God and the British Soldier

Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars

Michael Snape

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134643400
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Drawing on a wealth of new material from military, ecclesiastical and secular civilian archives, Michael Snape presents a study of the experience of the officers and men of Britain's vast citizen armies, and also of the numerous religious agencies which ministered to them.

Historians of the First and Second World Wars have consistently underestimated the importance of religion in Britain during the war years, but this book shows that religion had much greater currency and influence in twentieth-century British society than has previously been realised.

Snape argues that religion provided a key component of military morale and national identity in both the First and Second World Wars, and demonstrates that, contrary to accepted wisdom, Britain's popular religious culture emerged intact and even strengthened as a result of the army's experiences of war.

The book covers such a range of disciplines, that students and scholars of military history, British history and Religion will all benefit from its purchase.

Chapter 1
‘DIFFUSIVE CHRISTIANITY’ AND THE RELIGION OF THE SOLDIER

Introduction

BY 1914 MANY OF MAINLAND BRITAIN’S Protestant clergy were uncomfortably aware of declining levels of church membership and church attendance. Although habits of non-attendance were entrenched in many urban working-class areas, by this time the decline of religious practice among the middle classes was also becoming apparent.¹ The problematic findings of the parliamentary Census of Religious Worship of 1851 had caused consternation by suggesting that less than half of the population of England and Wales were churchgoers (statistics from Scotland were more fragmentary).² By 1914, however, the figures seemed much worse. According to the most comprehensive statistical study of churchgoing in modern Britain, the major Protestant denominations in England, Scotland and Wales had approximately 5,682,000 official adherents out of a total population of nearly 42 million. This figure comprised 2,437,000 Anglican communicants (including those of the Scottish Episcopal Church), 1,242,000 Scottish Presbyterian communicants and 2,003,000 members of the larger and more established Nonconformist denominations, which included the Baptists, the Congregationalists, the English and Welsh Presbyterians and the various branches of Methodism. By 1946, however, the tally of committed Anglicans and Non-conformists had declined markedly both in absolute and in relative terms, developments such as the union of the Wesleyan, Primitive and United Methodist churches in 1932 doing nothing to reverse this trend in the longer term. In 1946, and out of a population of nearly 48 million, the principal Protestant denominations now counted only 5,030,000 members and communicants, comprising 1,987,000 Anglican and 1,297,000 Scottish Presbyterian communicants and 1,746,000 members of the major Nonconformist churches.³

However, this overall picture (and the churches’ longstanding preoccupation with statistics of formal religious affiliation and observance) should not blind us to the fact that, even at this later date, British society was still identifiably and self-consciously Christian. Besides the existence of established or national churches in England and Scotland, the monarchy provided the focus for a British civil religion which was expressed in the development of a national cult of remembrance in the aftermath of the First World War, by the holding of national days of prayer during the war years and by stirring radio broadcasts by King George VI during the Second World War, broadcasts that made heavy use of religious and patriotic rhetoric.⁴ As in the Victorian era, religious values and churchgoing habits continued to be inculcated among Britain’s governing classes in the nation’s public schools. For the middle classes, churchgoing still remained emblematic of respectability, notwithstanding declining levels of church attendance and an increase in civil marriage among them. Even in the roughest areas of urban Britain, occasional churchgoing was fairly commonplace and a strong church presence was maintained through a vast network of church and Sunday schools, welfare agencies and voluntary societies.⁵ Despite inter-war disquiet within the churches over the spread of artificial birth control, the liberalisation of the nation’s divorce laws and the impact of organised leisure on Sunday observance,⁶ the norms of Christian morality were still very much embedded in British law on questions such as abortion and homosexuality. The influence of these norms on the national consciousness was, of course, vividly demonstrated in the public debates surrounding Edward VIII’s relationship with Wallis Simpson and the whole abdication crisis of 1936.⁷Finally, Christianity continued to exert a profound influence on popular culture. This influence was reflected in the teaching of scripture in non-denominational council schools, in the churches’ near monopoly of the rites of passage and in a widely shared passion for hymnody that transcended the boundaries of denomination and social class.⁸ In terms of the media, the influence of the churches was reflected in the wide circulation of literature ranging from the ubiquitous parish magazine to the famous Boy’s Own paper, a magazine published under the auspices of the Religious Tract Society.⁹ From the early years of the 1920s, the churches’ influence in the media was substantially enhanced by the advent of the BBC and by the rise of religious broadcasting under the patronage of John Reith, the Corporation’s first director-general and a staunch Scottish Presbyterian.¹⁰

Notwithstanding signs of change in the nation’s moral climate and a downward trend in church membership and churchgoing among British Protestants between 1914 and 1945, these developments concealed a number of important regional and denominational variations. In Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the melding of ethnic, political and denominational identities in the nineteenth century ensured higher levels of churchgoing and church membership until well into the twentieth century.¹¹ Even in England, where levels of church attendance and membership were historically lower, there were significant regional and local variations. As late as the 1950s, a comprehensive survey of English society and culture found that the North West and the South West had higher levels of church affiliation and public religious practice than did the rest of England. The same survey also confirmed that those who had ‘no religious affiliation at all’ were far more likely to be found in large urban areas than in smaller towns and villages.¹² Nor did decline afflict all of the many denominations represented in mainland Britain. Whereas the period 1914–45 saw numbers of communicants and church members fall in many mainstream Protestant churches, the period was one of significant growth for Roman Catholicism, Judaism and newer and more marginal Protestant groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists.¹³ Whereas there were 2,389,000 Roman Catholics in 1914, by 1946 their numbers had risen to 3,094,000, this growth being assisted by continuing immigration from Ireland.¹⁴ Similarly, the Seventh Day Adventists increased their membership from 2,671 in 1914 to 6,268 in 1946.¹⁵Although Roman Catholicism was evidently buoyant and expansive in many working-class districts of industrial Britain, even in urban England there were Anglican parishes and Nonconformist congregations that, by dint of local circumstance, bucked the prevailing trend of decline.¹⁶ Lastly, factors such as gender and social class clearly influenced patterns of religious affiliation and public worship. Women tended to be more closely involved in church life than men and members of the unskilled working class were less susceptible to churchgoing habits than were those of higher social groups.¹⁷

