Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Great and Holy War: How World War I Changed Religion For Ever
    Unavailable
    The Great and Holy War: How World War I Changed Religion For Ever
    Unavailable
    The Great and Holy War: How World War I Changed Religion For Ever
    Ebook513 pages7 hours

    The Great and Holy War: How World War I Changed Religion For Ever

    By Philip Jenkins

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War, and the lasting impact it had on Christianity and world religions more extensively in the century that followed. The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. A steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was served to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Philip Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels, apparitions, and the supernatural, was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism. Connecting remarkable incidents and characters - from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide - Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis. We cannot understand our present religious, political, and cultural climate without understanding the dramatic changes initiated by the First World War. The war created the world's religious map as we know it today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLion Books
    Release dateJun 20, 2014
    ISBN9780745956749
    Unavailable
    The Great and Holy War: How World War I Changed Religion For Ever
    Author

    Philip Jenkins

    Philip Jenkins is the Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe and is a regular on radio shows. He was educated at Cambridge and has written over twenty books including The Lost History of Christianity, Jesus Wars, and The Next Christendom and over a hundred articles and reviews. He has won several book prizes in both the Christian and secular arena.

    Read more from Philip Jenkins

    Related to The Great and Holy War

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Wrath And Aftermath

      Aug 6, 2019

      By Elisabeth Gallas; translated from the German by Alex Skinner. New York University Press, 2019. $35. Reviewed by K. M. Kostyal Europe lay in ruins and 6 million Jews had been murdered when, in late winter 1946, the American military designated an o

      8 min read

    • Article

      Tecumseh vs. Harrison

      Jan 23, 2024

      Tecumseh vs. Harrison
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Nation’s Alibi

      Feb 25, 2020

      A Nation’s Alibi
      8 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Sep 6, 2018

      Reviews
      9 min read

    • Article

      Besieged

      Aug 25, 2020

      Besieged
      10 min read

    • Article

      We Shall Never Surrender

      Nov 2, 2022

      We Shall Never Surrender
      5 min read

    • Article

      Classical Corner

      Feb 23, 2023

      Classical Corner
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Warlords

      Nov 2, 2022

      The Warlords
      11 min read

    • Article

      New Takes

      May 8, 2018

      New Takes
      5 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Oct 8, 2020

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Yearning Process

      Jun 9, 2022

      A Yearning Process
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 12, 2022

      I feel that the article concerning Napoleon (April) was unfair to its subject. While his later career frequently saw his original ideals undermined by the reality of power, he was from the first a believer in the revolution, as his letters and genera

      3 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Rome

      Sep 4, 2018

      Becoming Rome
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Last Kingdom

      Jul 12, 2022

      The Last Kingdom
      6 min read

    • Article

      How Horror Changed After WWI

      Oct 31, 2018

      How Horror Changed After WWI
      7 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Feb 24, 2022

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Nov 28, 2019

      Reviews
      8 min read

    • Article

      From Worms To Woke

      May 26, 2022

      HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE? Now, in 2022, with war abroad and woke at home, we contemplate the bitter dissolution of the hopes of the late twentieth century. Five hundred years ago, in 1521, Martin Luther’s appearance at the Diet of Worms signalled the

      5 min read

    • Article

      When Caesar Ruled Brittania

      Apr 12, 2022

      When Caesar Ruled Brittania
      4 min read

    • Article

      Before History Devolves Into Mythology: 2020’s Best Books On World War II

      Dec 2, 2020

      Historians grapple with the grimmest, toughest questions surrounding the war, about culpability, morality, and demagoguery during a fraught time.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Blood Brothers

      Jan 1, 2019

      Blood Brothers
      8 min read

    • Article

      How To Survive The Blitz

      Mar 29, 2020

      How To Survive The Blitz
      8 min read

    • Article

      Also On The Bookshelf

      Jan 21, 2021

      Love Lives: From Cinderella to Frozen by Carol Dyhouse (OUP, 288 pages, £20) In the 1950s, the western world fell in love with Cinderella, cheering her on in the hunt for Prince Charming. Fast forward four decades, and a very different fairytale was

      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 21, 2023

      The painting selected to illustrate William Shakespeare in the December issue (En- counters) is captioned: “A c1610 painting of William Shakespeare, kept in the Cobbe Collection, is thought to be the only portrait of the English playwright to have be

