B. Linden Webb

Bernard Linden Webb (25 November 1884 – 28 June 1968) was an Australian Christian minister and pacifist. During both World Wars he resigned from active ministry within the Methodist Church of Australasia because of his opposition to his nation's military engagement.

It was said of him on his death, that "he sought and found an expression for religious faith that satisfied both the demands of the spirit and the temper of the age ... for all his gentle modesty he was inflexibly firm and courageous in maintaining his convictions. He believed that war is utterly wrong."

The peace activism of the 1960s within the Methodist Church grew from Webb's pioneering pacifist theology of earlier years. He was a grandson of Edmund Webb and William Tom. His family were prosperous and well-connected in business and political circles. Webb attended Newington College, as had his father, and commenced in 1899. In 1902, his final year at Newington, he was appointed as the Senior Prefect. The following year Webb went up to the University of Sydney and read in the faculty of arts. He had planned to become a lawyer, but during his second year of university "he felt the call to preach". He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1906. Webb chose service to the church over a career as a lawyer and became a graduate student at the Wesleyan Theological Institution which was then still based in the grounds of his Alma Mater, Newington College. The recruiting sergeant in Hay asked Webb to encourage young men in his congregation to support the war effort. All other ministers in Hay agreed to such requests but Webb refused to assist. For two and a half years the young minister found himself at odds with his congregation and broader community. Webb eventually found "the moral implications of Christian doctrine" inconsistent with those of the Methodist Church and he resigned from the ministry. He returned to the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney without pastoral charge before moving to Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. During this period Webb did not work as a minister but tried to support his family by teaching elocution, farming and selling fruit and clothing door-to-door. Webb became physically frail and suffered from poor health. He returned to service in Sydney in 1936 when he was appointed to the Summer Hill church. For the remaining years of the decade Webb was in Campbelltown, New South Wales, and Kensington. As Australia was again at war Webb considered "that his pacifist principles were not consistent with his work in the church" and he again resigned from ministry. He aligned himself with Methodist ministers such as Alan Walker during World War II. In these years he supported his family by selling fruit and vegetables. After the war he re-entered the ministry but his health was bad and he became a supernumerary in Helensburgh, New South Wales.

Marriage, family and death In 1911, Webb married Eleanor Dunbar in Sydney. The union produced three daughters and a son. The sun shines on – selected poems and songs (1967)