Home The Bible and the British and American Armed Forces in Two World Wars
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The Bible and the British and American Armed Forces in Two World Wars

  • Michael Snape EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: January 5, 2018
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

The role of the Bible in Great Britain and the United States in the era of the two World Wars offers new insights into the nature and trajectory of religious change in contemporary British and American society, and not least the much-vaunted religious impact of the First World War. By focusing on the use and the significance of the Bible during these conflicts, and especially its role in and for the British and American armed forces, this article illustrates the uneven quality of inter-war secularization on both sides of the Atlantic. Although rarely considered as a measure of religious change in this period, it underlines the enduring cultural significance of the Bible for Britons and Americans alike, demonstrates the Bible’s burgeoning importance during the years of the Second World War, and indicates that this development helped prepare the ground for the religious revival of the post-war era, and most notably the transatlantic success of Billy Graham.

Works Cited

Manuscripts

Imperial War Museum, Department of Documents, E.C. Crosse.

University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library. Bishop Llewellyn Henry Gwynne Papers.

Newspapers and Periodicals

The Chaplain.

Christian Herald.

The Church Times.

Hansard House of Commons Debates.

The Link.

The Times.

Books and Articles

Ambrose, Stephen E. 1997. Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster.Search in Google Scholar

Balbeir, Uta A. 2017. ‘“Billy Graham’s Cold War Crusades”: Re-Christianization, Secularization, and the Spiritual Creation of the Free World in the 1950s.’ In Secularization and Religious Innovation in the North Atlantic World, edited by David Hempton and Hugh McLeod, 234–251. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Barclay, C. R. 1956. The History of the 53rd (Welsh) Division in the Second World War. London: William Clowes and Sons.Search in Google Scholar

Bell, G. K. A. 1916. A Report on the Chaplain’s Replies to the Lord Bishop of Kensington. London: The National Mission of Repentance and Hope.Search in Google Scholar

Bowlby, Alec. 1999. The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby. London: Cassell.Search in Google Scholar

Broom, John. 2015 Fight the Good Fight: Voices of Faith from the First World War. Barnsley: Pen and Sword.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, Callum G. and Michael Snape. 2010. ‘Introduction: Conceptualising Secularisation 1974–2010: The Influence of Hugh McLeod’. In Secularisation in the Christian World, edited by Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape, 1–12. Farnham: Ashgate.Search in Google Scholar

Bureau of the Census. 1919. Religious Bodies 1916. Part I. Summary and General Tables. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Search in Google Scholar

Bureau of the Census. 1941. Religious Bodies: 1936. Volume I. Summary and Detailed Tables. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Search in Google Scholar

Cairns, David S. 1919. The Army and Religion: An Enquiry and Its Bearing Upon the Religious Life of the Nation. London: Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar

Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk. 1951. Public Opinion, 1935–1946. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Carlson, Alvin O. 1945. He is Able: Faith Overcomes Fear in a Foxhole. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.Search in Google Scholar

Carpenter, Joel A. 1980. “Fundamentalist Institutions and the Rise of Evangelical Protestantism, 1929–1942.” Church History 49: 62–75.10.1515/9783110974362.55Search in Google Scholar

Carpenter, Joel A. 1997. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Cartwright Stroup, Russell. 2000. Letters from the Pacific: A Combat Chaplain in World War II. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Search in Google Scholar

Charteris, John. 1931. At GHQ. London: Cassell.Search in Google Scholar

Cobb Brink, Eben. 1944. And God Was There. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.Search in Google Scholar

Coit Gilman, Daniel. 1904. “Centennial of the British Bible Society.” The North American Review 178: 348–361.Search in Google Scholar

Collis Greene, Alison. 2011. ‘The End of “the Protestant Era?” Church History 80: 600–610.10.1017/S0009640711000667Search in Google Scholar

Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook. 1920. Religion Among American Men as Revealed by a Study of Conditions in the Army. New York: Association Press.Search in Google Scholar

Daniel, Eugene L. 1985. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: An American Chaplain in World War II German Prison Camps. Charlotte, NC: E.L. Daniel Jr.Search in Google Scholar

Deakin, Stephen. 2005. “British Military Ethos and Christianity.” British Army Review 138: 97–105.Search in Google Scholar

Dennis, Clyde H. 1945. These Live On: The Best of True Stories Unveiling the Power and Presence of God in World War II. Chicago: Good Books.Search in Google Scholar

Dobbie, Ian. 1988. Sovereign Service: The Story of SASRA 1838–1988. Aldershot: SASRA.Search in Google Scholar

