Anglican Pacifist Fellowship - APF Publications and Resources

APF Publications and Resources

The Fellowship publishes a newsletter, The Anglican Peacemaker, which is available online or via mail subscription. Each newsletter explores a specific theme or current event and also contains a page depicting art, song lyrics and poetry that promote a culture of peace. Book and film reviews are also featured. The newsletter explores pragmatic, constructive ways of building peace as well as exploring the Christian spiritual foundations of pacifism. It frequently critiques the actions of the military and arms manufacturers in many parts of the world whilst exploring the reasons why the military still has such influence in society. The role of the media, environment, politics and capitalism are explored whilst ways of educating people about the immorality of military life are also discussed. Promotion of proactive peace-making and analysis of the causes of war and attraction of the military are key aims of the newsletter.

APF also publishes a range of leaflets on a variety of topics, from traditional Anglican pacifist tracts and an explanation of the Church's teachings on pacifism, through to articles discussing pragmatic pacifist responses to the problem of Hitler and alternatives to warfare. Pamphlets analyse the Bible in detail, with particular reference to the Sermon on the Mount and the teachings and actions of Jesus Christ to show pacifism as the most Christian response to warfare, such as how Jesus, through disarming Saint Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, thereby "disarms every soldier". They also depict the pacifist attitude of believers in the Early Church, prior to Christianity's acceptance by Constantine, . Many of these educational pamphlets were written by Derek Savage, a prominent British poet, APF member and Second World War conscientious objector.

One of Savage's tracts, Pacifism, Church and State, discusses one of the unique problems facing the Anglican Communion. As a State Church in England, the Anglican Church is often seen as part of "The Establishment" and, thus, critiquing Government policy and fully realizing the subversive, radical politics and social message at the heart of Jesus' Gospel can be difficult. The Church can thus be criticised for excessive compliance to the Government and not living up to Christ's ideals as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he criticises the power structures of this world, including the dominant military and economic force of His own time, the Roman Empire.

A topic often discussed amongst pacifists is that of how best they could respond to the emergence of Hitler, using non-violent means. Most APF members feel that the problem of Hitler could only have been settled earlier peacefully prior to 1939, via a more just and equitable Treaty of Versailles and more work to promote a stable economic and political situation in the Weimar Republic, as related in the pamphlet What to Do About Hitler: A Pacifist Symposium, published in 1989. The pamphlet also notes that whilst the Jews suffered horrific persecution under the Nazis during the 1930s, the Final Solution could only occur under the cloud of wartime activity. Those who argue against fighting Hitler also note that the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant that the Allies sunk to the level of their opponents, whilst a campaign of non-violent resistance to any Nazi regime may have been more effective as such an overstretched empire would not be sustainable in the long run. The pamphlet argues that if Germany had been treated with greater dignity and been helped to recover more quickly after the 1918 defeat, the conditions that led Hitler to rise to power would not have occurred. Hence the Fellowship aims to work proactively in the world to determine and eliminate causes of warfare before conflict becomes inevitable.

Other notable tracts include:

• Why I am Not a Pacifist: A Pacifist's Reply, which addresses some of the key theological and pragmatic questions often asked by people hesitant to embrace pacifism;
• Article XXXVII and War, which discusses the contentious Article and its bearing on modern Anglican pacifism;
• Against the Stream (available online ), about the life of the German Roman Catholic conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter, who was executed for refusing to serve in the Nazi army ;
• The Church and War, a classic 1940 tract by Evelyn Underhill (also available online ).

Combined, these texts explore many of the issues surrounding a pacifism and intellectually engage the spiritual and pragmatic consequences of the ideology.

In 2000, the Fellowship released a compact disk of music, entitled Finest Hour, featuring music composed by Gilmurray, the renowned Anglican hymn writer Christopher Idle and John Bell of the Iona Community. The songs on the album promote pacifism and Christian fellowship by critiquing a number of issues and themes relating to war, arms manufacturing, American imperialism and corporate capitalism .

A second recording by Gilmurray, The Way of Peace, was released in 2006 to recognise the United Nations' Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. It was accompanied by a Lenten study book that contains poetry and passages of scripture. This album featured songs critiquing social issues such as the use of child soldiers in African combat zones and the depictions of violence in films and other media products marketed towards children .