The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm [Paperback]

Joseph Loconte (Author), Karl Barth (Contributor), John Bennett (Contributor), Paul L. Blakely (Contributor), Fortune Magazine (Contributor), Harry Emerson Fosdick (Contributor), Georgia Harkness (Contributor), John Haynes Holmes (Contributor), Lynn Harold Hough (Contributor), Manifesto by American Churchmen (Contributor), Charles Clayton Morrison (Contributor), Lewis Mumford (Contributor), Reinhold Niebuhr (Contributor), Albert W. Palmer (Contributor), Ernest Fremont Tittle (Contributor), Henry P. Van Dusen (Contributor), Stephen S. Wise (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742534995 | ISBN-13: 978-0742534995 | Publication Date: November 2004

The rise of Islamic radicalism has led to heated discussions about how best to address the threat of religious terror. Disputes covering the right and wrong of war with Iraq, and the even bigger war on terrorism, continue to rage across America. But this is not the first argument of this nature--America was faced with a similar moral dilemma on the eve of World War II. Fascism was conquering Europe, and religious leaders across the nation vehemently debated how to confront Nazi Germany. In The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm, Joseph Loconte brings together pieces from the most significant religious thinkers of the pre-war period. In these essays, the writers eloquently and passionately present their arguments for going to war or maintaining the peace. In doing so, they explore issues vibrantly relevant today, including the Christian cause for war, the problem of evil, and America's role in the world. These urgently written pieces connect the past with the present and resonate with renewed clarity and poignancy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

With this vital documentation, Joseph Loconte brings back to life the intense intellectual battle that bitterly divided religious thinkers in the 1930s: How should they respond to the total war against the West, mounted by the Third Reich and its Axis partners? Reinhold Niehbur and others fought manfully against the overwhelming numbers of pacifists, doves, perfectionists, and just plain appeasers, and took many rhetorical blows for doing so. These documents tell the tale most eloquently. (Novak, Michael )

Congratulations to Joseph Loconte for bringing together this indispensable collection of writings by American theologians and churchmen who either opposed or supported America's involvement in the war against Nazi Germany. Then, as now, a significant cohort of the clergy preached a 'moral equivalence' between the United States and its foes; then, as now, many averted their gaze from the horrors unfolding in another part of the world; then, as now, many cried 'peace' when there was no 'peace' for the victims of Nazism. Opposition to this position, spearheaded by Reinhold Niebuhr, located interventionism within the heart of the Christian tradition and its understanding of the role of the state in protecting citizens from, and punishing, evil. Loconte's briskly written, energetic introduction helps to frame our understanding of who the writers were and what issues were at stake. Anyone who wishes to deepen his or her appreciation of American church opinion between World Wars I and II should read this volume. (Elshtain, Jean Bethke )

Joseph Loconte gathered surprising material for his excellent historical study. (Bottum, Joseph The Weekly Standard )

Although its subject is the fierce debate among religious leaders about America’s entry into the Second World War, Joseph Loconte’s powerful and timely book also sheds light on the conduct of religious leaders in our current struggles. Rarely has a collection of historical documents had more immediate relevance, or offered more self-evident parallels to the present. Then, as now, one is dismayed by the failure of so many of our most prominent religious spokesmen to give responsible guidance to those burdened by the terrible obligations of statecraft. Then, as now, one is grateful for the clear-thinking remnant who did provide such guidance, and who understood that genuine love for one’s neighbors can never mean abandoning them to barbarism and murder. (McClay, Wilfred M. )

About the Author

Joseph Loconte is the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at the Heritage Foundation's Center for Religion and Civil Society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (November 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742534995
• ISBN-13: 978-0742534995
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars remembering history, December 30, 2004

By 

Nicoleta E. Manciu (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm (Paperback)

A clear review of the history will show that anti-war polemics are not a thing of the present time only. This book will inform the readers how pacifism also defended Hitler. No war at any cost proponenets of the 1940's saw only at the end of WWII the price to be paid. Those murdered tasted the bitter poison and inhaled the gas. Read and ponder.

4.0 out of 5 stars A helpful book despite editor's agenda, July 27, 2010

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T. Grimsrud (Harrisonburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm (Paperback)

Joseph Loconte meant for this book to serve the rhetorical campaign American militarists are waging to garner and sustain support for the "war on terrorism." Though these purposes are problematic, the book (excepting Loconte's introduction) is actually fascinating and important.

Loconte has gathered an extensive collection of writings from prominent American Protestant leaders (plus one Jewish writer) who engaged in a passionate debate in 1939-41 about the role the United States should play in relation to the war being waged in Europe between the Nazis and British. The first half of the book includes pieces from those who opposed military intervention, generally on pacifist grounds; the second half gathers materials from those who supported taking sides with the British and offering material aid for the Allied cause (though, since the materials all were published before Pearl Harbor in December 1941, even these latter writings do not overtly advocate American direct military engagement). The introductions to the various writings are models of objective description that do a nice job of putting the articles in historical perspective.

"Part I: The Peacemakers" contains articles from seven pacifist authors making the case for the US remaining neutral in the European war, a case presented in explicitly Christian pacifist terms. These articles make it clear that their writers were not isolationists (a much more widespread and influential party in the wider American debate, but unrepresented in this collection) but rather internationalists, even interventionists of a non-military sort. The intervention they advocated, though, was not one seeking to aid a military victory but rather seeking to further humanitarian ends for all affected by the war.

"Part II: The Prophets," also has seven writers contributing articles advocating direct support for military engagement with Nazi Germany. This section includes several writings from theological giants Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth (Barth's "letters" to French Protestants and to Great Britain were new to me and of great interest in revealing his pro-war sentiments)--and also contributions from the great social thinker Lewis Mumford.

