BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

MENNONITE PEACE WITNESS, THEN AND NOW

Daniel Hertzler

"As disciples of Christ, we do not prepare for war or participate in war or military service," says Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (82).

In 1942 my father’s hired man was drafted and Dad declared that I should quit school and help on the farm. So when I became of draft age, I was deferred to work on the farm. I have no personal Civilian Public Service stories to tell.

But I have examined the literature and find the CPS era as well as the following eras quite well-documented. This is a review of U.S. Mennonite response to militarism through three eras: From CPS through the I-W period (1-W was what the selective service classified conscientious objectors, or COs) to the present efforts of Christian Peacemaker Teams and Conflict Transformation Programs.

A basic source for the CPS story is Melvin Gingerich’s Service for Peace (Herald Press, 1949). It reports that CPS extended from May 1941 to March 1947 and that nearly 12,000 men served in it. Of these, 4665 or 38 percent were Mennonites (1).

Gingerich recounts detail by detail how conscription came about and how the church responded. He reports that according to a Mennonite Central Committee census "of Mennonite men inducted before December 1, 1944 . . . 45.9 percent went into CPS, 14.5 percent into noncombatant military service (1-A-O) and 39.6 percent took regular military service" (90).

CPS appears to have been a marriage of (in)convenience for the peace churches and the government. For both it had the appeal of an organized program. They knew where the men would be and could monitor their activities. But neither side was really happy with the arrangement. For the government, the COs were an annoyance. The churches were disappointed to find the program coming under the direction of Selective Service.

To present a united front to the government, the peace churches organized what was to become the National Service Board for Religious Objectors (56). President Roosevelt turned down flat the first proposal negotiated with representatives of Selective Service. It would have provided several options for the men, one of which would have included wages.

The record of these negotiations suggests that when push comes to shove the government generally wins. "The churches now faced a problem they had not expected. Were their young men to work without pay on projects completely government administered or were they to work without pay in church administered camps?" (57). Gingerich asks, "Why where the churches willing to finance the program?" He suggests two answers.

For one, the money for wages was clearly not available for camps not administered by the government. Secondly, as Paul Comly French put it, "The fact that people believe in anything sufficiently to pay for it has worth in making our testimony clear in a society in which material things are predominant and the basis on which values are judged" (60).

Among the other ambiguities facing the churches were two questions growing out of a phrase in a recommendation by a Senate committee "that if the objector is found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in . . . noncombatant service, that he should be assigned to work of national importance under civilian direction" (49). Who would be ultimately in charge and how to define "work of national importance" were issues never resolved to the satisfaction of the churches and numbers of the draftees.

The issue is addressed by Albert Keim and Grant Stoltzfus in The Politics of Conscience (Herald Press, 1955). As they report, CPS developed from Executive Order 8675, signed by the president on Feb. 6, 1941. This order gave "the Selective Service Director authority to determine work of national importance, assign men to camps, and supervise and equip and regulate the process" (114). It was some time before church leaders understood how comprehensive the role of Selective Service would be.

On the one hand, General Lewis B. Hershey, administrator of CPS, favored the plan and generally responded favorably to church administrators. On the other hand, his true feelings evidently appeared in 1943 testimony before a House committee. He said, "The conscientious objector, by my theory, is best handled if no one hears of him" (118). A deputy of Hershey’s, Colonel Louis Kosch, told Quaker Tom Jones, "My dear man, the draft is under United States government operation. Conscientious objectors are draftees just as soldiers are. The peace churches are only camp managers" (119).

A perspective on the CPS experience turned up in a pamphlet prepared by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, a copy of which I found in a secondhand store. Of interest are the instructions, especially these, on what to bring to camp: "Do not bring too many supplies. They will be a burden. This clothing need NOT BE NEW. . . . All clothing and bed linens should be marked by the owner’s name.

"Be sure to bring your sugar ration card."

Gingerich describes in some detail the varieties of work CPS men did while in service. Numbers of them were able to transfer from base camps to more satisfying work, such as in mental hospitals. He reports that over 1500 men served in mental hospitals where MCC was in charge of the units.

The men responded to this work in a variety of ways, but one response found in the files was this: "I would consider the hospital work by far the most significant work I did while in CPS. There is something about seeing a demented person returned to normalcy which raised a lump in your throat and you grope for words to express it" (247).

The military draft in the United States had a brief pause after World War II but was soon activated again. As recounted by Keim and Stoltzfus, in 1948 President Harry Truman asked for a new draft only a year after the 1940 act expired. The bill, signed in June 1948, exempted conscientious objectors.

In 1950 this law was up for renewal at the start of the Korean War. The pressure of war and occasional bad publicity threatened the deferred status of COs. By 1951 the 1948 act was amended to call for conscientious objectors "‘to perform . . . such civilian work contributing to the maintenance of a national health, safety and interest as the local board may deem appropriate’. The Korean War had destroyed deferment. Alternative service was the law" (139).

