A Christian's Response To The Warfare State

In Laurence M. Vance’s book Christianity And War he spends some time on Charles H. Spurgeon, the famous minister in Victorian England. Spurgeon, according to Vance, had the true Christian response to war. Vance quotes from Spurgeon’s sermons extensively to prove his point. Spurgeon writes in his Sword and Trowel magazine in April of 1878 that “it (war) is the sum of all villainies, and ought to be stripped of its flaunting colors and have its bloody horrors revealed; its music should be hushed that men may hear the moans and groans, the cries and shrieks of dying men and ravished women. War brings out the devil in man, wakes up the hellish legion within his fallen nature, and binds his better faculties hand and foot. Its natural tendency is to hurl nations back into barbarism, and retard the growth of everything good and holy.”[1] These are strong words indeed. In Vance’s view Spurgeon’s response to the building of the British Empire should be a model for how modern day Christians should respond to war and conquest. Vance concludes that modern day evangelical Christians have much to learn from a man whom they might claim to be one of their own. Not only was Spurgeon an uncompromising Christian minister, it appears that he also was consistently opposed to Christian war fever.
Notes
[1] Vance, Laurence M., Christianity And War, Vance publications 2007; pg. 25