Are Peacemakers Really Blessed?
Vernon Jantzi | Wednesday, 28th March, 2018
The early dawn chill enveloped me uncomfortably as I sat huddled with Hugh Tollemache, my Kiwi host and mentor, on a concrete bench in Auckland’s Aotea Square on 25 April 2001 to listen to my first Anzac Day speech. Matt Robson, at the time the Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control, began what I anticipated would be a typical speech to laud the glorious and sacred institution of war, in this particular case the First and Second World Wars. After all, nations use these occasions to reinforce the sacred character of national symbols—the flag, national anthem, parliament, armed forces, and especially war. Warfare waged periodically, or its functional equivalent, reinforces national sovereignty, the most sacred symbol of all. However, Robson surprised me when he launched into a semi-veiled criticism of the wars involving Anzac forces by highlighting the huge direct cost to those who lost their lives or were physically and emotionally maimed. In addition, he reminded us of the life-long cost borne by families and communities as they tried to deal, often at great sacrifice, with the consequences of these wars—unfortunately too often fought on behalf of the larger global imperial project in which New Zealand and Australia are secondary players, in his opinion. His speech that connected viscerally to my experience did not repudiate war itself, but he did seriously question its ultimate efficacy and high human cost.
The New Zealand Herald’s call the next day for Robson’s resignation is evidence to a certain degree that questioning or criticising any of these sacred symbols is tantamount to treason at some level. At the very least, it gets one branded as ungrateful citizen, questionable Christian, trouble maker, or “stirrer,” to use a term from Geoffrey Troughton’s edited book, Saints and Stirrers. In this book Troughton develops a rich resource that gathers and summarizes much of the disparate research on Christianity, conflict and peacemaking in New Zealand. It represents a voice long present in New Zealand that needs to be heard amid the frenzy of the centennial of WWI. It will also be a valuable historical resource for years to come in New Zealand and beyond. I found it academically impressive and personally inspiring; actually life changing in that it set me on a mission to analyze more deeply the long-term impact of conscientious objection and torture on congregations and communities.
As a third-generation conscientious objector to war who grew up in the rural backwaters of Michigan in the United States, I find my own story in the various chapters of the book. The radical objection to WWI in New Zealand and the persecution that followed illustrated by the story of Archibald Baxter finds an echo in the experience of young conscientious objectors in my small rural conservative Mennonite congregation and others in the area. Of the approximately 5,500 conscientious objectors to WWI in the United States who were persecuted to one degree or another, some 500 were mercilessly tortured for their stance. Benny Miller from my congregation was one of them. On the military base to which he was taken by force, Benny refused the order to put on the uniform and carry his assigned weapon. This resulted in a beating, followed by being tied to a fulcrum and repeatedly dunked in the base cesspool and held under to the point of drowning. Then he would be brought to the surface to catch some breath and quickly dunked again. After an hour or so of this, an officer would shout the uniform-and-weapon order again. Benny’s stalwart refusal got him another beating and a night in his cell. This daily routine lasted for over two weeks. Finally, emotionally and physically destroyed, Benny’s brain spun out of control. A psychological assessment documented him as “insane” and unfit to serve. They sent him home to his small farm community in Michigan’s middle-of-nowhere carved from the swamps of Saginaw Bay. Few of our parents—his contemporaries—had any inkling that our community was only one of many throughout the world where resistance to WWI was met with torture. Troughton’s book documents this phenomenon powerfully in the case of New Zealand.
A loving community can be a strong support for torture victims, but Benny’s wound was too deep for love to cure completely. In my growing-up years, church and community lived the life-long impact of Benny’s torture. For him and his Mennonite cohorts their experience turned out to be a veritable life sentence to social alienation and even dysfunctionality. Now many decades later, as I read David Tombs’ chapter on the case of Archibald Baxter and others in New Zealand, I vividly relived the ear-cuffing, cursing and hot pursuit as Benny, then thirty years on from his torture, would still flip out at unexpected noises, confusion, and the lively play of youngsters in pursuit of each other. We feared him and, to our disgrace, made fun of him. When we asked our parents why he was like he was, the answer always came back that he didn’t use to be like that. It was only after they sent him home from the base. We understood, but only partially. Nevertheless, Benny’s experience countered powerfully the dominant narrative promoted by school, the media, and even some churches, that our democratic society was benevolent and thus worthy of our trust and even our lives if it were ever under threat. Distrust, cynicism and anger naturally follow torture.
