The War and the Churches

The searching crisis through which the nation is passing must have the effect of securing grave consideration for many aspects of our life and institutions. We have already traversed the acute stage of suspense, and are gradually becoming sensible of these wider considerations. It was natural that for a prolonged period the disturbance of our economic conditions, the anxiety for the safety of our nation in face of an appalling menace, the personal concern of millions about the lives of sons or brothers who have bravely responded to the call, should keep our thoughts enchained to the daily or hourly fortunes of the field of battle. Now that the initial disorder has been allayed and we have attained a quiet and reasonable confidence in the issue, we turn to other and broader aspects of this mighty event of our generation. How comes it that the most enlightened century the world has yet seen should be thus darkened by one of the bloodiest and most calamitous wars that have ever spread their awful wings over the life of man? Where is all the optimism of yesterday? Must we reconsider our reasoned boast that our civilisation has lifted the life of man to a level hitherto unattained? Is there something entirely and most mischievously wrong with the foundations of modern civilisation?

A dozen such questions will press for an answer, but it will be granted that one of the most urgent and most interesting of the many grave considerations which the war suggests is its relation to the prevailing creeds and standards of conduct. The war coincides with an advanced stage of what is called the spread of unbelief. In each of the nations of Europe which are engaged in this awful struggle complaints have been made every year for the last two or three generations that Christianity is losing its moral control of the white race. In the cities, especially in the capitals, of Europe there has been a proved and acknowledged decay of church-going; and, however much we may be disposed to think that these millions who no longer attend church retain in their minds the beliefs of their fathers, the slender circulation of religious literature makes it plain that the vast majority of them do not, in point of fact, receive either the spoken or written message of the Christian Church. In the great cities--and it is undoubted that the life of a nation is mainly controlled by its cities--there has been an increasing reluctance to listen to the authoritative exponents of the Christian gospel.

A number of the clergy have very naturally noticed and stressed this coincidence. Prelates of high authority have, as we shall see, even declared that the war is a scourge deliberately laid on the back of mankind by the Almighty on account of this spreading infidelity. As a rule, the clergy shrink from advocating a theory which has such grave implications as this has, and they are content to submit the more plausible suggestion, that the decay of the Christian standard of conduct in the mind of a large proportion of our generation accounts for this tragic combat of nations. A distinguished Positivist writer, Mr. J. Cotter Morison, commenting in the last generation on the decay of Christian belief, expressed some such concern in the following terms:

"It would be rash to expect that a transition, unprecedented for its width and difficulty, from theology to positivism, from the service of God to the service of Man, could be accomplished without jeopardy. Signs are not wanting that the prevalent anarchy in thought is leading to anarchy in morals. Numbers who have put off belief in God have not put on belief in Humanity. A common and lofty standard of duty is being trampled down in the fierce battle of incompatible principles."[1]