British Christianity and the Second World War

This volume looks at the role of Christianity in British statecraft, politics, the media, the armed forces and in the education and socialization of the young during the Second World War. Despite previous scholarly neglect, this volume demonstrates the significance and legacy of the Second World War for British Christianity through chapters on broadcasting, publishing and education. Further chapters examine the spiritual mobilization of nation and Empire; Mass Observation’s commentary on religious life; Catholic responses to strategic bombing; the morality of killing; the nature of Jewish-Christian relations; and the situation of British army chaplains in Germany.

Although levels of churchgoing were falling in mainstream British Protestantism, the broader culture of British Christendom remained robust, problematising the classic chronology of secularisation. However, if the war caused a ‘resacralization’ of British society, the indications are that in this moment of resurgence lay the seeds of future problems. Because of the endemic racism of British society and its churches, post-war immigrants from the Caribbean often encountered a Christian Britain that was different from that portrayed in wartime propaganda. This volume thus identifies the slow-burning problems that may have contributed to the cultural and religious crisis of the 1960s.

This volume exposes the enduring importance of Christianity in British national life and will be of interest to historians of twentieth-century Christianity, British society and the Second World War, and religion in times of conflict.