The Second World War continued our education. We have tried appeasement, and it does not work. When Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, the fire-brigade could have turned him back; his soldiers were deliberately not issued with ammunition. But success breeds success. When Munich loomed, two members of the German General Staff came to England, and said if we stood firm, they would have him out. They despised him. There is no certainty they could have kept their word. Unfortunately the appeasers had prevented us rearming; and it was very risky to call Hitler’s bluff in 1938. If Britain had had three armoured divisions in France in 1940, they might have sealed off Guderian’s breakthrough, and won the war for us. We had one armoured brigade, which counter-attacked in the correct place, but could do little. Nevertheless it shook the German High Command, and may have contributed to Hitler’s order to stop his panzers for 48 hours. Without that order, the whole of the British Expeditionary Force would have been taken prisoner; and we should have had to make peace. It would have been impossible to continue the struggle having lost our army and most of our able generals. The appeasers brought us to the brink of admitting defeat to a tyrant, who would have ushered in a new dark age “made sinister by the light of perverted science”. In the West we no longer listen to the appeasers with the same respect, although they still try to destroy us. Christ’s gospel of non-resistance to violence made sense in the Roman Empire, but it makes none today. It would deliver us into an unspeakable slavery; and there are some who would deliver us into this slavery sooner than give up their cherished dogmas.
Does Christ add his voice to the siren voices of the appeasers; or does he accept that non-resistance to violence is an ideal, which cannot be realized today? One might think the short answer was to ask him in prayer; but people would come back with different answers. However if Christianity favours pacifism, not only has recent history shown this to be madness, but you exclude the vast bulk of the population from coming to church. Whatever unilateral disarmers say, the bulk of the population reject it. In Jesus’ time the Roman peace held sway, and no-one in his senses tried to disturb it. Should what Jesus said in one set of circumstances be cited as authority for behaving in the same way in another? It is the road to catastrophe.
Whether in the legal world, or in life as a whole, every significant problem demands a completely fresh appraisal, and fresh solution. One only needs to recall how the Emperor Julian burned his boats on his Persian expedition, in imitation of Alexander the Great; the result cost him his life, and irretrievable disaster to the expedition. One must not follow slavishly the plans of others, however gifted they may have been. One must use one’s own judgement to make a fresh appraisal of the situation as one sees it oneself, after taking all available advice. Besides you can never implement successfully the plan of another, unless you believe in it yourself. Taking the sayings of Jesus literally, and applying them to different circumstances 2000 years later, is the road to catastrophe.
Should one say then that Jesus gave no guidance on how to behave in the secular world today; but what he said about the kingdom of heaven is just as valid as ever? The trouble is that the public is very interested in what is happening today, and rightly so; even if they are cynical about politicians. This answer means that Jesus’ gospel is no longer a way of life, because it no longer embraces the whole of a man’s conduct, unless we are all to become monks in monasteries. This was the attitude of the Church at the break-up of the Roman Empire, but it led to the dark ages! More relevantly, it means there is no hope of Christianity competing with those religions which do embrace the whole of life, because men and women will find them more satisfying. And the result? English culture would be destroyed. What we long for in England is for a Christianity that embraces the whole of life, and enables a man or woman to make shrewd sensible decisions in their everyday conduct; and which therefore sustains an English way of life. We are not being offered this at the moment, because the clergy preach about what Jesus said and did 2000 years ago: not about what Jesus thought, and how he reached his decisions, which would be relevant to people’s everyday conduct.