Most of us are familiar with how John Thomas coined the name “Christadelphian” in 1864 It was needed to differentiate our brotherhood from other churches because of our objection to conscription However, it is not generally known that our early brethren had already been specifically exempted from military service by an Act of Congress in 1863, although it was the Confederate Congress that so acted, and the name used was “Nazarines”
I will deal with the history prior to 1864 concerning the views of Dr Thomas on military service, and the steps he and others took to make our position known Incidentally, it is a matter of regret to me that there has never been an attempt to write an account of U S Christadelphian experiences in World War II or any other conflict Apart from brief passages in some military service leaflets and elsewhere, one must turn to outside sources to find that m World War II a higher fraction of Christadelphians than of any other denomination served in CPC camps (5 in 100, or 136 total), or that four suffered imprisonment for the faith, or that only ten were inducted into the Service and all those were disfellowshipped.
Dr. Thomas’ attitude to military service
Dr Thomas never changed his attitude toward military service For example, soon after his arrival in America in 1834, he visited the Dunkard settlement at a place called Maggerty, VA Dr Thomas there had a long talk with Bro John Bowman and heard of their beliefs “Time immersion, washing of feet, bearing of arms, and wearing the beard were all mentioned.”
Dr. Thomas was very interested in the reasons for their refusal to bear arms, for the Drunkards were one of the historic peace churches. With no military conflicts, there is no further discussion of military service in his writings until 1849. While he was in England at this time he attended a peace conference, and there he proposed a resolution which said in part: “A Bible Christian must not fight in absence of the captain of his salvation.” This was recorded in his Herald of the Kingdom in 1852. Dr. Thomas made several other comments during his lectures and writing in this period on the absolute necessity of “Christians” to transfer their allegiance to “the God of the future state, to his King, and to his kingdom and Glory” (Herald, 1852, p. 84).
However, it was not until the prospect of the Civil War loomed that Dr. Thomas directly answered the question, “Is it lawful for a Christian to bear arms?” This was the title of a letter in the February, 1860, Herald. Dr. Thomas replied, “Our conviction is that Christians should leave the devil to fight his own battles, and that if he sought to compel them to serve in his ranks, they ought to refuse to do so.. .(Shall) we, brethren in Christ, meet in deadly conflict to slay one another in the devil’s interest? Perish the thought!” (This is, as far as I know, the first use of the term “brethren in Christ” by Dr. Thomas, in the same context as the one used four years later when he coined the term “Christadelphian”.)
It was not long before this conviction was put to the test. In April, 1861, as the Civil War commenced, Bro. Beazeley, writing from Norfolk, Virginia, pointed out that the state law exempts no one under a certain age from military service. “Which of the two alternatives shall we accept, – take up arms in defense of our homes and firesides, or allow ourselves to be imprisoned by the State during the contest?” Dr. Thomas replied, “Our advice to the brethren there was not to be enrolled; go to prison rather.”
The longest and most consistent article on military service is to be found in the Herald for September, 1861, entitled “The duty of Christians in the present crisis.” But it’s not by Dr. Thomas; the author is H. Grattan Guinness. Born in Ireland in 1835, Guinness was an English-educated interdenominational minister, who was later famous for his expositions on prophecy. Perhaps Dr. Thomas came into contact with him on one of Grattan’s visits to the U.S. Wherever the article came from, it presents powerful arguments for a Christian not fighting — but fundamentally from a moral perspective, not one of citizenship. To quote the essence of the eight-page article: “Your individual responsibility is to carry out the principles of love and peace.”
Thus did Dr. Thomas add to the arguments he had used before.
An early petition for exemption and its result!