The chapters selected by Troughton summarize nicely the relationship between peacemaking and society in New Zealand. His introductory chapter provides an excellent lens through which to view the complexity of the topic. His chapter on Marsden and New Zealand’s peace tradition along with Peter Lineham’s on missionary visions of peace and Stuart Lange’s focus on Maori peacemaking provide a solid context into which we can situate the noble efforts of missionaries and Christian Maori leaders in early pre-Treaty of Waitangi days to achieve peace and stability. My peacebuilding experience lauds these efforts. They deserve recognition and a respected place in history, even if a critical sociological analysis could legitimately raise questions about the role of the missionary movement—and regrettably peacebuilding as well—in the pacification process of indigenous populations as an unintended consequence of doing the “right” thing in the midst of violence.
Saints and Stirrers documents the tensions and compromises as the New Zealand government became aware, sometimes reluctantly, of the need to move beyond persecution and torture to deal with dissent to participation in war in WWI. The various alternative options to military service explored with the denominations that opposed armed service for their young people lead to the development of noncombatant service as medics or other support services by young people who refused to kill as part of their loyalty to the call of country. Irrespective of how one views those developments today, they are noteworthy because it shows the church engaged with society. I can closely identify with the apprehension of young people, their families and congregations as they struggled to find the way forward. In my particular case much later in history, I recall the angst of appearing before the draft board to make my case and the extended debates among us conscientious objectors regarding whether or not noncombatant service was limited too much to objection to individual killing without adequately condemning the institution of war.
As a young man I remember WWII as horrific for the Holocaust and the destruction of much of Europe. However, since the United States had legitimized conscientious objection by then, we young people from pacifist denominations took as role models the conscientious objectors from our congregations and found hope in their service with the Seagoing Cowboys sponsored by the Church of the Brethren, as volunteers in the Mennonite Central Committee’s PAX Program, and other alternative service options. Maybe because of our tender age our parents and congregations put much more emphasis on choosing a meaningful alternative service assignment than actively objecting to the institution of war. Later in the United States, members of pacifist denominations participated actively in objecting to the Vietnam War. However, my congregation as well as many other conservative Mennonite congregations viewed that resistance negatively because the government had provided alternative options for objectors to war. Demonstrating against the Vietnam War was disrespectful of our government. The tension between faithfulness in opposition to war and the need or desire to show loyalty to the New Zealand government comes through in the chapters by Allan Davidson, Lineham and Peter Ballis in WWI, the interwar period, and WWII, with the exception of the Jehovah’s Witness who because of direct persecution actively resisted the government.
The challenge of how to relate to the government in supportive ways while still avoiding cooptation is a tension I personally lived. Many of us who served as conscientious objectors would claim that the option to serve in some type of alternative service, whether it be noncombatant service in the military or in other civilian projects during war time, basically silenced “pacifist” denominations’ opposition to war as an institution. Several chapters in Troughton’s book describe the struggle in New Zealand over alternative service options that came to a head in WWI. Lineham’s chapter on sects and war particularly highlights this issue among the Brethren. Hence, while lauding the New Zealand government’s actions to recognize the rights of citizens to object to service in the military, some of us would claim that sociologically and theologically we would have to ask how this cooptation of pacifist denominations, not only in New Zealand but in other parts of the world as well, affected the Church’s ability to object to individual and institutionalized violence whether it be war, segregation, over-representation of “minority” population groups in incarceration, or unequal opportunity in the job market. Today if Benny Miller were still living he would be dumbfounded to discover that the congregation that inspired him to “sacrifice” his physical and mental health to oppose war, specifically WWI, voted en mass in 2016 to elect Donald Trump president of the United States to “make America great again.” Benny would have to wonder, “What’s so great about torture?”
I am looking forward to reading the follow on book to Troughton’s excellent volume which is due for publication in March 2018. I hope it too will shed light on the contours of Christianity, conflict, peacemaking and justice in New Zealand. There is much to be gained from delving into this history.
Vernon Jantzi is an Emeritus Professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In the mid-1990s he helped establish the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU. He has extensive experience in international development, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, and conducts a near-annual pilgrimage Down Under to visit New Zealand and Australia. Vernon is married to Dot.