Churches: Dimensions of Dissent

Clergymen have long been among the leaders of protest against the Viet Nam war, but in recent weeks the clerical dissent has become increasingly bold and bitter. Support for Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Viet Nam has grown steadily in the past year, and this winter a number of hitherto uncommitted publications—including the Roman Catholic Critic—have come out with declarations against the war. "It is now clear that the war can no longer be considered merely a political issue," said The Critic. "Rather, it is a moral question which American citizens as individuals must resolve for themselves.

To us only one conclusion seems valid: the United States should get the hell out of Viet Nam."

One reason for the increasing shrillness of dissent is sheer frustration that the voices of protest do not seem to be heeded in Washington. "Johnson, Humphrey and Rusk are simply not paying any attention to the word of protest," complains Presbyterian Theologian Robert McAfee Brown of Stanford.

"This means that those who are concerned have to escalate the dimensions of protest." To that end, a group of antiwar Protestant theologians met in Chicago last week in the first stage of an attempt to work out a clear-cut theological approach to situations like Viet Nam. Such an approach would indeed be helpful, since the antiwar churchmen differ widely among themselves as to why the conflict is wrong. Many, moreover, are all too ready to judge the war as "totally immoral" without being able to say why.

Holy War. One common objection to the war is that the U.S. is wrong in principle in trying to save South Viet Nam from Communism, especially since, it is claimed, there is no clear proof that the Saigon government represents the will of the people. Few if any of the antiwar clerics advocate handing the country directly over to Hanoi, but they argue that the U.S. has no divine mandate to use war to prevent the spread of Communism. Jesuit Theologian Daniel O'Hanlon of California's Alma College argues that the U.S. anti-Communist policy is "the holy-war theory, and it has been specifically rejected by the church." O'Hanlon contends that the pronouncements of both Pope John XXIII and Paul VI propose dialogue and not war as the "appropriate means" of combatting Communism.

A second charge against the war is that the toll in human bloodshed, especially among civilians, has now become morally intolerable, even though many of the civilians are victims of Viet Cong terrorism, and many others are deliberately pushed into the line of

Allied fire. One reason why some theologians feel especially sensitive to this issue is a residual sense of guilt for Christianity's failure to protest against morally debatable acts of World War II by the Allies. "The churches did not responsibly cry out against the saturation bombing of Dresden, about dropping the A-bomb," contends Jesuit John Coleman of Alma College. As a consequence, he says, churchmen today tend "to be very sensitive about the responsibility of silence."