A couple of questions came up for me in reading the pieces from the military advocates. Were they not guilty of unhelpful fear-mongering in their characterization of what was at stake in the German/British conflict? It seems highly doubtful that their scenario of German total conquest was ever a possibility. Hitler only reluctantly entered into war with Britain, and he seemed always ready to come to some kind of accommodation with the British that would actually allow Britain considerable self-determination and even continued control of the Empire. This was certainly not a desirable outcome for Britain--or for anyone who valued democracy over totalitarianism. And it would not have been a stable outcome, with future conflict with the US highly likely. But it seems scarcely to have been the case, as presented in these articles, that should Britain fall Germany would simply run roughshod and exercise complete over dominance over most of the world with fortress America facing a hopeless future.

It is interesting to note that the major figures among Loconte's "prophets" were all people of the Left (e.g., Niebuhr, Barth, Mumford, John Bennett). Those who survived into the 1960s all were outspoken in their opposition to the US war on Vietnam. It is impossible to imagine any of these thinkers not turning in their graves to be drawn on by Loconte as allies in the current endless "war on terrorism."

Where this collection sheds some of its most telling light is at a point missed by Loconte. To a large degree, what we have here is an authentic debate. Even if the weight of the pacifist voices are greatly exaggerated by linking them with the quite different impulses of America-first isolationists who were anything but pacifists, nonetheless, people such as Harry Emerson Fosdick, Charles Clayton Morrison, and John Haynes Holmes played a prominent role in the public debate.

We can move forward nearly thirty years to the late 1960s and the debate about American involvement in Vietnam. Probably the only comparable voice in the public debate at that time that articulated a Christian pacifist perspective was Martin Luther King, Jr. King's perspective was significantly more sophisticated than the pre-World War II pacifists both in its analysis of the issues related to the war and in its grounding in his vindication of the truthfulness of pacifism in his own public life. Nonetheless, his public stance met mostly with scorn and hostility. By 1967, the US was no longer capable of allowing pacifism to play a role in public debate.

In a little more than thirty years later, in the run up to America's invasion of Iraq, we had no voices at all in the public debate overtly arguing from a pacifist perspective. Even those arguing against the war framed their case pretty much exclusively in pragmatic, just-war terms, seemingly assuming that appealing to pacifist sentiments would be a non-starter.

So, The End of Illusions, probably ironically given Loconte's agenda, actually witnesses to a time when pacifism could be part of the public discussion in our society. If it could have been once, perhaps it could be again.

Our big question, then, is to understand what has changed since 1939-41. The main factors, I'd suggest, are (1) the mythology of World War II as proof of the moral efficacy of war and (2) the creation in our culture of overwhelmingly powerful institutions whose reasons for existence are war and militarism.

When President Franklin Roosevelt worked to make the case for American military intervention in what became World War II he could not draw upon the power and authority of the Pentagon because it did not yet exist. He did not have the Central Intelligence Agency to create and spin pro-war propaganda because it did not yet exist. He did not have a corporate mass media owned by major military contractors. He did not have a military-industrial complex that made immense profits from preparation for and execution of war. These entities emerged only during World War II or as a direct outcome of that war.

That is, FDR and his supporters in the quest for military intervention faced the challenge of making their case more on its own merits. So, in amazing contrast to our recent history, you had what was surely the strongest case ever in our country for a morally justifiable military intervention struggling to win the day. Only the direct attack on the American military base in its Hawaiian colony by Japan followed immediately by Germany's declaration of war on the US overcome the extreme reluctance of the American people to enter this war.

With the success of the American war effort and the emergence and high prestige of the institutions of permanent militarism, the American government would never find itself in such a state again. So, though there was debate about the Vietnam War and about the invasion of Iraq, these actually had very little influence on the American government's (disastrous) commitment to military intervention.

This book is strange in the sense that Loconte's fears about the nefarious influence of Christian pacifism on the execution of the "war on terrorism" seem completely unfounded. And the parallels between now and the lead-up to World War II are non-existent. However, in a delicious irony, these writings can serve as an inspiration for present-day pacifists to intensify our efforts to challenge the forces of militarism. The militarists' case in 1939-41 was not persuasive--and without a doubt the case in favor of American military intervention has in the years since never come close to being as persuasive as it was then.

8 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars FALSE COMPARISON, June 30, 2006

By 

Debunker - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm (Paperback)

This book, and numerous other publications, represent nothing more than the desperate response of the war-mongering right to the torn apart fig-leaf hiding the ugly untruths for the raining of laser guided bombs on the common, helpless men, women and childeren of Iraq in the name of the 'War on Terror'. They are deeply disturbed by the declining support among the awakened American people for that "war" as can be inferred not only from the dismally low ratings of both the Bush Administration and the Repulican dominated Congress, but also from virtually any other indicator.

Hitler was an identified, self-declared enemy, Saddam was a manufactured, packaged and labelled threat to the United States. Hitler's was a massive war machine that challenged the might of the other equally powerful war machines. Hitler's Germany, if victorious could have, at least for a short period, enslaved Britain, France, etc., and posed a threat to the distant United States, but is that even the remotest of possibility from the present enemy who have no better weapons to fight with but their own lives? The preposterous nature of the comparison is just too patent to be muddied by distortions and misinformation. It will wash, if at all, only with the blindly faithful and no one else. Of course, the numbers of the former would be adequate enough for the book to survive and have its minutes in the dark caves of the scheming folks who use war (and God) as electoral weapons and of thier cohorts and beneficiaries.