With the coming of conscription in Europe, those who held most strongly
to their non-resistant principles came to the United States to escape
military service. Those who remained in Europe gradually gave up their
opposition to war, but those in America have largely maintained their
original position.[99]


Today they still refrain from opposing evil, and believe in the
separation of church and state, which to them means a refusal to hold
office and, in many cases, to vote or to have recourse to the courts.
They pay their taxes and do what the state demands, as long as it is not
inconsistent with their duty to God. In case of a conflict in duty,
service to God is placed first. Since they do not believe that it is
possible for the world as a whole to become free of sin, they maintain
that the Christian must separate himself from it. They make no attempt
to bring about reform in society by means of political action or other
movements of the sort which we have considered under non-violent direct
action.[100]

Since the term "pacifist" has come into general use to designate those
opposed to war, the Mennonites have usually made a distinction between
themselves as "non-resistants" and the pacifists, who, they claim, are
more interested in creating a good society than they are in following
completely the admonitions of the Bible. They also disclaim any
relationship to such non-resistants as Garrison or Ballou, even though
these men reached substantially the same conclusion about the nature of
the state, or with Tolstoy who even refused to accept the support of the
state for the institution of private property. The American
non-resistants they regard primarily as reformers of human society, and
Tolstoy as an anarchist who rejected the state altogether, rather than