One of the most interesting early “Christadelphian” documents is one reproduced in the Christadelphian, September, 1940. It consists of a petition addressed to John Letcher, asking for absolute exemption from military service on behalf of “The Nazarines”. Found among some old Christadelphian magazines, it answered one of the most puzzling aspects of our early struggles to get recognition for our stand against military service In the Ambassador, April, 1865, Dr Thomas wrote, “The Confederate Congress passed an act, exempting them (the Christadelphians in Virginia) from military service, under the name of Nazarenes, on payment of 500 dollars All are exempted who were members at the time of passing the act”
I consulted the records of that Congress, and found on April 15, 1863, the Senate passed an act that said in part
“VIII Every minister of religion authorized to preach according to the rules of his sect, and now in the regular discharge of ministerial duty, and all persons who have been, since the sixteenth of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and now are, members of the society of Friends, or the association of Dunkards, Nazarines, or Mennonists, in regular membership of their respective denominations provided that such members shall furnish a substitute or pay a tax of five hundred dollars each into the public treasury “
So who was behind the inclusion of the “Nazarines?”
This act was not the start of the story in the Congress the records show the Quakers and the Dunkards were particularly active from the time that conscription passed from state to federal level, in April, 1862 Their names were present when the first amendment to name whole religious denominations was passed in September, 1862 The “Nazarenes” were added by a joint committee of the two houses, without any recorded debate, on October 3, 1862 (No, it is not a spelling mistake Nazarines and Nazarenes are used interchangeably in the record And indeed Dr Thomas uses “Nazarene” when he refers to the same incident later ) There is no mention as to who proposed the addition of “Nazarines”
The petition, addressed to John Letcher, who was Governor of Virginia 1860-64, commented on the problem of those exempted from military service being required to perform “non-combatant” service as an act under consideration m the legislation proposed The petition goes on “This is a mistake, at least as far as the Christians called the `Nazarines’ are concerned, (we) do not recognize ourselves as citizens in any sense of any of the governments of this world We therefore admit your right to tax our property But we would as soon fall down and worship the golden image erected on the plains of Dura by Nebuchadnezzar, than we could yield our persons as the willing slaves of any human authority”
The petition must have been written in early 1862 for the Virginia act was passed in March of that year It is fascinating for its insistence on the very fundamental grounds of our stand then and now against military service it is that our citizenship is in Heaven It was not then, nor, despite some of our literature, should not be now, because we follow the command of Jesus to Peter in Matthew 26 52, “Put up thy sword”
This is true, but it is not the cornerstone of our rejection of military service Rather, it is because we take no part m politics, offer no opinions on our government, live at peace with the whole world and wait patiently for “a new heaven and a new earth” I do not know who wrote the petition Dr Thomas seemed to have no knowledge of it for some time afterwards, and! can find no reference to it in the journals of the time A pity But I must assume that whoever wrote the petition was behind the inclusion of the “Nazarines” in the Confederate act.
The act of the Confederate Congress is, as far as I know, the only national act passed that specifically named members of our denomination as exempt from military service — and it was passed in 1863 after at least six months of consideration. It did not prevent our brethren from being forced into service, but all refused to fight. And the brethren in Virginia were still know as “Nazarenes” into the 1870’s. (The church of the Nazarenes seen today is a late nineteenth century offshoot of the “Holiness” movement.)
Dr. Thomas has a brush with the authorities
On his journey to the south in the summer of 1861, which we mentioned last month, Dr. Thomas was threatened with arrest at Good Hope, in Lunenburg County, Virginia. This building, still a Christadelphian Ecclesia (see numbers 5 & 10) was the scene of a tense encounter between Dr. Thomas and the local police. Dr. Thomas arrived at the hall only to be greeted with the news that the police had arrived, and had come to prevent the Doctor speaking, and to put him under arrest. An act had recently been passed, concerning “Alien Enemies.” The police wanted to arrest him under the act for preaching that the people should not bear arms. This the doctor denied — “our proposition was that Christians should not fight.” He also remarked that to be arrested would be quite convenient, as then he would have to be sent out of the country at the government’s expense — but whatever they did, they had to do it quickly, as he was already 20 minutes late for his appointment. Thus baffled, the police withdrew, after failing to get any legal backing from a lawyer. This was his first recorded personal confrontation for conscience — a close brush with prison, but the doctor carried on his efforts on the Lord’s behalf, apparently quite unconcerned.
