Sword; which done, he drew it in as much Fury and Indignation, as ever I saw Sword drawn; for Passion had overcome him. No sooner was his Sword drawn, but the Word of the Lord ran through me like Fire, saying, The Sword of the Lord is over him: And if he will have a Sacrifice, proffer it him: And this Word was so Powerful in me, that I greatly quivered and shook, tho' endeavoured the contrary, fearing they should think I was afraid of the Sword, but I was not: And when the shaking was a little over, I turned my Head over my shoulder, and said to the Friend I loved so well, That I must go to the Captain: His Answer was, Be well satisfied in what thou dost: My Answer was again, There is a necessity upon me to go. Then his Answer was, I will go with thee. Then watching the Captain, as he came forward with his drawn Sword in his Hand, I fixt my Eye upon him, with the great Dread of the Lord upon my Mind; I step'd towards him, and he furiously looked on me, to have daunted me; but I was carried above all his furious Looks: I had about five Paces and six Steps upon the Quarter-Deck before I came to him, I still keeping my Eye upon him, in much Dread, and step'd the five Paces, and on the third Step, his Countenance changed Pale, and he turned himself about from me, and went off...”

So who’s the coward, eh? Lurting or the captain?

Lurting, after he left the service of this particular captain, was often kidnapped by English press-gangs, i. e., bands of thugs who seized men in English ports and forced them to serve in Navy vessels. He preferred to starve rather than serve, and he was released. Lurting also describes in his memoir how his ship was taken by pirates, and how Lurting and his friends were able to escape without using violence.

It is probably examples like this, multiplied many times, which persuaded the British government to leave the pacifists alone. In other words, the good treatment of the pacifists during World War II was a consequence of earlier pacifists who had been willing to risk death rather than compromise their principles.

The Quakers and the Mennonites, two important pacifist groups, hardly joined their respective religious organizations for the sake of convenience. The Quakers and Mennonites faced vicious persecution during their initial period of existence, persecution which they faced with incredible bravery, in many cases greater bravery than most soldiers are ever required to display. Enduring persecution for all sorts of reasons, including but not limited to their opposition to war, the Quakers and Mennonites courageously went through ordeals which would have left an American Army Ranger begging for mercy.

Mennonites were hated by both the Catholic and Protestant countries of Europe. Their persecution in the sixteenth and seventeenth century left a record of utter barbarity. The Inquisition tortured and murdered the Mennonites they came across, and the Protestant counterparts to the Inquisition were also hostile.

Quakers suffered considerable persecution in England at the hands of the Anglican-dominated government. In addition to the fact that Quaker Meetings were illegal, many magistrates would summon Quakers and require them to take oaths renouncing Catholicism, under penalty of life imprisonment and forfeiture of property. Since Quakers opposed oaths, they would not take the anti-Catholic oaths required of them, so they were stripped of their possessions and sent to prison until they died-death often being hastened by the filthy conditions in the prisons. As an Anglican, Lewis should have known about this little slice of history.

The Quakers and the Mennonites can hardly be accused of preferring a life of ease to a life of hardship. It seems that cowardice simply cannot account for the behavior of most Christian pacifists.

Examples from other countries can be cited. Quakers in the American South, for example, suffered great persecution during the Civil War, because the Confederate government, which already distrusted the Quakers because of their opposition to slavery, kidnapped Quakers, tortured them, put them into the front lines of battles, and persecuted them to such an extent that it would take a book to record all the sufferings of the Quakers. There is in fact such a book, entitled *Southern Heroes, or the Friends in War Time,* by a Northern Quaker named Fernando Gale Cartland. This 1895 book is now out of print, but copies can probably be found here and there in the used book market.

Things in the North were not as bad, but to pacifists of tender consciences, matters did not go very well. To confirm this, the diary of Cyrus Pringle, a young Massachusetts Quaker, may be cited. This diary is also on the Web, at

http://www.qhpress.org/
quakerpages/qwhp/pringle2.htm et. seq.

Pringle was drafted, but he was given opportunities to get out of serving. He could have escaped military duty if he had paid a fee so that the federal government could hire someone else as a soldier. Pringle refused to pay the fee. Pringle was also given the opportunity to serve in a hospital or to help supervise freed slaves, both of which options he refused. Whether Pringle’s refusal was right or wrong, it was certainly not based on cowardice.

