Stott’s pacifism

When the young John Stott left Rugby school in the summer of 1940 and began his studies at Trinity College Cambridge the following autumn, Britain was at war with Germany. In April 1941, when Stott turned twenty he became eligible to be called up to serve in His Majesty’s Armed Forces.  But nineteen-year-old Stott had other ideas, for he had determined that his studies came before his duty to his country.

He claimed that had God called him to the ministry, and that this call was so urgent that it could not be put on hold until the end of the war. No, he claimed that God wanted him to study theology at University while other men were giving their lives in defending their country, and so he applied for exemption from call-up on the basis of his decision to pursue ordination in the Church of England.  Moreover, Stott had also declared himself to be a pacifist, because Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that his disciples should turn the other cheek. This was hardly a correct use of Scripture, but that did not appear to concern him. It was on the grounds of his desire to follow a career in the Church of England that he sought to avoid the war. John Stott’s father, Arnold, was appalled at this turn of events. ‘A major general in the Royal Army Medical Corps with a daughter in uniform, Arnold Stott was mystified and angered by his son’s refusal to serve. Duty was calling. Rugby and the family had trained John to answer, and he was defiant.’[1]

Stott’s defence was that God had called him to the ministry. He wrote: ‘Daddy I want you to realise that I must follow my call… Think not that I am going to live a normal, peaceful, comfortable, secluded life. I’m going to throw myself body and soul into the struggle for right.’[2]

Alister Chapman, in Godly Ambition takes up the story: ‘In one letter to his sister Joy, Stott spoke of his decision in terms of “what I know is right”. Stott’s resolution might be regarded as admirable, pig-headed, or somehow both. It is certainly hard to believe his later defence that no one told him that Christians had long argued that wars could sometimes be just—surely that non-pacifist clergy to whom he spoke had some explanation for their own position. One of his old teachers told him frankly: “I declare to you that you are wrong.” But Stott’s determination and his state of mind made him unable to hear what others had to say.’[3]

The effect of Stott’s decision to refuse the call-up had a devastating effect on his family.  He lost the respect of his father, who only very reluctantly continued to support him financially through Cambridge for the duration of World War 2.  ‘Arnold Stott’s pride had turned to shame… by what he saw as a cowardly decision to watch the war go by and a nonsensical determination to enter a second-rate profession.’[4] Stott’s mother Lily was deeply saddened by the whole affair, for she could not understand how her beloved son could be so immune to reason. She wrote: ‘We can none of us understand that this haste should have such a prior claim and all feel that more and more everyone should give prior claim to service to the country to which after all you owe so many benefits and which is worth defending…’[5]

Stott responded to his mother: ‘I am fighting a spiritual war against “principalities and powers” in order that man may have peace with God.’[6]

Lily spoke of the sinking feeling she experience when a letter arrived from her son—‘it felt as tho’ my inside dropped down to my shoes… we cannot see or understand that you should feel, that you can calmly and quietly continue your studies to this end (even tho’ the calling is a sacred one) as tho’… peace was ruling the world and that the greatest and most crucial and important war for civilization was not convulsing the world…’[7]

And a week later: ‘Dear Jonathan – I almost get cross sometimes – your view seems soft and swollen headed sometimes…’[8] And in another letter: ‘Your decision seems so stuffy and crooked to me as tho’ you had a complex of sorts.’[9]

In April 1941, Lily poured out her heart to her recalcitrant son. ‘I’m afraid, dear one, that the whole family thinks that you should do some form of definitely national service in the country’s emergency. A capable, fit, and talented man like you should not continue your life as it is when so many others are having to give up everything for the time being.  I still hope that you may come around to this point of view – that war has touched you not all yet – it is so full of tragedy for many people – there is much that your could do to help.’[10]

Dudley-Smith concludes that Arnold, Lily and Joy Stott all ‘clearly felt deeply that these were days when any young man of any character should be ready to sink his own concerns in his country’s need’.[11]

We learn much about John Stott from this sad event. We see a young man that is so sure of himself and his own ideas and importance, that he was prepared to defy his devoted father and mother to their face. While he ignored their advice and pleadings for him to do his duty to the country, as other young men across the nation were doing at great personal cost, he was willing to undertake his academic studies, while being supported financially by his father.  We also see how Stott was able to use the Christian faith to get what he wanted. He was able to provide a defence of his pacifism, claiming that it came from his Christian faith.  In other words, even as a young man he was skilful in using spurious arguments to get what he wanted. Moreover, he saw no difficulty in openly and publicly in defying his father’s instruction and his mother’s pleading for him to do his duty to his country.  The commandment, ‘Honour your father and mother’ carried no weight with Stott. He knew what he wanted, and that was to avoid the war, and he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to achieve this wish.

This event is important, for as we consider Stott’s ministry we must hold in mind the unscrupulous way in which he avoided military service and got exactly what he wanted while causing considerable pain and sadness to others and especially his father and mother.
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In his student days he joined the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, ‘but the day would come when his own study of the Scriptures would carry him beyond any simplistic viewpoint and he would resign his membership because he no longer believed that the pacifist position was the only possible one for a Christian.’[12]

[1] Alister Chapman, Godly Ambition, pp20-21

[2] Cited from Godly Ambition, p21

[3] Ibid. P21

[4] Ibid. Godly Ambition, p23

[5] Dudley-Smith, p164

[6] Ibid. P166

[7] Ibid. P167

[8] Ibid. P167

[9] Ibid. P171

[10] Ibid. P172

[11] Ibid. P177

[12] Ibid. P177