Yale Heretic
Long before Apple invented the Macintosh computer there was another “small i” clan Macintosh in America who made news.
His name was Douglas Clyde Macintosh (not MacIntosh) , and he was not a long haired hippie, or a draft dodging peacenik but the Dwight Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University Divinity School. https://dcmcentennial.blogspot.com/
He was a Canadian who sought American citizenship but refused to sign the required pledge “beforehand” to fight in “any and all wars”. He reserved the right to decide as a theologian whether a war was moral or immoral before he agreed to fight in it, a concept which has its origins in the ‘just war’ theory of St. Augustine in the third and fourth century.
He was not a pacifist. In fact, his service as a chaplain in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces of World War I was honored in a silver chalice which I had the privilege of donating to Yale Law School in in 2008.
Why did I give it to Yale Law School rather than Yale Divinity School where Macintosh taught?
The Divinity School already holds Macintosh’s library, his portrait and a fellowship in his name. Macintosh brought his “selective conscientious objection” request for citizenship methodically through the courts until it reached the Supreme Court United States v. Macintosh (1931). It was as controversial in its day as Roe v. Wade is in our day. Yale Law School’s dean represented Macintosh in parts of his legal struggle.
The chalice proves that Macintosh was not a pacifist. He was a “selective” conscientious objector” as he phrased it. He had already participated in World War I as a chaplain.
Isn’t selective conscientious objection exactly what all those 1970 anti-Vietnam War protesters were taking to the streets about, fleeing to Canada over, and going to jail for?
Unlike Macintosh, they were already U. S. citizens but they were saying exactly what Macintosh had declared: Before we go and kill people in a far away land we want to determine whether this war (in Southeast Asia) is morally justified. They didn’t need to be theologians to decide this issue; just being an American was good enough.
In fact, American religious freedom like the Protestant Reformation itself had been based on the premise that the individual could make ethical and sacred decisions without the intervention of theological authorities.
By the time the Macintosh case was reversed fifteen years later in 1946 (Girouard v. United States) Douglas Macintosh had suffered a stroke and decided against becoming a U. S. citizen. He died in 1948, at age 71.
He is named in Wikipedia as a“shaper of modernistic liberalism.”
This might surprise the mild mannered theologian who described himself as “untraditionally orthodox”.
Yale professor Roland H. Bainton , author of the biography of Martin Luther Here I Stand, describes Macintosh in words which seem to make him not “untraditionally orthodox” but a closet heretic:
. . . Therefore, religion must be independent of history, even the Christian religion, which takes its rise from the Jesus of history. Should it be proved, as it had not been, that Jesus never lived, Christianity might nevertheless survive. On this assumption, in a book entitled The Reasonableness of Christianity, Macintosh devoted one hundred and thirty-five pages to a defense of Christianity without mentioning Jesus at all. In defense of the procedure he said:
“It has been through no oversight that nothing has been said of Christology or the historical Jesus. There is an important tactical advantage in showing how extensive and vital is that content or essence of Christianity which can be defended successfully without any assumption as to particular facts of history. We escape the danger of infecting the entire content of essential Christian belief with the necessary incertitude of historical opinion. All that has been said of the reasonableness and truth of Christianity is demonstrably valid, whether we have any Christology or not, and whatever we may or may not believe about the historical Jesus. It would still be valid if it should turn out that Jesus was essentially different from what has been commonly believed, or even that he was not truly historical at all . . . it is the systematic thinker’s task to lead faith to a sure foundation, independent of the uncertainties of historical investigation.”
Yes.
Untraditionally orthodox indeed . And just a teeny bit heretical too: Christianity doesn’t need a historical Jesus to be a valid religion; and citizens should decide whether a war is immoral before they pick up a rifle.
A heretic in deed and in word.
Monday, November 10, 2008 Yale Law School
Symbolic Chalice On Display in Alumni Reading Room
A World War I chaplain’s chalice with ties to a noted Supreme Court case now has a place of honor in the Yale Law School Alumni Reading Room, thanks to the generous donation of a Yale Divinity School alum.
Paul Keane M.Div. ’80 presented the chalice to Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh in September. The chalice originally belonged to Douglas Clyde Macintosh, a theology professor at Yale Divinity School in the early 1900s who is believed to have used the chalice in services on the front lines when he was a chaplain in the Canadian Army during World War I. The chalice was given to Keane 32 years after Macintosh’s death by the executor of Macintosh’s estate.
“I felt that Yale Law School should have this chalice since it is a symbol of Douglas Clyde Macintosh’s Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Macintosh,” said Keane.
In the 1931 case, Macintosh, a Canadian citizen, argued for the right to be granted American citizenship without having to promise beforehand to fight in “any and all wars.” He asked for “selective conscientious objection,” saying he would rely on his own moral judgment of a war’s validity in deciding whether or not to participate. One of Macintosh’s lawyers, Charles Edward Clark ’13, would serve as dean of Yale Law School from 1929–1939.
The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 against Macintosh’s attempt to qualify his citizenship oath, a decision that began a long debate over the arms-bearing pledge. The Supreme Court overturned U.S. v. Macintosh with a 5–3 ruling in 1946, asserting that the pledge to bear arms should no longer be required for naturalization.
Keane said he wanted the Law School to have some memorabilia of the case, particularly since the Divinity School, where Macintosh taught for 40 years, is already the repository of Macintosh’s library, his portrait, and a fellowship in his name. He added that the chalice certifies Macintosh was not a pacifist since he participated in World War I as a chaplain.
Dean Koh expressed gratitude for the gift. “It is a lovely and fitting testament to a courageous man,” he said.