Pringle and others in his situation were shipped down to the front in Virginia. The pressure Pringle and his comrades went through may be imagined from some of his diary entries. “This morning the officers told us we must yield. We must obey and serve. We were threatened great severities and even death.” “There is ever present with us the thought that perhaps w e shall serve the Lord the most effectually by our death, and desire, if that be the service He requires of us, that we may be ready and resigned.” And similar cowardly sentiments.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: I gave many examples of courageous pacifists, and such examples could surely be found today in many parts of the world. Understandably, though, Lewis was considering the average English pacifist of his own day, who represented a somewhat less courageous type. Also, being courageous in behalf of one's cause doesn't make on right, or else the courage of soldiers in battle could be cited in defense of war, which is not the kind of argument pacifists would want. And it *is* a fact that, in modern liberal democracies, pacifists often (not always) get gentler treatment from the government than soldiers on the battlefield are likely to receive at the hands of the enemy.]

Since Lewis raised the issue of courage, and said that a lack of courage might have been the motive leading pacifists to oppose war, it would be helpful to look on the other side of the question, and see if it was courage, or the lack of courage, which influenced militaristic Christians in favor of war. Lewis disclaimed any suggestion that pacifists were *consciously* allowing their consciences be affected by their personal convenience. Instead, Lewis suggested that pacifists might be under an unconscious pull from their base, cowardly natures, a pull which they might not be able to recognize. Let us see if militaristic Christians felt any similar pull of self-interest which may have influenced them, consciously or unconsciously, to support war.

Consider Lewis himself. He served in the First World War, i. e. he helped bring about the conditions which led to the Second World War, but let us let that pass. The point is that Lewis may have been a brave man in the First World War, or at least he chose to obey the draft law rather than take the risky course of defying the law. In the Second World War, however, Lewis was not serving at the front. Quite the contrary, Lewis had a very good war. He gave speeches on the British Broadcasting Service which he published in book form while the war was still on. These reprinted broadcasts were the basis of his later book *Mere Christianity.* In 1944, Lewis published *Perelandra,* the second novel in his famous “science fiction” trilogy. It would be hard to dispute that these books would have sold less well if Lewis were known to the public to be a pacifist. In fact, it is extremely doubtful that the British government would have allowed Lewis to broadcast on the BBC in the first place if he were an outspoken pacifist. If he had gone so far as to insert pacifist propaganda in his wartime books, he would have seriously cut into the sales of those books, assuming for the sake of argument that the government allowed these books to be published.

I would never suggest that Lewis was *consciously* motivated, in his support of the war, by a desire to make money from his books. However, there was certainly a possibility of an *unconscious* motive encouraging Lewis’ militarism. There was a *direct link* between Lewis’ militarism and his ability to sell books during the war. Why would patriotic Britons buy religious advice from a pacifist, or even purchase a novel that came from such a polluted source? I suppose that the direct link between Lewis’ militarism and his book sales was probably a coincidence, but Lewis encourages this kind of speculation when he discusses the possibility of unconscious influences on the pacifists.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: That was unfair on my part. After serving in World War One, Lewis was entitled to have the issue of his courage put to rest.]

Continuing on the theme of self-interest, Lewis cites “Authority” with a capital “A” as being against pacifism. Lewis cites the creed of his own denomination: “Looking at the statement which is my immediate authority as an Anglican, the Thirty-Nine Articles, I find it laid down in black and white [in Article 37] that ‘it is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in the wars.’”

The citation of the Thirty-Nine Articles as “authority,” indeed as “Authority,” is very problematic. The authors of the Thirty-Nine Articles had a strong motive of self-interest to renounce pacifism. The Thirty-Nine Articles were first adopted under Queen Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century. Elizabeth, as the legal head of the Anglican Church, had the leading Anglican clerics draw up the Thirty-Nine Articles, over which, of course, she had a veto. Under these circumstances is it any surprise that the Thirty-Nine Articles endorsed militarism? It was in Elizabeth’s immediate personal interest to renounce pacifism. It was likewise in the personal interest of the Anglican clerics to renounce pacifism as well, because they certainly knew how the Queen would react if these clerics proposed a pro-pacifist clause. Any Anglican official who wanted to include pacifism in the Thirty-Nine Articles would not only have been overruled, he would have done serious damage to his career, and perhaps even placed himself in legal jeopardy. The unconscious influences to which Lewis alludes would certainly be at work here.