In sum, the religious configuration and development of Britain between 1914 and 1945 was characterised by variety and complexity rather than by blanket decline. Indeed, national totals of Protestant church members and communicants even enjoyed a short-lived resurgence in the 1920s, a resurgence that was repeated in the 1950s.¹⁸ Despite long-term indicators of the decline of mainstream Protestantism in the inter-war period, the churches remained strong in large parts of Britain and the cultural influence of Christianity remained robust in society at large. As John Drewett, a Sheffield clergyman and an astute religious commentator, described the situation in 1942:

About one-quarter of the adults and rather more children are attached to a religious denomination. In some parts of the country church attendance is more common than in others; generally speaking, the proportion of practising Christians in the large cities is less than it is in the country and in the smaller towns. It is also true that the influence of the Church is greater in some of the old cathedral cities than it is in the modern industrial areas. We observe, furthermore, that in some parts of the country Nonconformity is much stronger than in others, and that, particularly in the ‘Celtic fringe,’ there is a strong Puritan tradition which still has a considerable influence on the social customs of the people.¹⁹

Diffusive Christianity

The continuing strength and influence of Christianity in Britain was demonstrated not so much by habits of regular churchgoing (which were confined to as little as one-fifth of the population in 1914 and one-sixth by the mid-1940s) but in a phenomenon that churchmen were describing as ‘diffusive Christianity’ as early as the turn of the twentieth century.²⁰ This prevalent, if somewhat elusive, form of belief is perhaps best described as an ethically based and non-dogmatic form of Christianity, one which derived its currency from a sense of religion’s social utility and from an almost universal (if generally limited) measure of religious education. This form of religion seems to have pervaded all levels of British society and, as Callum Brown has observed, ‘What made Britain Christian’ was not levels of churchgoing but ‘the way in which Christianity infused public culture and was adopted by individuals, whether churchgoers or not, in forming their own identities’.²¹ According to Drewett, this kind of Christianity was nurtured from an early age. In terms of the public school system, and ever since the reforms of Thomas Arnold in the early nineteenth century:

[T]he middle-class Englishman ha[s] been trained [in] Christian-Humanist values. He has learnt from the sermons in his school chapel and in the general atmosphere of its community that he must shoulder the responsibilities of government as well as accept the privileges of a ruling class. The conception of the English gentleman is a product of classical humanism and liberal Christianity. Its essence is a code of behaviour, an ethical system and not a religious faith.

Clearly evolved ‘to meet the needs of a world-wide Empire’, Drewett maintained that this form religion was more akin to notions of ‘blood and soil’, with their National Socialist overtones, than to any of the specific creeds of Christendom.²² Nevertheless, and as Drewett explained, its currency did have advantages for the churches:

The diffused Christianity of the ruling class is not without its effect in many departments of our social life. Without it there could hardly be an Established Church or bishops sitting in the House of Lords. It influences our state educational system and the administration of justice. It is the religion of many of our judges, executive and civil service chiefs, and of high officers in the services. It ensures that Christian opinion will receive, at any rate, a courteous hearing in the affairs of state. It means, in general, that this country may in some sense be called Christian, and that up to now no rival philosophy has been accepted as the basis of our national life.

However, this form of belief also posed problems because:

The diffused Christian of the educated classes is almost proud of his ignorance of theology. His religion is one of works: he believes in giving the other fellow a helping hand; he is, or tries to be, a good neighbour. He is friendly to the Church and admires the work of many of the clergy, but he has little patience with doctrine or dogma. The practice of Christianity seems to him to be a straightforward business, and the Church seems to exist largely to make straight ways crooked and light places dark.²³

Far removed from this privileged milieu, a comparable situation also obtained among the nation’s working classes. Mediated through Sunday and elementary schools and through the churches’ extensive network of youth and charitable organisations, the ‘diffused Christianity of the working classes’ manifested itself in a ‘moral code’ rather than in a firm attachment to the churches:

Unlike that of the ruling class, with its insistence upon service, that of the workers is mainly concerned with personal abstention from drink, bad language, gambling and sexual vice. The ‘diffused Christian’ usually informs...

Table of contents

• Christianity and society in the modern world
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 1 ‘DIFFUSIVE CHRISTIANITY’ AND THE RELIGION OF THE SOLDIER
• Chapter 2 GOD AND THE GENERALS
• Chapter 3 COMMAND AND THE CLERGY
• Chapter 4 THE CHURCH IN KHAKI
• Chapter 5 RELIGION, MORALITY AND WAR
• Chapter 6 THE ARMY AND RELIGIOUS PHILANTHROPY
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX