Stark, moving but with glimmers of humour amongst the wreckage, The Hardest Part asks perhaps the hardest question of all when faced with the horrors of the 1st World War - where was God to be found in the carnage of the western front?

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy’s answer, that through the cross God shares in human suffering rather than being a ‘passionate potentate’ looking down unmoved by death, injury and destruction on an immense scale, was, and still is, revolutionary.

Marking the centenary both of the end of the First World War and the original publication of The Hardest Part, this new critical edition contains a contextual introduction, a brief biography of Studdert Kennedy, annotated bibliography and the full text of the first edition of the book, with explanatory notes.

Contents:

The Man, the Padre and the Theologian - Thomas O'Loughlin

Gone and Almost Forgotten: The Reception of ‘The Hardest Part’ - Stuart Bell

The Hardest Part - the 1918 text

Dedication

Preface

Author’s Introduction

1. What is God like?

2. God in Nature

3. God in History

4. God in the Bible

5. God and Democracy

6. God and Prayer

7. God and the Sacrament

8. God and the Church

9. God and the Life Eternal

Postscript