Community, Doubt, and the Inevitability of War: An Analysis of Four British Christian Perspectives on World War I

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dc.contributor.advisorMcGuire, Anne Marie
dc.contributor.authorSalorio, Anne
dc.date.accessioned2014-07-28T16:06:12Z
dc.date.available2014-07-28T16:06:12Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.descriptionAnne Salorio was a Bryn Mawr College student.
dc.description.abstractBroadly speaking, this thesis is an attempt to gain a sense of how World War I was interpreted through an early twentieth-century Christian perspective. In order to narrow the focus of a hugely broad topic, I have examined four specific works produced by prominent English Christians throughout the First World War. The first two, Hensley Henson's Christianity and War and Elizabeth Wordsworth's The English Church and the English Character, appeared in the Church Quarterly Review, an Anglican missionary journal. The final two pieces, R.F. Horton's "Thou Shalt not Kill" and the War and J.H. Rushbrooke's Must Wars Continue Until the End?, are sermons, published in Christ and the World at War, an anthology of wartime sermons. The following chapters will examine each selection one by one. It will immediately become apparent that these four individuals came from diverse backgrounds, possessed distinct writing styles, and supported the war with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm. These various factors will all be explored in due course. However, the central focus of this thesis rests upon the commonalities among the four pieces. Ultimately, this thesis will argue that, despite the wide range of opinions and rhetorical strategies present in these writings, three common themes can be found in each. All of them manipulate the lack of a stable national identity in the innovative, unpredictable era, emphasizing the importance of belonging to a community or purpose larger than oneself. Each one also carefully acknowledges the changing religious climate of Britain at the time, which hinted at a rise of secularism. Although no author renounces his religious beliefs, explicit religious references are mixed with appeals to politics, history, and literature. Some even critique an aspect of Christian tradition or practice, ensuring that even those readers with spiritual doubts do not feel alienated. And finally, all four eventually come to the rather bleak conclusion that the outbreak of the war was, in some way or another, inevitable.
dc.description.sponsorshipHaverford College. Department of Religion
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10066/14489
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rights.accessDark Archive
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
dc.subject.lcshWorld War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
dc.subject.lcshWorld War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects -- Great Britain
dc.titleCommunity, Doubt, and the Inevitability of War: An Analysis of Four British Christian Perspectives on World War I
dc.typeThesis
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