“Between evil and less evil”: Canadian Churches and Area Bombing in World War Two

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#/media/File:Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg

By late 1942, Germany faced virtually non-stop bombing. By 1945, the situation in Japan was similar. The allied bombing efforts over Germany and Japan were punishing campaigns developed not only to destroy military personnel and infrastructure but also to break the will of citizens by subjecting them to dislocation, desolation, and death. 
 
The raw numbers provide a striking summary of the cost of the campaigns. The allies lost roughly 81,000 airmen, whereas by the end of the war the cities of Germany and Japan were wastelands marked by piles of massive rubble, including two eradiated cities. The immediate civilian deaths in cities were German approximately 410,000 and Japan 340,000. Those figures do not account for injury and dislocation.

For the past few years I have been examining the Canadian churches and their responses to such bombing. I am currently in the process of looking at various American denominations, but my research into Canadian churches is finished (of course, such things as never really finished), and my results were recently published as a chapter in a book in honor of a former professor. (see book below) The publishing timing is fitting, for it was in August 1945 that the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki faced the horrors of the atomic bomb.
 
What did the Canadian churches think of such events? (Note, my research focused on Canadian Protestant churches.) You can read the full article in the book, but what follows are a few quick comments on my findings.
 
First, the churches knew some of what was happening. The shift away from precision to carpet or area bombing was pretty clear and public by mid-1943. The events of Dresden in 1944 left no doubt that citizens were being targeted indiscriminately. Of course, state control of the messaging and media censorship did not give the whole story, but enough was known to make a tentative moral judgement.
 
Second, as scholars such as Adam Rudy make clear,[1] while there were some exceptions, the churches were widely supportive of the war effort. What this research indicates in that the churches’ support did not mean that they were silent and compliant lapdogs of the state. 
 
For instance, the best the Canadian churches could publicly say in support of area bombing was that there seemed to be no other option if victory was to be attained. At worst, the actions of the allies on the particular matter of area bombing were a profound moral failure requiring remorse and repentance. 
 
The reason for the tepid support or even criticism of the bombing of civilians en masse was that such a practice went contrary to the just war tradition of non-combatant immunity. It also made the allies complicit in actions they had once criticized as barbaric. Nevertheless, the underlying reason – or compromise – for tolerating the bombing was that evil needed to be done to defeat an even greater evil, in common parlance it was “the better of two evils,” or, as one churchman at the time wrote, a position “between evil and less evil.”[2]
 
Third, despite what today’s TikTok messaging indicates, war is actually very complex. In fact, it is one of the most complex events in human history – it constantly evolves in aims, technology, weapons, and even morality. The ability to know what is happening is muted by censorship or distorted by propaganda. And while the call is often for justice, war is also motivated by hate rooted in history, religion, race, class, economics, ideology, power, and revenge.
 
The churches in World War Two seemed to be quite well aware of those dangers and did the best they could do make an informed and ethically responsible decision despite such hardships. 
 
Of course, the “lesson” is for us today to try to do likewise.

[1] Adam D. Rudy, “The Cause of Righteousness and Freedom: Canadian Protestant Churches and The Second World War, 1939–1945,” PhD dissertation, McMaster Divinity College, 2022. 
 [2] “Protest Indiscriminate Bombing,” Presbyterian Record, May 1944.