      4 min read

    • Article

      More Top Picks From 2022

      Nov 24, 2022

      For centuries, volumes about the history of the transatlantic slave trade focused on European abolitionism. But this has changed in recent decades, with scholarship concentrating on American and Caribbean emancipation movements and key figures. In Lo

      4 min read

    • Article

      2023 Books Of The Year

      Nov 23, 2023

      2023 Books Of The Year
      12 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 24, 2022

      In November’s Letters, Jenny Martin requested a feature on Queen Margaret of Scotland (c1045–93). However, the Saxon Princess Margaret of Wessex – as she was also known – is not all she seems. Rightly revered as a saint, her legacy was, though, not a

      4 min read

    Reviews for The Great and Holy War

    4.5/5

    13 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I've long been fascinated by World War II and it has provided a focus of what I might call my "hobby reading" (aka, stuff I don't teach and likely never will but still fascinates me to no end). A good bit of that reading has focused on the lead-up to the war rather than the actual conflict...books like David Faber's "Munich, 1938" and Lynne Olson's "Those Angry Days" (both fine reads). My reading so far, limited and scattered as it has been, has been enough to reveal what others most assuredly already know: You can't understand World War II without understanding World War I. In fact, I might go so far as to venture a renaming of these conflicts as "World War, PART I and World War, PART II." To point to the most obvious reason for this claim: It was certainly the punitive nature of the Treaty of Versailles that ended WW1 that laid the basic groundwork for the next iteration of world war just over 2 decades later. So, I picked up Jenkins' book driven by the curiosity to better understand the forces that erupted into WW2; it just seemed logical, given my formal training and area of expertise, to begin with a theological analysis. And I quickly discovered that Jenkins' analysis of WW1 was teaching me a LOT more about America's "war on terror" than it was about WW2 (in fact, in his conclusion, Jenkins points out that a key difference between WW's 1 and 2 is the virtual absence of a justifying apocalyptic/religious rhetoric in WW2 era). It took my breath away to compare Jenkins' chronicle of WW1 headlines with current viral articles about radicalized Islam that are circulating endlessly in my Facebook newsfeed....and no one wants to talk about the medieval Crusades anymore (I wonder why THAT is...). Clearly, each side saw itself as THE representative of the divine will and purpose, and such deluded propaganda fueled many of the extremities of that first international conflagration. Though Jenkins analyzes the ROLE of religion in both sparking and perpetuating WW1, he does not stoop to BLAMING religion for the war. This is not another book about why religion is so "bad" for the world. Rather, it is an attempt to show how religious language has been (and is still being) abused to achieve decidedly unrelated political ends. Probably the most enlightening chapter was on the post-WW1 fortunes of Islam; Jenkins does a phenomenal job of illuminating the current politico-religious structure of the Mid-East especially as a post-Ottoman Empire reality. Again, the focus is not on glib explanations or easy answers but on providing important background that helps us to grasp the complexity of current issues. That may have been what I appreciated most about this book: Jenkins has a fine way of retelling history in ways that illuminate but do not over-simplify or become some sort of cheesy 3-step, how-to manual for "world peace and happiness." Even though Jenkins is a religious historian, he clearly grasps the interplay of socio-economic factors with that history and explicates those relationships in a way that is as profound as it is easy-to-understand, providing a book equally valuable to theologians and historians.
    • 5/5
      In "The Great and Holy War", Philip Jenkins, professor of history at Baylor University and one of the leading American scholars in religious history and the confluence of religion, politics and popular culture, provides a masterful study of the powerful influence of religion on those who waged and experienced the First World War. In his eloquent narrative, he cites numerous examples of religion being enlisted on behalf of the war effort on each side in the form of propaganda. He also shows how religious feeling, without deliberate state intent, sprang up among the people of the various nations at war. And he examines the effect of the Great War on religious thought and religious-cultural politics among the world's major monotheistic faiths, with consequences that persist to the present day.Jenkins first describes the almost euphoric atmosphere that prevailed in Europe in August 1914 upon the beginning of the Great War. In each of the major combatant powers, there was a burst of nationalism and the assumption that the war would be glorious and short, culminating in victory for "our" side. At first, all the nations at war were Christian countries, even if some of them, such as France, did not have a state church, so they all asserted that God and Jesus favored them in the war. In the German army, the troops marched to the front wearing belt buckles engraved with the motto "Gott mit Uns" (God with Us). On each side, the war effort was soon elevated above mere nationalistic aims to the level of an holy cause, a crusade. The propaganda of the combatants began to depict their soldiers as Christian warriors fighting for a righteous cause and the enemy as evil and even satanic. It wasn't long before mystical visions and spiritual apparitions