Evaluating Dulles' Christian commitment, Mark G. Toulouse noted that Dulles was not a pious individual. Nor did he, at this time [1926], make any meaningful contribution to the church in a theological sense.' During his college years and his early professional life he rarely referred to Christianity, religion, or morality in personal letters or other writings. In 1918 in a note addressed to his mother he expressed doubts about the Christian faith, questioning whether or not he really had any religion. The decision to become a lawyer instead of a Presbyterian minister, as was expected of him, nearly broke his mother's heart. But it would not motivate him to change his mind. Thomas E. Dewey, who did not meet Dulles until 1937, later commented, 'I think he spent some years as an atheist.' During the course of his intimate relationship with Dulles, Dewey had many opportunities to probe the deeper recesses of his associate's complex personality. Although Dulles would never allow himself to be seen as an atheist in public, in private the matter might have been different. Therefore Dewey's assumption that Dulles spent some years as an atheist carries considerable weight in that it comes from someone who knew him well. After the spiritually stimulating experience at the Oxford Conference, he described himself as a Christian layman with 'somewhat diluted beliefs'. Even the fact that Dulles was active in church circles, prior to 1937, especially in the early 1920s, does not necessarily mean that he was a devout Christian in any orthodox sense. Perusing some of his numerous sermons, the evidence of Dulles' religious expressions suggests rather that his understanding of the basic tenets of Christianity was superficial. Toulouse does not hesitate to emphasise Dulles' disinterest in'reading any serious theological works', quoting a statement of Dulles' son Avery to that effect:'He [John Foster] did not enter into questions of a sheerly dogmatic nature.' In a Senate hearing, Milton Mayer called Dulles 'a worldly man ... who wants to be a Christian without performing the Christian mission.' Yet considering Dulles' life as a whole it might be better to classify him as a 'so-called Christian humanist' rather than an outright atheist. The theologian John Coleman Bennett thought Dulles had evolved his own form of'secularized Calvinism'. This variety of Christian humanism resembled closely his father's doctrine of 'social utility'. Platig asserts that it was clearly Dulles'utilitarian ethic which brought about his acceptance of Christianity and not vice versa. 'The theological baggage he [Dulles] brought with him from Watertown,' writes Townsend Hoopes, 'was a good deal lighter than has been supposed.' In concrete terms, this meant that Dulles' spiritual orientation was never set on close adherence to doctrinal propositions. Hoopes further states:

Even after his rediscovery of religion in 1937 [at the Oxford Conference], his theology consisted almost solely of a generalized faith in a 'universal moral law', which he failed to define, yet assumed every man could grasp and should obey; that, plus a belief that the church has a role to play in the political process, and a conviction in the supreme worth of the individual.

Dulles' faith was more an idealised commitment to the betterment of humankind in this world than a conscious acceptance of a transcendental reality. His religious orientation was neither exclusively Christian nor was he interested in missionary ventures to 'Christianize' the world. He never seemed to believe in the necessity to pay homage to a higher being, his devotion being directed rather to the 'universal brotherhood of man'. Yet he always couched his humanistic creed, as expounded in numerous public speeches, in Christian terminology.

In 'World Brotherhood through the State', an address delivered under the auspices of The Brotherhood of St. Andrew, at the Convention Hall, Philadelphia, on September 8, 1946, Dulles reminded the assembled masonic brethren of their duty, 'to advance the general welfare of mankind'. A dedication to create the brotherhood of nations would lie at the heart of this task. The Covenant of the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact had not failed to deliver their promised blessings of peace. The fault lay, rather, in the wrong attitude of the principal victors at Versailles, who wished to dominate the vanquished nations. This attitude prevented the Peace Treaty (and those international treaties that followed) from warding off 'the evil spirits who brought the peace to a quick and ignominious end'. Christ had never promised to bring a static peace to this world, nor had he described peace as a condition of tranquillity. Instead, he spoke of the sword as symbolic of his coming, pointing to the revolutionary aspects of the gospel. God's children would be obliged to fight constantly against the imperfections of world order. They would direct their efforts to bring about that dynamic peace of which Christ had actually spoken, a peace 'that does not stifle but encourages efforts to promote human welfare.' Toward that end, the Christians would need to lead the peoples of this world.

