000			01503nam a2200181Ia 4500
999			_c571 _d571
005			20220808164041.0
008			200202s9999 xx 000 0 und d
082			_a342.0854 Tol
100			_aTolstoy, Lev.
245		0	_aTolstoy's writing on civil disobedience and non-violence
260			_aLondon
260			_bPeter Owen
260			_c1968
300			_a400 p.
520			_aThis letter, in my opinion, has great importance. Re fusals of military service in Christian states began when in Christian states military service appeared. Or rather when the states, the power of which rests upon violence, laid claim to Christianity without giving up violence. In truth, it cannot be otherwise. A Christian, whose doctrine enjoins upon him humility, non-resistance to evil, love to all (even to the most malicious), cannot be a soldier; that is, he cannot join a class of men whose business is to kill their fellow-men. Therefore it is that these Christians have always refused and now refuse military service. But of true Christians there have always been but few. Most people in Christian countries count as Christians only those who profess the doctrines of some Church, which doctrines have nothing in common, except the name, with true Christianity. That occasionally one in tens of thousands of recruits should refuse to serve did not trouble the hundreds of thousands, the millions, of men who every year accepted military service.
650			_a"Government, Resistance to"
942			_cB _2ddc