Peace Churches Should Call For Recognition Of All Conscientious Objectors To War

During World War I US conscientious objectors were forced
into military training camps and endured untold hardships for
refusing to put on uniforms and practicing for combat.

"Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. ”
― Indian author Arundhati Roy, 1961-

"I cannot serve, for I am a Christian."
-- Maximilianus of Tobessa, 295 A.D.

Members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), Mennonites and Church of the Brethren denominations are officially recognized as "peace churches" whose members are granted exemption from military service on religious grounds. During recent wars they have been offered the opportunity to do some form civilian service instead engaging in combat.

For people of other denominations or faiths, or who profess no faith, this kind of exemption on either moral or religious grounds is not so easy to obtain.

Germany, after two unimaginably disastrous wars that left the country in ruins, now permits all youth of draft age to register as conscientious objectors, and over half of them are choosing to do so. While many make this choice for religious reasons, others do so simply because they see taking part in war as morally indefensible, and that saying no to it is necessary if humanity is to survive. Should a draft be reintroduced, all objectors would be protected by the German constitution from having to take up arms against their fellow human beings, and would be expected to engage in some noncombatant service for their country instead.

We should make provisions for the same, and our peace churches should be leading the way in advocating for the right of all to abstain on the basis of conscience. More and more people of goodwill worldwide are seeing warfare as unconscionable, a wonderful development indeed, just as many people of all kinds of faith, or not faith, are speaking out against abortion as a means of birth control on moral grounds.

Members of peace churches should urge legislators to provide protection for all who are conscientiously opposed to war, and ask the two major political parties to make this a part of their pro-life, pro-conscience, pro-liberty platform.

Then if they vote, to vote accordingly.

See https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2011/01/saying-no-to-war.html