I went to one of those Anabaptist evangelical colleges back in the 80s the article mentions, Messiah College in Pennsylvania.
I recall we had a Quaker special speaker talking about the “nuclear freeze” (unilateral disarmament) movement. The college gave this kook all kinds of honors treatment, with a special dinner by the History department, and a debate with an Oxford University PhD, who worked for a Senate Committee, a REAL expert on arms treaties. The (conservative)expert PhD explained how a nuclear freeze movement had NO supporters in the Senate, and of course Ronald Reagan would veto any freeze idea that popped up. None-the-less the kooky quixotic Quaker was lauded and honored by our professors, and the real expert, minimized.
At the dinner in his honor I asked the pacifist how pacifism could have worked in the face of the Nazis—and he told a silly story about some people who sat in front of a Holocaust train for a few hours (before being put on the next train, no doubt). Wow, soooooo effective!
Completely unrealistic and insane—calling for all Christians everywhere to unite to end nuclear weapons...(no mention of preaching the good news of Jesus in this) but this is how my (mostly) leftist professors saw being godly and spiritual...
I must admit it was a bit fun going there, as these ideas allowed me to be a real rebel while being conservative—but since it was a Christian college, they wouldn’t kick me out either.
I grew up in a very pacifist Mennonite church, and we were told stories of how, during WWII, the young men went to prison rather than serve in the military. They were held up as hero’s.
There was no talk, of course, of the horror of Hitler, or the Japanese, or how the truly brave young men went out to fight evil face to face.
Growing up that way really screwed up a part of my life, as I could never reconcile things in my mind. It took me until my 30’s to begin to see things as they were/are.
My wife and I sometimes joke that we were Mennonites until we became Christians.