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Richmond Anti-Draft Declaration of 1948

Author(s):
Friends in Richmond Indiana 1948
Issue:
On Cliques (September 2021)
Department:
Healing the World

Advices on Conscription and War: By the Religious Society of Friends in the United States, Richmond, Indiana, 1948

Friends are exhorted to adhere faithfully to [our] testimony against all wars and fightings, and in no way to unite with any warlike measure such as a Selective Service Draft or Universal Military Training . . . A living concern having been expressed that Friends’ practices be consistent with their professions, Friends are urged: 

1. To support Young Friends and others who express their opposition to conscription either by non-registration, or by registration as conscientious objectors. We warmly approve civil disobedience under Divine compulsion . . .

2. To recognize that the military system is not consistent with Christ’s example of redemptive love, and that participation, even in a non-combatant capacity, weakens the testimony of our whole Society. . . 

3. To extend our religious concern and assistance to all conscientious objectors . . .

4. To avoid engaging in any trade, business, or profession directly contributing to the military system . . . 

5. To consider carefully the implication of paying [taxes], a major portion of which goes for military purposes. 

6. To ask our Quaker schools and colleges to refuse to accept military training units or contracts . . .

7. To create a home and family atmosphere in which ways of love and reconciliation are so central . . . 

8. To help develop the institutions, methods, and attitudes necessary to a harmonious and peaceful world . . . 

We realize that the basic task in peacemaking is to fill the spiritual void in our civilization by replacing the fear that now cripples all our efforts with a faith in the Eternal Power by which God unites and sustains those who pursue His Will . . . 

In humility and repentance for past failures, we call upon all Friends . . . to examine our possessions, to see if there be any seed of war in them . . .

[Complete text is at: https://westernfriend.org/media/richmond-anti-draft-declaration]

Military Draft Military recruitment anti-war

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