In Defense of Conscience

What is this thing called Conscience? We find it already working in Adam and Eve after they ate of the forbidden fruit. It was no doubt what revealed their nakedness and caused them to hide from God. The Bible reveals it to be a created part of all human beings, who have been made in the image of God himself. We, like God, are three-part beings: Body, Soul & Spirit and each of these has three parts.

So, where does this thing called conscience dwell?

Our body also has three parts: our flesh, our senses, and our appetites. The conscience needs to touch them, but it doesn’t dwell there. Our soul has three parts as well: our mind, will, and emotions. A well-ordered life will have these three areas ruled by the conscience, but it doesn’t dwell there. Our spirit, originating with God Himself, is the place of our connection and worship with our Creator. It is the still small voice that hears from the Holy Spirit and guides us into obedience, honor for God, and the truth.

Through the new birth, the conscience is purged from dead works, and previous defilement, which made it not operate very effectively. It is made alive, tender, and responsive to its new Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ¹.

Since the beginning of the church, the consciences of believers have been challenged and tried by the enemies of our souls. To maintain a pure conscience is critically important, yet many earthly leaders have failed to see the great importance of it. Nor have they recognized the priority of this God-renewed conscience versus their own will, whims, and commands. So, when Peter said to the High Priest, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye”, it was not insubordination that was leading him, but the Holy Spirit.

One of these critical areas of conscience that has repeatedly been challenged is that of obeying the commands of Christ concerning how we treat our enemies, those who persecute us and despitefully use us. Christ’s teaching of turning the other cheek, going the extra mile and not resisting evil have been tested in the lives of Christians. Because we believe that every soul has been made in the image of God and their life is precious to Him, we think it is better to die than to kill.

From the first through third centuries, pagan Rome persecuted believers, mainly for not worshipping the Emperor, whom they believed represented the Roman Empire. Occasionally they tried to exercise their authority to have men serve the nation as soldiers or in politics. The early Christians, for the most part, stood strong, declaring that they would be of more value to the empire on their knees than bearing the sword. There were some who suffered and a few notable cases of martyrdom for this cause. There was a clear distinction between the two kingdoms. Because the church fulfilled her calling, secular history notes this era as the 200-year golden age of peace in the Roman Empire (Pax Romanus). During the third century, several waves of severe persecution attempted to annihilate the church, which by this time had grown quite large, and in some cases, had grown weary in well-doing.

In the fourth Century, the unthinkable happened. Emperor Constantine proposed a marriage of the church of Jesus Christ and the pagan Roman Empire. He then placed himself at the head of its hierarchy. Through this adulterous marriage of church and state, a hybrid harlot was conceived and born. This new organization tried hard to resemble the true church of Jesus Christ. Several decades later, just before the Roman Empire collapsed, several very capable men like Augustine and Jerome took it upon themselves to rewrite the last will and testament of the Lord Jesus to fit their own new Roman empire. They called this blend “holy”. One of the doctrines that were totally turned about was the use of the sword and political power, in what they presented as the “Just War Theory”. Along with that came mandatory infant baptism, mandatory church membership for all in a particular locale, justified torture, sacerdotalism (salvation through this organization and its sacraments), and state-paid church leadership positions. These were some of the components that helped plummet the Western world into the Dark Ages as the Roman Empire finally collapsed.

Ironically, when the “church” made peace with war, there haven’t been many decades in the last 1700 years that have not seen cruel, bloody wars, often fought between groups professing Christians that claim to serve the Prince of Peace. The idea that every “heretic”, Jew and (eventually) Muslim, must either convert or die was the natural fruit of this kind of carnal organization.

That is the backdrop to the tumultuous 1500s in Europe. By this time, power, prosperity, superstitions, and the traditions of 900 years had so corrupted the ancient harlot “church” that many people could no longer just go along with her anymore. This was the beginning of the Reformation period. There were many small movements all over Europe and elsewhere that arose. Some were good and valid attempts to bring positive changes. Some were unspeakably gross and cultish groups that ended up being as bad or worse than the state church they were fleeing from. The main directional differences fell into three main camps: Traditional – i.e, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestant Reformation Churches – Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptists i.e. the Swiss Brethren, Mennonite, Hutterites, Amish, and other similar groups.