As an outstanding example of what had been accomplished already, Dulles mentioned that the non-Roman churches of fifteen countries had founded the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs only one month before (August 1946) at a conference in Cambridge, England. In unanimous agreement with the other Church delegates, Dulles, as chairman, had decreed that the purpose of the Commission would be 'to discuss the part which the churches might take in world affairs'. In a subsequent statement it was announced that'the judgment and guidance of the Christian conscience upon international problems must be clearer and more decisive than hitherto'. Building upon the earlier work in the United States of the Commission on a Just and Durable Peace, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs would promote the brotherhood of humankind, based on moral law, on a world-wide scale:

It can be expected that that Commission will recognize that peace requires the co-operation of men of all nations, races, and creeds and that the principles upon which world order depends are those which men of good will throughout the ages have accepted as part of the moral law. A great body of Christian churches, representing many denominations and many races, is committed, as never before, to subject the conduct of nations to moral law.

In 1944 Dulles had already reminded Christian audiences in numerous speeches that they do not 'alone possess the qualities of mind and soul upon which [the] solution depends.' Although 'Christians believe that the moral law has been most perfectly revealed by Jesus Christ,' it had to be recognised that 'the moral, or natural, law is revealed through other religions, and can be comprehended by all men, so that it is a force far more universal than any particular religion.' In the 1950s he still defined his belief as the application of principles derived from 'the natural and moral law which have wider acceptance than Christianity'. At that time he became an active member of World Brotherhood, along with many other famous politicians, academicians and financiers. In an address at the 'Festival of Faith' of the San Francisco Council of Churches, on June 19, 1955, Dulles defined the moral law as a pantheistic concept undergirding each religion, which imbues the United Nations with the moral force of its principles.

In short, Dulles did not believe in the orthodox tenets of Christianity, but rather in a selective and subjective interpretation of Christ's moral teaching. It was an abstract faith in the expediency of the generally recognisable 'Moral Law', as defined by Dulles himself, governing the affairs of the universe as an impersonal force.

Dulles experienced at Oxford what some of his biographers later described as an intellectual 'conversion'. This meant that he left the conference with the impression that the Christian churches could serve as a powerful social force in the process of eliminating the trappings of nationalism and the barriers of the'sovereignty system'. The churches represented, in his view, the most effective instrument in educating public opinion about the advantages of a new world order. In the Oxford Report he remarked that 'many voices in all nations are lifted in these days in favour of a more just international order and the removal of inequalities of opportunity.' The reappraisal of the usefulness of the ecumenical movement in establishing the Commonwealth of God, i.e., a world federation, would never lose its influence on his mind and emotions. Oxford taught him that it would indeed be possible to transform the spiritual values of the Christian community into practical contributions to the cause of international organisation. The essential value which Dulles gained as the result of his participation at the Oxford Conference was, therefore, more a renewed appreciation of the churches' capacity in influencing foreign affairs than any spiritually invigorating effects it might have had on his personal faith.

Dulles' discovery of the Church as a powerful agent of change at Oxford Conference was continuously reinforced by the extraordinary expansion of the Christian movement in the United States and abroad. Church attendance remained on a consistent upward trend from the mid 1930s to the late 1940s. By 1947, Church leaders ranked higher in public esteem than government officials and businessmen. Dulles was enthused about the growing influence of the churches in general society. By taking advantage of this influence and directing it into the right channels he would be able to fulfill the dream of creating a universal brotherhood of humankind, an ideal which he shared with many ecumenical leaders. In perfect unison the assembly at Oxford defined the nature and purpose of the Universal Church, as follows:

The thought and action of the Church are international in so far as the Church must operate in a world in which the historical Christian bodies share with the rest of mankind the division into national and racial groups. They are oecumenical in so far as they attempt to realize the Una Sancta, the fellowship of Christians who acknowledge the one Lord. This fact of the oecumenical character of the Church carries with it the important consequence that the Church brings to the task of achieving a better international order an insight that is not to be derived from ordinary political sources. To those who are struggling to realize human brotherhood in a world where disruptive nationalism and aggressive imperialism make such brotherhood seem unreal, the Church offers not an ideal but a fact, man united not by his aspiration but by the love of God.

This was in keeping with the ecumenical vision which had been formulated almost two decades earlier by Samuel Z. Batten of the FCC in his book, The New World Order (1919):

If there is to be a new world it must come first of all through a new spirit in the nations. There must be created an international mind and conscience; we must learn to think of humanity as one family and to have a world patriotism; they must keep their minds free from jealousy and selfishness, and must base their policy and practice upon true and Christian principles; they must be as quick to resent injustice by a nation as by an individual. Humanity must become an ideal in order that it may become an actuality. World patriotism must be a faith, a chivalry, before it can be an organization. International peace must become an aspiration, a religion, before it will become a reality.

Dulles' radical change of perspective concerning the potential of the ecumenical movement in reaching a world-wide audience with the message of unity, ecclesiastical as well as secular, following the Oxford Conference was really more a renewed dedication to the socio-political program of the FCC in direct continuation of his earlier participation in the Council's activities.

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© 2005 Martin Erdmann