began to stoke religious fervor on behalf of the war effort. The outnumbered British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought a battle against the German Army at the edge of the Mons Canal in Belgium in August 1914, holding back the invaders for a day and inflicting heavy casualties on them before the BEF was forced to resume its retreat into northern France. About a month later, an account of the battle in a British newspaper mentioned that it was fought not far from the battlefield of Agincourt, where in 1415 on Saint Crispin's Day, the longbowmen in Henry V's badly outnumbered army had cut down the charging French knights and won the battle for England against all odds. This evocation the memory of the British archers at Agincourt was soon turned into the myth of the spectral longbowmen who appeared in the sky above Mons to help the BEF hold back the Germans. It also inspired the "Angel of Mons", attached to a statue above the ruins of a church in the village of Mons that was said to provide divine protection to Allied troops in the vicinity. The Great War, as Jenkins illustrates, revived national memories of former religious causes. Although the French republic had formally established the separation of church and state in 1905, the Roman Catholic Church was still a powerful institution in France and Catholicism was revived as an element of national identity, even for the many non-believers and lapsed Catholics, during the war. The memory of Joan of Arc was particularly strong and was encouraged by the normally secular government. There was also a belief, held by many, that the souls of French soldiers killed in defense of the nation, would rise again to help their living comrades continue the fight to drive the enemy from the soil of France.In Germany, where Martin Luther had launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517, there was a strong sense that German Christianity was superior to all other sects, such as Catholicism (although there was a large Catholic minority in Germany), the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Church of England. German religious propaganda portrayed France as godless, decadent and depraved and England as materialistic, under Jewish control and innately dishonest. In German propaganda, their soldiers were depicted as Christian knights, like those of crusader times, fighting to redeem Europe from barbarism. As the war dragged on and the death toll mounted into the millions, apocalyptic visions began to enter into religious and spiritual thinking on the conflict. As Jenkins notes, several evangelists, novelists and film makers began to speculate that the Great War was the final battle known as Armageddon as shown in the Book of Revelations. The capture of Jerusalem by a British army commanded by General Allenby in November 1917 was interpreted by many as a sign of prophecy foretelling the approach of the End of Times. Jenkins explains that the Great War touched on the lives of millions of Jews and Muslims- and Hindus and Buddhists and the religions of sub-Saharan Africa as well. He concentrates on its impact on the Jewish and Islamic world, as that caused the most significant events and movements that affected the entire world in the following century. Nowhere else in Europe were the Jews treated as badly as in Russia under the old tsarist regime. This would prove to be a fatal weakness for that regime, and for the Allied cause in Russia during the Great War. Jews, including Leon Trotsky, were a major element in the Bolshevik Revolution that removed Russia from the Allied coalition in the winter of 1918. Part of the British effort to keep Russia in the war was the Balfour Declaration, a statement by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in early November 1917 that the British Empire favored providing a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This statement didn't move the Russian Jews to save the Tsar, but it greatly encouraged the Zionists- and was used by them 31 years later to justify the establishment of the state of Israel.The British enlisted hundreds of thousands of Muslim and Sikh troops in their armies in the Great War. They had to be careful not to offend them by referring to the war as a "crusade" in their presence. The Turks tried to appeal to Muslim solidarity by calling their war effort a "jihad", but this had little effect on British Muslim troops or on the rebel Arabs. While promising the Jews a home in Palestine, the British also promised the Arab chieftains of Arabia, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia that the Allies would support their claims for independence in return for their help in fighting the Turks. The betrayal of the Arabs, except for the House of Sa'ud, and the Palestinian Mandate are echoes of the Great War that haunt us to this day.
    • 5/5
      On the 28th of June 1914 in the Bosnian capitol of Sarajevo a young Serb, Gavrilo Princip, fired a pistol at The Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, killing them both. His actions lit a long time primed fuse that led to war. A war that, according to some scholars, did not end until 1945. A war that changed not only Europe, but the entire world as well. A war that is still with us, even today.

      Philip Jenkins has written an excellent book on the role that religion played in World War I. Both sides invoked the name of God in championing their cause, both used biblical analogies and loaded medieval words to describe the other. Jenkins goes into detail to describe how and why this was done. With this being the centennial year there are already several very good books on the causes for and the stages of the war. In order to understand some of the emotional and spiritual motivation for the war, make room for this very good book.