The Catholic’s goal was the same as it had been for over 900 years: maintain authority and control of the ignorant masses and squash all rivals with fear of torture and the sword.

The Reformers saw the error in that path and wanted to point men to faith in Jesus Christ, refocus on the Bible, and return to the way it was in Augustine and Jerome’s days. They sort of said the old building is not all bad, it just needs to be remodeled.

The Anabaptists agreed with the Reformers on many points, but instead of going back to Augustine and Jerome’s days as the Reformers did, they wanted to rediscover primitive apostolic Christianity of the first centuries. They didn’t believe the building was on the foundation at all anymore. The foundation needed to be rediscovered, the rubble cleared away, and the building rebuilt according to the original pattern! As Jude says “Earnestly contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints.”

During the Reformation era, most of the land was owned by several regional princes who were a part of the Catholic church system. A few ventured to become Protestant, but it was very rare to find any that were sympathetic to the Anabaptists. These princes, in their stately castles, derived their wealth and power by cooperating with the state churches to control the peasants who provided labor on their farms. Many also had armies consisting of young men who were under their control. This served to protect their own investments from attacks from other princes or the ever-present threats of the Muslim Turks. Some also made considerable income by leasing their young men out as mercenary soldiers to fight some other princes’ battles. Needless to say, they didn’t want to hear their men telling them “We have come to make the Lord Jesus Christ our King, and we aren’t willing to go against our conscience to bear the sword for you anymore”.

This new Anabaptist doctrine was fiercely contested in Switzerland. Separation of church and state,non-resistance believers' baptism, and salvation through Jesus were on trial. Threats, fines, arrests, horrible tortures, and enslavement couldn’t stop the movement as new converts arose to fill the gaps of the ones slaughtered or sent away.

In the late 1600s, an English Quaker, named William Penn heard of the plight of the exiled Swiss Brethren. He traveled to Germany and France and invited them to settle in Pennsylvania. There was little for our forefathers to lose, so several went to investigate. They returned with good news, and then others followed by the thousands. Under the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they could own land, work for their own benefit, and practice their religion freely without persecution. They could follow their conscience not having to bear arms.. The potential for becoming wealthy in this new world was huge, especially for the second and third generations, who knew nothing of the sorrows and sufferings of Europe. Would these people who had prospered spiritually under persecution perish under financial prosperity?

Several concerned Anabaptist leaders had the Dutch Martyrs Mirror translated into German and printed by Peter Miller at the Ephrata Cloister in Lancaster County, PA. The goal was to teach future generations about the high price paid for liberty of conscience and the need for a clear separation of the two kingdoms.

By the 1770s, a rebellion was brewing among the English Americans. It finally erupted into a full-blown revolution. The Anabaptists were again caught in the middle. As those who had immigrated from Germany, they had promised to serve the King of England and to be faithful to him. But they were now being pressured and persecuted for not helping the American rebellion. Some were publicly humiliated for not mustering to the militia drills. Many had their flintlock hunting rifles confiscated. Some Swiss Mennonite gunsmiths, famous for their precision workmanship, were forced out of business for refusing to produce guns for the war. Others were imprisoned or even tried for treason. When the war finally ended, a migration of about 2,000 Anabaptists left Pennsylvania for Ontario. Meanwhile, another migration of Anabaptists headed west and south into the Shenandoah Valley.

