WAR may sometimes be necessary but it is a sign of human failure, the Archbishop of Wales said at a candlelit vigil service to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War.

Dr Barry Morgan told the congregation at Llandaff Cathedral that we were called to be peace-makers and no conflict could be a good act.

The Archbishop was speaking at a commemorative service held jointly by the Welsh Government and Cardiff  Council in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.  He said the service was about remembering sacrifice, not celebrating victory, and he urged people to strive for peace in their own relationships, the nation and the world.

Dr Morgan said, “War may sometimes be necessary but the Christian Church has never claimed that war and violence are good acts.  To be involved in war is always to lapse from the God-given ideal of peace and reconciliation.

“If there is no other way except through war to establish justice, then it may be the right or necessary thing to do, as the lesser of two evils but such a choice necessarily involves one in sin.  It is never a good act.  It is only by a convoluted and tortuous process of reasoning that I can ever claim to be demonstrating God’s love towards my unjust neighbour by taking a gun and shooting him.

“That is why this service has a penitential section where we acknowledge our failures and shortcomings before God, since involvement in any war, for whatever reason, is a sign of human failure and in any conflict there can be no completely innocent party, even though one side may be more guilty than the other.”

While giving thanks for those who sacrificed their lives standing against oppression and injustice,  we need to resolve to ensure war doesn’t happen again, the Archbishop said.

“Wars do not solve the deepest problems of human life.  Not even the First World War resolved the issues that led to it for some of these conflicts still smoulder on in the Balkans and elsewhere.  At best, they give us breathing spaces in which to build and work for a world in which war will seem an obscene irrelevance.  That is why abstaining from conflict is never enough because more is needed.  We are called to be peacemakers, for as Jesus said “peacemakers shall be called the sons and daughters of God.”

He added, “Our prayer tonight then might be that conscious of our past, and all that it entailed, we seek to live compassionately and caringly for the whole of humanity by striving for the things that make for peace in our own relationships, our own nation and indeed our world.”

During the service, a message of peace was read by two members of Urdd Gobaith Cymru’s Youth Forum. Wreaths were laid by the Duke of Goucester, the First Minister of Wales, the Lord Mayor of Cardiff and Wyn Calvin, a president of the Cardiff Central branch of the Royal British Legion. Saleem Kidwai, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Wales, laid an olive branch on behalf of the Interfaith Council for Wales.

At the end of the service, lights in the Cathedral were dimmed and a candle was lit by the Revd Albrecht Kostlin-Buurma of the German Lutheran Churches and people kept a period of silence.

Following a blessing by the Archbishop, the Last Post was sounded and the Cathedral bells tolled to mark the centenary of the outbreak of war.

Sermon – Commemoration of

World War I

“The trouble with services about the two World Wars” wrote one veteran of World War II recently, “is that the ceremonies have been hijacked by politicians, the Royal Family, and the church – and they are not about any of them”.

Well, that seems to exclude a fair number of us here tonight but without becoming too defensive, what precisely are we doing when we hold a service such as this?

Well, it is certainly not about giving significance to any of the categories just mentioned nor is it about glorifying war.  As the Lambeth Conference of 1930 said “War as a method of settling international disputes, is incompatible with the teaching and example of Jesus”.

War may sometimes be necessary but the Christian Church has never claimed that war and violence are good acts.  To be involved in war is always to lapse from the God-given ideal of peace and reconciliation.  And it is interesting that people who have served in our armed forces usually both refuse to talk about the horrors of war and regard it as the option of a last resort.

If there is no other way except through war to establish justice, then it may be the right or necessary thing to do, as the lesser of two evils but such a choice necessarily involves one in sin.  It is never a good act.  It is only by a convoluted and tortuous process of reasoning that I can ever claim to be demonstrating God’s love towards my unjust neighbour by taking a gun and shooting him.

That is why this service has a penitential section where we acknowledge our failures and shortcomings before God (just look at the last hymn we have sung), since involvement in any war, for whatever reason, is a sign of human failure and in any conflict there can be no completely innocent party, even though one side may be more guilty than the other.

Memorials of the fallen in the First World War indicate the way in which our predecessors made sense of it all.  They saw the deaths of those who fought as a laying down of lives for the sake of others, as the First Minister points out in his foreword to this service.  Human sacrifice, not triumphalism about being victorious is the note they struck.  The  Annual Service of Remembrance is held at a cenotaph not an Arc de Triomphe.

That way of seeing things, helps people deal with the pain of loss.  Death seen as sacrifice has remained the language through which those whose loved ones in today’s conflicts also find solace.  And so we give thanks for men and women who gave up their lives to safeguard values such as justice, freedom and liberty and for men and women from every race and nation who have stood against oppression and injustice.

But, alongside penitence, there is repentance.  The word “repentance” means to have a change of heart.  It involves a resolve to ensure that such a thing never happens again.  Japan is an example of this.  Since the last war, as if to make amends for its atrocities, Japan has become one of the most peace loving of all nations.  It has committed itself to peace and non-military economic growth.

Wars however do not solve the deepest problems of human life.  Not even the First World War resolved the issues that led to it for some of these conflicts still smoulder on in the Balkans and elsewhere.  At best, they give us breathing spaces in which to build and work for a world in which war will seem an obscene irrelevance.  That is why abstaining from conflict is never enough because more is needed.  We are called to be peacemakers, for as Jesus said “peacemakers shall be called the sons and daughters of God”.

R. H. Tawney was a major figure in the development of British political thought,  a Christian socialist who had also fought in World War One and found himself alone in No Man’s Land for nearly two days, after being wounded by the fragments of a shell.

He wrote “why is it that marshalled against an enemy, is given to a nation a common outlook, a spiritual unity, a power of co-operation and a comradeship in service which eludes it in peace time.  How can people lay down their life for one another in war but not in peace?”

The idea of a fellowship limited to the business of killing and absent from the business of living haunted him.

“Why are we”, says Tawney “so willing to pay for our armed services but reluctant to pay for social, educational and health services?  Wasted lives in war ought to lead to a prevention of wasted lives in peace”.

Our hope is that by reflecting on all these things in an act of worship, God may be able to work on us and change us for the better.  As one theologian puts it “We come into the presence of God with our human emotions, with pride and courage and grief at loss and waste.  As we pour out our prayer, our mourning, our pride, our shame, our convictions, God is able to work upon us.  He is able to deepen and enlarge our compassion and to purify our thanksgiving.  People who come mourning their own losses, then find not just consolation but a spirit which enlarges their own compassion for others”.

Our prayer tonight then might be that conscious of our past, and all that it entailed, we seek to live compassionately and caringly for the whole of humanity by striving for the things that make for peace in our own relationships, our own nation and indeed our world.