Similar problems exist with respect to Lewis’ invocation of Catholic authority: “Doctors [i. e., theologians], bishops, and popes-including, I think, the present Pope”-meaning Pius XII, who was neutral in World War II [REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: It was actually more complicated than that, but that's a whole different issue] -“have again and again discountenanced the Pacifist position.” This is true . The Catholic Church has frequently endorsed wars when doing so suited the interest of the Church. For instance, when King Philip of Spain sent his famous Armada against England in 1588, he went with a blessing from the Pope, who declared a crusade against England and called for the overthrow of the “heretic” (i. e., Anglican) Queen Elizabeth. A Spanish victory would have suited the self-interest of the Catholic church, since it would have made England officially Catholic and promoted the interests of the Pope’s ally King Philip. Once again, we see self-interest at work among militarist Christians. Incidentally, it is curious that Lewis, as an Anglican, whose church the Pope once wished to destroy by war, should invoke Catholic doctrines as authoritative.

Lewis also refers to “the history of the Presbyterians, which is by no means Pacifist.” No, the Presbyterians were not pacifists, as the Anglicans learned to their sorrow during the wars between England and the Presbyterian Scots. It is understandable that Scots Presbyterians would say that war was a good thing, since such a doctrine was necessary in order to justify making war *against England.*

The Anglicans, the Catholics and the Presbyterians all believed that it was legitimate to wage war *against each other.* Now Lewis interprets this as a sort of consensus against pacifism.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: Examining the situation as a Catholic, I see a way out of such dilemmas in the Church's doctrine of the just war, and in the Pope's spiritual power (admittedly generally unused for sound prudential reasons) to arbitrate between Catholic nations and even, in extremis, excommunicate the leaders of aggressor states.]

One of Lewis' arguments is comes as close to being self-refuting as any statement can be:

"Nor am I greatly moved by the fact that many of the individuals we strike down in war are innocent. This seems, in a way, to make war not worse but better. All men die, and most men miserably. That two soldiers on opposite sides, each believing his own country to be in the right, each at the moment when his selfishness is most in abeyance and his will to sacrifice in the ascendant, should kill [each] other in plant battle seems to me by no means one of the most terrible things in this very terrible world. Of course, one of them (at least) must be mistaken. And of course war is a very great evil. But that is not the question. The question is whether war is the greatest evil in the world, so that any state of affairs which might result from submission is certainly preferable. And I do not see any really cogent arguments for that view."

It is Lewis' view about the deaths of the innocent, not any view that he attributes to pacifists, which lacks cogent arguments. Despite his disclaimers, Lewis' position is that the deaths of innocent people make war better. Like Lewis, let us focus solely on the deaths of soldiers and not on the sorrow of their bereaved loved ones. Also like Lewis, let us lay to one side the deaths of civilians. Lewis' position is still morally indefensible. If the slaughter of soldiers is such a wonderful thing, why not honor Hitler as a benefactor of mankind because of the millions of soldiers who died on the Russian front?

Lewis' arguments are not specific to World War Two. Lewis makes the case for why Englishmen should fight for England in *any* war.

Lewis' arguments could easily be applied to justify a young German in fighting for Germany. After all, Germany, like England, has national traditions in favor of the lawfulness of Christians serving in the military-the German military, in this case. German conscientious objectors could be accused of cowardice as readily as Lewis accuses English conscientious objectors of cowardice. The spiritual benefits of dying for one's country apply, in Lewis' formulation, as much to Germans as to Englishmen. In other words, Lewis' arguments could, almost without change, be cited to justify Germans fighting for the Nazis. An argument which leads to an absurd conclusion-it's OK to fight for Germany *and* it's OK to fight for England-is probably an unsound argument.

Really, that’s enough of belaboring Lewis. His talents are great, but even he cannot reconcile light and dark, or reconcile Christianity and war.

[REBUTTAL OF MYSELF: Actually, it's my own arguments in this essay which fall short. I hope these rebuttals of myself have corrected the injustices I perpetrated against Lewis.]