The new alternative service would not be CPS. Neither Selective Service nor the churches wanted any more camps. The Friends would not cooperate with the program, but the Church of the Brethren and the Mennonites agreed to do so.

What developed was the I-W program which "began operating officially in 1952" (144). Also, "Most I-Ws accepted low-level jobs in health facilities. . . . By 1954 more than 80 percent of all I-Ws held hospital jobs" (145). Keim and Stoltzfus report general satisfaction with the program. However, "The men sometimes melted into their settings without any special witness about who they were or what they stood for" (146).

A research paper entitled "An Overview of the Mennonite I-W Program" by Dirk W. Eitzen and Timothy R. Falb (1980) was prepared for the MCC Peace Section and is more articulate about the problems. It suggests that the government was satisfied and the young men were satisfied, but church leaders became more and more unhappy. As a point of reference, the paper indicates that from 1952 to 1975 "about 15,000 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ participated in the program" (1).

In contrast to CPS, where the men were ordered into camps, I-W men were scattered about the country, and church organizations had difficulty finding and relating to them, particularly men who did not wish to be "pastored." Eitzen and Falb conclude that "On the one hand, some men were lost to the Church and the peace witness was sullied by inconsistent behavior. On the other, churches sprang up in unexpected places as I-W scattered the men and their testimony to nonresistant Christianity across the continent" (22).

Recently, Michael Horst wrote a paper at Eastern Mennonite University entitled "The 1950s I-W Program: Spirituality and the Challenge for the Church to Be Involved." He did extensive interviews with former I-Ws and also reviewed publications put out by the units. He concluded that "This wasn’t a service that really required the men to look into their hearts and stand up for their pacifist beliefs." Yet, he writes, "With all the negatives, witness seemed like the strongest point in the program."

I asked several former I-Ws in my own congregation why they had chosen this service. For Herbert Weaver, I-W was part of a family tradition. His father had been a conscientious objector in World War I and his oldest brother worked in a hospital in CPS. He himself was glad for a chance to provide a service which matched his conviction while he fulfilled an obligation laid on him by the government. Without a family peace tradition, Rodney Cavanaugh chose I-W after viewing war movies. He learned from them that war was not for him.

Two alternatives to regular I-W service were available. One was Voluntary Service, organized by the churches. In contrast to I-W, volunteers received only maintenance payment, not wages. The other was Pax, an overseas program which, having already begun, was authorized as alternative service.

According to Calvin W. Redekop in The Pax Story (Pandora Press U.S., 2001) some 1,800 men served in Pax from 1951 to 1976. Of these, 110 were from Canada. The first Pax work was to build housing for refugees in West Germany. Right away Pax met up with the German construction standards. The building inspector who discovered that "most had no ‘specialized building experience’" was alarmed. "But the Pax director’s passionate appeal ‘to give the boys a chance’ avoided a potential crisis, and the ‘boys’ soon demonstrated that they could learn fast" (64).

Having begun as builders, the Pax men eventually moved into other programs and scattered throughout the world. This scattering is illustrated anecdotally in Soldiers of Compassion by Urie Bender (Herald Press, 1969). This book uses memoirs of Pax men as a basic source of material. The first nonbuilding unit performed agricultural work in Greece where "land had been left idle so long the hard soil barely yielded to the homemade wooden plow pulled by an emaciated mule leftover from the Marshall Plan" (54).

Appendixes in the Bender book list the dates and number of men who served in 39 countries to 1968; 22 different church bodies from which Pax men came; the names of Pax men in service from 1951 to 1968.

My brother, Truman Hertzler, was a builder at Enkenbach in West Germany from 1953 to 1955. In addition to building he taught Sunday school to 10-year-olds. He offered them Bibles if they would memorize selected Scriptures, and two of them complied: Ute Tyart and Rainer Schmidt.

In 2003 the Enkenbach Mennonite Church celebrated 50 years and Pax men were invited. "I was called to the front," Truman reports, "and there were Ute Tyart (now Hiebert) and Rainer Schmidt, both grandparents, with the Bibles I had given them. My heart was full."

In the meantime, the Mennonite churches encountered theological and sociological influences which affected our perspective on peace and peacemaking. A number of these are described in Mennonite Peacemaking by Leo Driedger and Donald B. Kraybill (Herald Press, 1994). They observe that "peace convictions are fragile. Stubbornly held by one generation, even to the point of death, they can quickly shatter with the winds of nationalism and social success in the next" (37).

They review the Mennonite experience in the last half of the twentieth century and conclude that "Although nonresistance was fading, its legacy was not lost. Mennonites remained committed to peaceful ways" (58).