Dr. Thomas ceased publication of his Herald at the end of 1861 and he spent most of 1862 in England, returning in January 1863. This visit is little documented: some sad details can be found in Robert Robert’s autobiography, My Days and My Ways, concerning the disappointment Bro. Roberts felt with Dr. Thomas’ appearance, vigor, and lecturing style. More can be found in Messenger of the Churches, a periodical which became opposed to Dr. Thomas. Robert Roberts was his host for some of this time, but even he came under suspicion by Dr. Thomas. With their personal relationship severely strained, it took much effort and letter writing by Robert Roberts before Dr Thomas replied favorably from his home in West Hoboken, NJ, and that was not until October, 1864. There are no records that he traveled to proclaim the gospel in 1863, presumably because of the Civil War.
Ten in Henderson, Kentucky get exemption as ministers
In the summer, 1864, Dr. Thomas wrote to Andrew Tait of Edinburgh, Scotland. He told of his travels to Henderson, Kentucky, then in Confederate territory, where the brethren were concerned by the recent expansion of military service to apply to all those between the ages of 17 and 45.
There were ten members subject to conscription and whether these were members newly joined since 1862, or whether Dr. Thomas was unaware of the specific exemption of “Nazarenes” I do not know. In any event, Dr. Thomas decided to take advantage of the exemption granted to ministers of religion in the act referred to above, and so needed certificates for each of the brethren. Fortunately, one of the brethren there, Bro. Blackwell, was a notary public, and another, Bro. Eades, was a Justice of the Peace, so it was easy to generate ten certificates that said “That (blank) is a Minister of the Gospel and conscientiously opposed to bearing arms.”
Thus equipped, Dr. Thomas and Bro. Stone set off in search of the relevant Confederate Colonel, a 30-mile journey not without its problems in wartime. Dr. Thomas had to fend off several attempts by pillaging soldiers to relieve them of their horse, and only succeeded because it was the horse of Sis. Stone. Resourceful as ever, Dr. Thomas reminded them that the military were under orders not to conscript ladies’ horses!
So Dr. Thomas and Bro. Stone presented their case for exemption before a Col. Napier. The conversation started poorly when Dr. Thomas said he was from New York, and it took some rapid talking and declaration of neutrality before the real subject could be broached. Naturally the colonel was amazed about one church that had ten ministers, all unpaid, and started to press Bro. Stone hard upon the subject. Fortunately, first there was an interruption of another case, and then a providential clap of thunder caused the “court” to seek shelter. The colonel ordered “Exempt” to be endorsed on the certificates, and so it was done, with no fee charged!
It was late in the day by this time, so the Doctor and Bro. Stone debated as to whether to retrace their steps to a tavern they had passed earlier, in Morganfield. However, the doctor decided he wanted to put as great a distance between themselves and any troops as possible, so they set out for the house of one Brown, who was known to Dr. Thomas as a reader of Elpis Israel. It was a fortunate — or inspired — decision, for the Federal forces took Morganfield, and the tavern was sacked by a band of marauding abolitionists. But the intrepid two made it safely to Henderson, where Dr. Thomas counseled the ten not to flaunt the certificates, but only to use them if a conscripting officer came to march them away.
Dr. Thomas stayed with the brethren for two weeks before departing for Illinois and what happened there in relation to exemption from conscription we will see next month.
Notes on Sources. There are three major sources for any interested in this area (apart from the voluminous collection of Christadelphian pamphlets). “Without the Camp” is a Christadelphian book about World War I written by Frank Jannaway, who was criticized at the time for being too strict, and since for being too acquiescent to the authorities. Two other publications: Conscientious Objectors in the Civil War, by E.N. Wright, and Conscientious Objection, a Government Printing House Publication, 1950, which deals with World War II, cover the Christadelphian’s experiences in the conflicts.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One