Conscientious Objection as a Spiritual Path

Abstract

Conscientious Objectors (COs) oppose war or oppressive social conditions. They suffer for their ethical resistance to that which dehumanizes themselves and others. Their spiritual path is listening to conscience, and the spirit of a deeper, bigger humanity. This listening enables them to take a harder, often lonelier, road. Stories of COs are chosen in this chapter from World War I (WWI). WWI itself was the first mechanized, industrialized, chemicalized war, and the first global war in history. It is also the ‘founding catastrophe of the twentieth century’. It led to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the rise of Hitler and WWII 1939–45, the Cold War 1946–1989, and was the cause of many of the difficulties in the Middle East today, including the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Washington DC and Pennsylvania in September 2001. In a bigger picture of WWI opposition, including workers, women, and soldier poets, COs were at the forefront. Whether socialist or religious, COs have been called the shock troops of resistance in WWI, a war that ironically was promised to be ‘the war to end all wars’. Their stands against nationalism, and for commitment to a bigger humanity, is significant for us today. To echo Martin Luther King, their witness can also provoke us to be ‘creatively maladjusted’ to current nationalisms and social issues. We can be challenged by their example not only to be against war, but also against racism, sexism, poverty, climate change, and political corruption. Indeed, it includes a decision to stand against any violation of the worth of any person, and to champion the sacredness of creation in our troubled times.