Peacemaking began to take a more active form, particularly during the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War. The authors point out, however, that the background theology was based on Guy F. Hershberger’s War, Peace and Nonresistance (Herald Press, 1944). Some saw Hershberger’s position as "sectarian" but these authors perceive that "Hershberger’s appeal to a single moral law . . . set the stage for later Mennonite scholars who would argue that one moral law ‘God’s righteousness’ applied not only to the church, but to civil government as well" (79). The issue debated then, as now, is how much responsibility peaceful Christians should accept for the violent trials of the world.

Driedger and Kraybill call attention to John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus (Eerdmans, 1972) which was "directed toward an ecumenical audience, but it happily coincided with the needs of the hour in Mennonite circles" (148). Yoder insisted that Jesus was radically active. "In good Anabaptist fashion he argued that Jesus was not only relevant for social ethics, but also normative" (149).

In the end, Driedger and Kraybill identify the issue which troubles the church today: how firm a position to take on peace and peacemaking when inviting people to membership. "If peace convictions are central to the gospel they assuredly should be made explicit for baptism and membership. But legalistic expectations easily violate the very essence of the gospel itself" (273).

In Two Kingdoms, Two Loyalties (Johns Hopkins, 1998) Perry Bush covers the same period with some unique observations. Of special interest is his chapter 5, "The Decline and Renewal of the Mennonite Community." He observes that "As the old separated community dissipated, Mennonites worked to construct another one based in a shared understanding and orientation toward society" (152).

Bush includes an account of how a group of draft resisters attended the 1969 session of Mennonite General Conference at Turner, Oregon, where "they received a much warmer welcome than they had expected. In successive meetings with church hierarchy, while hearing the uneasiness and doubts from some delegates, the resisters discovered a number of MC leaders surprisingly receptive to their message" (248).

The United States draft ended in 1972, even as Pax ended in 1975. Then in 1984 Ronald J. Sider addressed Mennonite World Conference in Strasburg, France. The address was published in Gospel Herald (Dec. 25, 1984) as "Are We Willing to Die for Peace?" Sider observed the extent of "idolatrous nationalism, religious bigotry, racial prejudice, and economic selfishness [which] turn people against people in terrifying orgies of violence. . . .

"Never has the world needed our message more. Never has it been more open. Now is a time to risk everything for our belief that Jesus is the way to peace" (898).

Sider’s vision catalyzed Christian Peacemaker Teams, an ecumenical organization with an international ministry. As reported in Getting in the Way (Herald Press, 2005), it "began in the fall of 1988, when Gene Stoltzfus, director of CPT from 1988 to 2004, became its first staff person" (12).

The goal of CPT is described as "‘violence reduction.’ CPTers stand in the way of violence by such acts as accompanying civilians threatened with violence. Teams also use conversation, video, photography, and journalism to discourage individuals in tense settings from acting violently. In addition, CPTers provide a ‘ministry of presence by living in the thick of the conflict’" (13). Reports in the book tell of activities in six different areas: Iraq, Canada, Hebron, Haiti, Mexico, and Colombia.

So far only one CPTer has been killed. George Weber, a 73-year-old volunteer from Ontario, was killed in Iraq when a tire blew on January 6, 2003 and the vehicle in which he was riding rolled over (27-38).

However, others have been assaulted. The Mennonite, June 7, 2005, tells of Cliff Kindy who was shoved to the ground by a Jewish settler in Hebron. "Choosing to transcend the anger, Cliff gradually rose so as not to threaten his attacker. He extended his hand to the settler in sincere greeting, ‘Hello, my name is Cliff. I do not believe we have met.’ . . . The response came with a moment’s delay. ‘My name is Hate and I hate you.’ Although the hater was unable to let go of his hate, the exchange diffused the clash and the crowd gradually dispersed to their homes without further incident" (10).

The Mennonite Weekly Review for May 23, 2005 reports that the work of CPT in Iraq has inspired some Iraqis to organize a peacemaking group called Iraqi Human Rights Watch. "Fifteen members of that fledgling Muslim Peacemaker Team held their first public action on May 6—a cleanup project bringing together Shia and Sunni Muslims in Falluja . . . a place of discord among Muslims."

I note in closing one more development which I believe has its roots in CPS: the professional practice and teaching of conflict resolution.

As one of a number of examples, I mention John Paul Lederach. He is now on the faculty of Notre Dame University and is the founding director of the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University. In his book The Journey Toward Reconciliation (Herald Press, 1999) he writes, "My personal story is that of a believer, a peacemaker, and a sociologist, a teacher and always a learner. . . . I want to explore the spiritual foundation that undergirds my work as a peace building professional and academic" (15).

In sixty years we have come this far. What the future holds and how our churches will respond remains to be seen.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly
column to the Daily Courier
(Connellsville, Pa.).