It is similar with Protestant religions. In 1968 the Lutheran Church in America took a stand officially approving selective conscientious objection. However, since then Lutherans have also spoken in support of fighting in Vietnam. For example, in the 1970 spring issue of the Lutheran publication the Springfielder, professor-chaplain Martin Scharlemann writes:

“We hear it said that we must love our neighbor as ourselves. Of course, that’s right. Who could quarrel with it since it is a word of the Lord? But, there is another step to this. . . . My relationship to a North Vietnamese soldier is not a one-to-one affair. In between are two sets of loyalties: Mine to my country and his to his. I have a responsibility toward my country which outranks my concern for his; and that’s true on his side, too. Now, when he is wounded and when he is in need of my help, then once more he becomes my neighbor in the ethical sense of the New Testament. The one-to-one relationship returns.”⁹

So this minister argues that loyalty to country nullifies Christ’s command to love one’s neighbor. It certainly must be confusing to persons when their church approves conscientious objection, and yet a minister encourages fighting in the war!

One might conclude that the views of this Lutheran minister are the exception today, and that religion now directs persons away from fighting in Vietnam. But was that true five or six years ago?

Of Spellman’s call for “victory,” George R. Davis, minister of the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., said: “I am in agreement.”¹⁷ Other Protestant ministers showed their agreement in various ways.

Robert Mummey, a Christian Science minister, argued in favor of the war, telling a group of university students: “Killing must be done with a pure heart, otherwise you have an immoral killing. If our soldiers were indoctrinated to hate the enemy, then to kill him would be an immoral act.”¹⁸

Clergymen also showed their support of the war by honoring those killed in action. Martin Haerther, a Des Moines, Iowa, Lutheran pastor, said at one funeral: “When a soldier dies in line of duty in a just war [Vietnam], not only is it a glorious death in the service of country but it is a blessed end for him . . . I am sure the angels were on hand to carry his soul into heaven and he is now enjoying peace.”¹⁹

Alden Munson, editor of the United Methodist, a publication of the Methodist Church, explained:

“An accumulation of messy affairs like My Lai and the best communication coverage of war in history have had an effect on the entire nation, and the church is finally tagging along on antiwar sentiment. . . . Estimates of civilian casualties in Vietnam since 1965 range from 1 to 4 million men, women and children, but only now are the churches beginning to express horror.”²³

Yes, it was not until the war became ‘unpopular’ that religion’s cry for “peace” grew audible. It has been noted of churches that they determine what is currently popular, and then decide their position accordingly. New York city clergyman Robert J. McCracken admitted: “We are careful not to take a stand unless we know in what direction the wind is blowing.”²⁴

In fact, the statements made by Church leaders in support of the war, omitted in this document, are so numerous that Commonweal observed: “One suspects the USCC researchers could have compiled at least as extensive a body of episcopal statements supporting the war from the archives of the New York Archdiocese alone.”²⁷

But all of such evidence was deliberately left out! Yet “simple honesty,” Commonweal said, should require the inclusion of such statements, “embarrassing though they may seem now that the full measure of that war’s immorality is there for all to see.”²⁸

A well-known Protestant clergyman, the late Harry Emerson Fosdick, admitted:

“Our Western history has been one war after another. We have bred men for war, trained men for war; we have glorified war; we have made warriors our heroes and even in our churches we have put the battle flags . . . With one corner of our mouth we have praised the Prince of Peace and with the other we have glorified war.”²⁹