World Issues and the Christian

One of our supposedly great experts on Communism said a year and a half ago, “There is a finality, for better or worse,” about the communist conquest of Eastern Europe. And some of our people believed it, saying “Well, we must be practical and realistic. We must accept facts.” But was it a fact? Fortunately, within a few weeks a lot of common people marched down a street in Poznan, Poland, crying, “Give us bread—and freedom too!” They proved that the man wasn’t really a great expert or a realist. He was just a defeatist, and completely unrealistic. He had lost faith both in man and in God. He didn’t believe, and many others of us haven’t really believed that the urge of man to be free can be and will be stronger than the tyrant’s sword, or even his police state—that is, if only we don’t betray that urge by building up the tyrant in the vain notion that somehow he may give us freedom and peace and security in our time.

The growing surge to be free came to a climax a year ago last fall in Hungary. Foolish? Yes, just as foolish as the country farmers on a green at Lexington who stood up against the finest professional soldiers of the eighteenth century—but it was those farmers on the green and “by the rude bridge that arched the flood” at Concord who fired “the shot heard ‘round the world” and made possible this freedom which we today enjoy without realizing how great a price was paid for it, or what discipline and dedication and willingness to work for it are necessary if our heritage is to be preserved, fulfilled, strengthened, and shared around the world.

The communists understood the significance of what happened in Hungary better than we did. They were scared into near panic, as we’ve learned from several sources since. They cringed and pulled back. And then, in certainly one of the most tragic coincidences of history, at the very moment when Communism was revealed to be losing in Europe—much weaker than realized—three nations of the West, by starting the adventure at Suez, took it upon themselves to demonstrate that the free world too was much weaker than realized. They repudiated at Suez their pledges in the United Nations Charter that they would not use such non-peaceful methods to try to resolve disputes. The whole episode revealed to the communists how weak and divided the West was. It too was beginning to splinter. And the communists promptly moved back into Hungary.

Parallel Disintegration

That brought us to the showdown. The communists were losing in Europe; but the free world was losing in Asia and Africa. The sixty-four thousand dollar question of our time became: Which would disintegrate the faster, the communist world or the free world? Or, to turn it around: Which could pull itself together the faster and more solidly?

Well, we know now. The communists have made more headway since Hungary in pulling themselves together than the free world has. They learned the plain lesson of Hungary. They knew that they had to win the whole world quickly, including the United States, or this growing urge for freedom would cause them to lose the whole world quickly, including the Soviet Union. They went to work for dear life.

But we of the West hesitated; we groped for the familiar, trying to hang onto “business and politics as usual.” We wanted peace so badly that we’re in danger of losing it—and our freedom. We were not quite willing as a people to face up to the threat. And a democratic government cannot get very far ahead of its people.

The present balance is, of course, that we still lead in certain fields: wealth, basic weapons, especially the older weapons, and productive capacity. But the communists are ahead in manpower, in the newer weapons, in the momentum to create still newer ones, and in will. They know that it is now or never for them; and, therefore, they are reckless and dangerous. They intend to win.

What can we do in such a situation? First of all, we have to WAKE UP to the real nature of the threat. Second, we’ve got to find our way through the series of dilemmas in which we’ve been caught, the dilemmas that have kept us almost paralyzed while the communists, untroubled by Christian conscience, have forged ahead.

They are real dilemmas. How do Christian people deal successfully with unprincipled persons without becoming like them? The Chinese say that in wars adversaries tend to exchange vices. In order to defeat the enemy, we’re tempted to adopt his methods and become just like him. But, why resist him if we’re going to become like him?

Here’s a concrete example: How do we deal successfully with lying words? Take the term “peaceful coexistence.” To us that means peace; but that isn’t what it means to them. They seldom talk about peace—that would mean a genuine settlement. They talk about peaceful coexistence. Why? Because we’re still stronger than they are. They want us to be willing to coexist peacefully until they can become stronger than we—and then they’ll really put the screws on. Peaceful coexistence means peaceful coexistence by us as long as we are stronger; when they can become stronger, it means peaceful submission. How does a tennis team play according to tennis rules with a team that’s playing according to football rules?

Another dilemma is: How do we help our traditional allies in Europe without appearing to approve their old colonial policies and thereby alienating the peoples of Asia? How do we support the West without losing the East? There isn’t any easy answer. We need, for obvious reasons, to stand with England, France, and so on, in Europe; but we cannot support some of their historic policies in Asia without losing the people of Asia who are infected with our own virus of 1776—the determination to be free.

