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

by Joseph Loconte

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742534995
• ISBN13: 9780742534995
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A helpful book despite editor's agenda

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

remembering history

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.