Dobbie, William. 1944. A Very Present Help. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott.Search in Google Scholar

Drury, Clifford M. 1950. The History of the Chaplain Corps United States Navy. Volume Two. 1939–1949. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Search in Google Scholar

Duncan, George S. 1966. Douglas Haig As I Knew Him. London: George Allen and Unwin.Search in Google Scholar

Dwight, Henry Otis. 1916. The Centennial History of the American Bible Society. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar

Elias, Hannah. 2016. “Radio Religion: War, Faith and the BBC, 1939–1948.” McMaster University PhD.Search in Google Scholar

Enjames, Henri-Paul. 2003. Government Issue: U.S. Army European Theater of Operations Collector’s Guide. 2 vols. Paris: Histoire & Collections.Search in Google Scholar

Falls, Cyril. 1922. The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division. Belfast: McCaw, Stevenson and Orr.Search in Google Scholar

Field, Clive D. 2013. “Gradualist or Revolutionary Secularization? A Case Study of Religious Belonging in Inter-War Britain, 1918–1939.” Church History and Religious Culture 93: 57–93.10.1163/18712428-13930104Search in Google Scholar

Fisher, John. 1919. Records. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Search in Google Scholar

Foster, H. C. 1918. At Antwerp and the Dardanelles. London: Mills and Boon.Search in Google Scholar

French, David. 2000. Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany, 1919–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Fry, Luther C. and Mary Frost Jessup. 1933. “Changes in Religious Organizations.” In Recent Social Trends in the United States, 2 vols, edited by Herbert Hoover, 1009–1060. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Search in Google Scholar

Fussell, Paul. 1989. Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Gethyn-Jones, Eric. 1988. A Territorial Army Chaplain in Peace and War: A Country Cleric in Khaki 1938–61. East Wittering: Gooday Publishers.Search in Google Scholar

Gordon, Ernest. 1972. Miracle on the River Kwai. London: Collins.Search in Google Scholar

Gordon, Huntly. 2013. The Unreturning Army. London: Bantam Books.Search in Google Scholar

Gordon, J. W. 1995. ‘Wingate’. In Churchill’s Generals, edited by John Keegan, 277–297. London: Warner Books.Search in Google Scholar

Gwynne, L. 1917. Religion and Morale: The Story of the National Mission on the Western Front. London: SPCK.Search in Google Scholar

Hale, Wallace M. 2004. Battle Rattle. Allen, TX: Timberwolf Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hamilton, Nigel. 2002. The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein 1887–1942. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar

Hamilton, Nigel. 1983. Monty: Master of the Battlefield 1942–44. London: Hamish Hamilton.Search in Google Scholar

Handy, Robert T. 1960. “The American Religious Depression, 1925–1935.” Church History 29: 3–16.10.2307/3161613Search in Google Scholar

Hangen, Tona J. 2002. Redeeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hastings, Adrian. 1991. A History of English Christianity 1920–1990. London: SCM.Search in Google Scholar

Hastings, Max. 1984. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy 1944. London: Michael Joseph.Search in Google Scholar

Hein, David. 2007. Noble Powell and the Episcopal Establishment in the Twentieth Century. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.Search in Google Scholar

Hillenbrand, Laura. 2012. Unbroken: An Extraordinary True Story of Courage and Survival. London: Fourth Estate.Search in Google Scholar

History of the Oldest Bible Society: Naval Military and Air Force Bible Society.Search in Google Scholar

Honeywell, Roy John. 1958. Chaplains of the United States Army. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Chaplains.Search in Google Scholar

Hornung, E. W. 1919. Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front. London: Constable & Company.Search in Google Scholar

Kirby, Norman. 1995. 1100 Miles with Monty: Security and Intelligence at Tac HQ. Stroud: Alan Sutton.Search in Google Scholar

Jorgensen, Daniel B. 1961. The Service of Chaplains to Army Air Units, 1917–1946. Washington, DC: Office, Chief of Air Force Chaplains.Search in Google Scholar

Kimball, Clyde E. 1947. A Diary of My Work Overseas. Nashua: E.E. Kimball.Search in Google Scholar

Konolige, Kit and Frederica. 1978. The Power of their Glory: America’s Ruling Class, the Episcopalians. New York: Wyden Books.Search in Google Scholar

Koss, Stephen. 1975. Nonconformity in Modern British Politics. London: Batsford.Search in Google Scholar