We can go down the list. The former colonial possessions which we’ve helped to gain political independence cannot preserve that freedom unless there be improvement in the living conditions of the people. But how can we give them the economic help they need and still spend all we must for weapons to defend our own independence—and theirs? If we don’t spend more for arms, we invite insecurity—and disaster; if we do spend more, we invite inflation—and disaster. Either way, disaster. What are we to do?

Freedom And Slavery

Again, we say we want nothing but liberty and justice for all—and that’s true. But some say we must not advocate liberty and justice for all, because that would be interfering in the internal affairs of communist-controlled countries; it would “increase tensions” and might provoke them into the very war which we want to prevent—a war that might not win liberty and justice for the oppressed peoples and might instead destroy our own. Yet, if we don’t stand unwaveringly for liberty and justice for others, how can we ask or expect God to help us preserve ours?

How can we hope to remain free with a third of God’s children enslaved? Yet how can we help them become free if we weaken ourselves here at home?

It is certain that we will have to work under self-discipline if we’re going to recover our superiority in weapons without breaking our economy. I am sure we can do this, if we will.

Two Essential Tests

Also, we are going to have to prevent the communists from winning any more victories. No one fails when he is winning. I would urge that we examine every proposal from whatever source it comes by two main tests: If we were to adopt this, would it make stronger or weaker the oppressors? And, the other side of the coin, if we were to follow the suggested course, would it make stronger or weaker the oppressed? Anything that builds up the oppressors or weakens the will to resist of the oppressed, will never bring lasting peace.

This is why we cannot increase trade with communist China, or any of the communist countries. It makes stronger the oppressors. It is why we cannot support the admission of communist China, to the United Nations. That would be a smashing diplomatic victory for the oppressors. The tyrant is strengthened enormously if he is accepted into respectable society. How can the oppressed resist him if the strong accept him? It breaks hearts behind the Iron Curtain whenever the strong free nations do anything that increases the prestige, influence, power of the tyrants whom the oppressed peoples are doing their best to weaken and pull down from within.

These steps are essential, but they are not enough. We must also find more effective ways positively to strengthen and aid all who are striving to remain free or become free. Our government can and must help other governments. But we’ve also got to reach the people. It’s what people think that counts in the end. And that’s why, in addition to better-managed government aid programs, we have to continue, yes, expand in other countries the efforts of private charitable agencies and missionary programs of the church. They give meaning to, and put heart and soul into the government programs, which, by their very nature and government regulations, have to be somewhat rigid and impersonal. Governments impress people with their power, but seldom do they win people’s hearts. All around the world we have agencies like International Cooperation Administration. They administer, but rarely do they minister. What the peoples of the world need most is ministry. That has to come through persons who go not because our government sends them, but because they care about human beings who are in need and who are also God’s children.

As citizens we must support the government programs while trying always to make them more effective—not bigger, but better. But in addition, we must, as Christians, be willing to support more generously the voluntary programs which minister to others for no other reason than human sympathy.

Maybe we will have to sacrifice some minks in order to get more missiles, and give up a little rock-and-roll in order to make more rockets. But these alone won’t do the job. It is the Christian church and Christian people that must be the leaven working in the world to change its character and to transform it.

This is the most important part of our task. I see no way really to resolve the dilemmas with which honest men wrestle, or to solve today’s crushing problems save by going back to the fundamental source of men’s actions—the desires of the human heart. Our basic problem is not missiles, it is men. It is the character of the men who control the missiles, men who deny moral principles and values, men who reject moral judgments, men who scorn moral restraints.

What deals with the human heart? Religion. In short, our greatest need is to recapture a faith in our faith, like the faith the communists have in theirs. Do we really believe in the leaven process? Do we really believe that the Christian gospel presented to men will change their hearts? If so, we’d better work in earnest.

We are never again going to be able to relax until the communist conspiracy gives up its program of world conquest. And it can never give that up until it ceases to be communist. And it cannot cease to be communist until those who belong to it cease to be communists. The way to change Communism is to change communists, that is, to change men through the Gospel.

Surely God did not bring our beloved country to its position of unprecedented power and influence in the world for no great purpose. Surely he expects us and has a right to call on us in this hour of crisis to rise to the occasion and prove ourselves worthy instruments of his will that all men shall be free.

Walter H. Judd’s listing in Who’s Who in America identifies him as “congressman, physician, missionary.” He served as medical missionary in China from 1925–1938, after which he lectured throughout the United States on American foreign policy. He has been a member of the 78th to the 85th Congresses with a vigilant eye on the world strategy of Communism.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.