A historical look at war through a Christian peace lens that still speaks to today.
This edition presents David Low Dodge’s early 19th‑century arguments that war contradicts the spirit of Jesus Christ and the gospel of peace. It places his work in the broader peace movement and connects his writing to later voices like Leo Tolstoy, highlighting a long tradition of religiously motivated antiwar critique.
The book frames the author’s life, the rise of America’s first peace societies, and the bold claim that true discipleship calls Christians to oppose war. It presents core arguments, responses to common objections, and a vision of a world guided by mercy, justice, and nonviolence rather than conquest.
- Clear explanation of why war, in the author’s view, contradicts Christian teaching.
- Historical context showing how early peace movements formed in America.
- Engagement with common objections and practical reflections on faith and society.
- Connections to later pacifist thought and a lasting call to humane action.
Ideal for readers interested in religious history, pacifist thought, and the roots of modern peace activism.David Low Dodge was Founder of the New York Bible Society and the New York Tract Society (1774-1852).
“The preëminent historical interest attaching to Mr. Dodge’s pioneering work in the peace cause in this country would alone justify and indeed seem to command the republication of his pamphlets at this time, when the great ideas for which he so courageously and prophetically stood are at last winning the general recognition of humane and thoughtful men. But it is not merely historical interest which warrants a revival of attention to these almost forgotten papers. Their intrinsic power and worth are such as make their reading, especially that of the second essay, War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ, which stands first in the present volume, edifying and inspiring to-day. Marked by few literary graces and cast in a theological mold which the critical thought of the present has in large measure outgrown, there is a force of thought, a moral earnestness, a persevering logic, a common sense, a hatred of inhumanity, a passion for justice, a penetration and a virtue in them, which commends them to the abiding and reverent regard of all who work for the peace and order of the world. Among such workers to-day are men of various political philosophies, and perhaps only a small minority are nonresistants of the extreme type of David L. Dodge; but to that minority, we cannot fail to remark, belongs the greatest and most influential of all the peace prophets of this time, Leo Tolstoi. None can read these old essays without being impressed by the fact that their arguments are essentially the same as those of the great Russian. There is little indeed of the Tolstoian thunder and lightning, the pathos, wrath, and rhetoric, the poetry and prophecy, in these old-fashioned pages; but the doctrine is the same as that of Bethink Yourselves! and Patriotism versus Christianity. In his central thought and purpose, in his religious trust and reliance upon the Christian principle, the New York merchant was a Tolstoi a hundred years before his time.” -Edwin D. Mead