Not many years later, the country was again in turmoil over a number of issues, including slavery. In the 1680s, some Quakers and Mennonites made a joint appeal to stop the slave trade. Pennsylvania abolished slavery, in 1780, with a 40-year phase-out plan. Unfortunately, the rest of the United States did not follow Pennsylvania’s example. This could have spared our nation from shedding American blood, more than the Revolution, Spanish American, WWI, WWII, and the Korean conflict all put together. Both sides of this conflict, affected by their Catholic or Protestant beliefs, were absolutely sure that God was on their side. The Anabaptists in the north could pay a fine that was the equivalent of a year’s wages to send someone else to war in their stead if they were drafted. They were only supposed to be fined once, but some were fined as much as three times, being forced to auction off their farms to maintain their clear consciences. How much is your clear conscience before God worth to you?

In the south, the Anabaptist people fared far worse. Men were taken by force to serve in the military. Some escaped, like fugitives, to West Virginia, leaving their families behind. When the Southern army came through, they took what they could to feed their troops and horses. But when the Northern army came through the Shenandoah Valley, they made a swath 25 miles wide and 50 miles long, where they stole or killed all the livestock, took all the grain, burned down the grain mills and the barns, and blew up railroads and bridges. They meant to leave the Southern army destitute of a source of supplies. This also left many Anabaptist families destitute of food and supplies and even a way of earning a living for several years. During the Civil War, the conscientious objectors’ status didn’t exist yet with the federal government.

Finally, peace was again restored and the American people were occupied with rebuilding the land that was devastated by their own hands.

1914 marked the beginning of what the world called the “War to end all Wars”. Many people were needed to fight this war. Conscientious objectors suffered during this war. Some suffered threatenings, public humiliation, and imprisonment, and several died at the hands of the military. Conscientious objectors paid the price of a good conscience At the beginning of WWII, the US government decided that this should not happen again. Something needed to be established for conscientious objectors in our land.

From World War II up until the Vietnam War, The US Selective Services System has created several programs to try to accommodate conscientious objectors, giving an opportunity to serve in some way rather than bear arms and take human lives against their conscience. These various programs had differing levels of success Many who served in the 1W Service program are grateful to our nation as the government tried to understand and work with them. Nevertheless, many Anabaptist churches were unprepared to deal with spiritual casualties from low moral surroundings, lack of accountability, and lack of maturity of our own young men who served. Some of these men failed and lost their way, never returning to their churches.

After the end of the Vietnam War (1955-1975), the draft was eliminated. However, the uncertainty of a volunteer armed force sufficient to meet all threats loomed over the nation. Since then, the Selective Service System (SSS) has been re-engaged and ready when needed.

Conservative Anabaptist Service Programs

In 2005, several concerned Anabaptist leaders met to decide what to do in the event of another draft. How could they make the 1W experience not only less of a threat to our young people’s spiritual condition but actually make it a beneficial time in their lives and spiritual growth? The SSS was willing to discuss this if the Anabaptist leaders developed a program before a draft was enacted. If they waited until there was a draft, it would be too late. After many meetings with the leaders of Anabaptist churches, Christian Aid Ministries, and the SSS, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with the SSS. Christian Aid Ministries was designated a potential employer of conscientious objectors in the event of a military draft. That all sounds good on paper, but how does it work in the event of a draft?

The Conservation Anabaptist Service Program (CASP) is a draft preparation service program of Christian Aid Ministries. short-term pilot projects provide a Christian boot camp experience and have been the answer both to our churches gaining the experience in the event of a draft and for the SSS, who has access to our training records. Between 2005 and 2024, about 20 conservative Anabaptist churches joined hands together to work for the good of our young people and their consciences in the event of another wartime draft.

Goals of CASP:

• Be a liaison between church constituencies and the SSS, and give leadership in assuring compliance to SSS standards.
• Provide employment that will enhance the convictions of conscientious objectors from participating churches.
• Provide a work environment with ethical and moral values that will benefit the conscientious objector.
• Provide employment in both national and international settings.
• Develop and approve church constituency networks for employment projects.

May we all take a part in serving the Great King of kings. May we all encourage each other in the ways of our Lord, helping each other maintain a conscience void of offense before God and men!