Linderman, Gerald F. 1997. The World Within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II. New York: Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Link, Henry C. and Harry Arthur Hopf. 1946. People and Books: A Study of Reading and Book-Buying Habits. New York: Book Manufacturers’ Institute.Search in Google Scholar

Lord, Daniel A. 1942. A Salute to the Men in Service. St. Louis, MO: The Queen’s Work.Search in Google Scholar

Lowry, E.P. 1900. Chaplains in Khaki: Methodist Soldiers in Camp, on the Field, and on the March. London: C.H. Kelly.Search in Google Scholar

McGrath, Alister. 2001. In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Search in Google Scholar

Mastriano, Douglas V. 2014. Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.10.2307/j.ctt5vkkrdSearch in Google Scholar

Menzies, S. 1919. Sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War. London: Hutchinson.10.5962/bhl.title.33591Search in Google Scholar

Mitchell, B. R. and Phyllis Deane. 1962. Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Montgomery, Bernard Law. 1946. Forward to Victory. London: Hutchinson.Search in Google Scholar

Morgan, Thomas. 1912. The Place-Names of Wales. Newport: John E. Southall.Search in Google Scholar

Murphy, James. 1971. Church, State and Schools in Britain, 1800–1970. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Search in Google Scholar

Nance, Ellwood C. 1944. Faith of Our Fighters. St. Louis, MO: Bethany Press.Search in Google Scholar

Nichol, John and Tony Rennell. 2012. Arnhem: The Battle for Survival. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar

Noll, Mark A. 2002. The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.Search in Google Scholar

Office of the Chief of Chaplains. 1944. The Chaplain Serves. Washington, DC: Army Service Forces, War Department.Search in Google Scholar

Perry, John. 2011. Pershing: Commander of the Great War. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.Search in Google Scholar

Rickenbacker, Eddie. 1943. Seven Came Through: Rickenbacker’s Full Story. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Doran.Search in Google Scholar

Rooney, David. 2000. Wingate and the Chindits: Redressing the Balance. London: Cassell.Search in Google Scholar

Schweitzer, Richard. 2003. The Cross and the Trenches: Religious Faith and Doubt Among British and American Great War Soldiers. Westport: Praeger, 2003.Search in Google Scholar

Schweitzer, Richard. 1998. “The Cross and the Trenches: Religious Faith and Doubt Among Some British Soldiers on the Western Front.” War and Society 16: 33–57.10.1179/072924798791201318Search in Google Scholar

Snape, Michael. 2017. “GI Religion and Post-War Revival in the United States and Great Britain.” In Secularization and Religious Innovation in the North Atlantic World, edited by David Hempton and Hugh McLeod, 213–233. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198798071.003.0012Search in Google Scholar

Steinbeck, John. 1975. Once There Was a War. London: Pan Books.Search in Google Scholar

Stephens Spinks, G. 1952. Religion in Britain Since 1900. London: Andrew Dakers.Search in Google Scholar

Studdert Kennedy, G.A. 1918. The Hardest Part. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Search in Google Scholar

Taylor, A.J.P. 1965. English History 1914–1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar

Todman, Dan. 2007. The Great War: Myth and Memory. London: Hambledon Continuum.Search in Google Scholar

US Army. 1945. Reports of the General Board, 68. “The Army Chaplain in the European Theater.”Search in Google Scholar

Wavell, Archibald P. 1941. The Palestine Campaigns. 3rd ed. London: Constable.Search in Google Scholar

Wickersham, George W. 1998. Marine Chaplain 1943–1946. Bennington, VT: Merriam Press.Search in Google Scholar

Willoughby, Harold R. 1943. Soldiers’ Bibles through Three Centuries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Woodburn Kirby, Stanley. 1958. History of the Second World War. The War Against Japan. Volume II: India’s Most Dangerous Hour. London: HMSO.Search in Google Scholar

Wolfe, Kenneth M. 1984. The Churches and the British Broadcasting Corporation, 1922–1956: The Politics of Broadcast Religion. London: SCM.Search in Google Scholar

Websites

Cannadine, David. ‘A Point of View: Churchill and the birth of the special relationship’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17272610.Search in Google Scholar

CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum, http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/archives/articles/sailors-life/chapter-and-verse.Search in Google Scholar

The History of the UK Radio Licence, http://www.radiolicence.org.uk/viewlicences.html.Search in Google Scholar

Prime Minister’s King James Bible Speech, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-ministers-king-james-bible-speech.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2018-1-5
Published in Print: 2017-10-26

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 29.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jbr-2017-0004/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button