A Church Militant: Anglicans and the Armed Forces from Queen Victoria to the Vietnam War

by Michael Snape

Overview

This is a study of the relationship between Anglicans and the armed forces, of the military heritage and history of the Anglican Communion, and the changing nature of this relationship between the mid-Victorian period and the 1970s. This era spanned a period of imperial expansion and colonial conflict round the turn of the twentieth century, the two World Wars, the Cold War, wars of decolonisation, and Vietnam. In terms of armed conflict, it was the bloodiest period in the history of humanity and marked the advent of weaponry that had the capacity to extinguish human civilization. This book assesses the contribution of an expansive Anglican Communion to the armed forces of the English-speaking world, examines the ways in which this has been remembered, and explores its challenging legacy for the twenty-first century Church of England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192848321
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/28/2022
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Michael Snape, Michael Ramsey Professor of Anglican Studies; Ecumenical Lay Canon of Durham Cathedral, Durham University

Michael Snape was appointed Lecturer in Church History at Westhill College of Higher Education in 1994. From 1999 to 2015 he was Lecturer in Church History and then Reader in Religion, War and Society at the University of Birmingham, and is currently the inaugural Michael Ramsey Professor of Anglican Studies at Durham University. This is his sixth academic monograph and is based on his 2020 Hensley Henson Lectures at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. 'Marching as to War': The Nineteenth-Century Inheritance2. 'Faithful, True, and Bold': The First World War3. ''Gainst all Disaster': The Second World War4. 'Aflame with Faith, and Free': The Cold War5. 'The Great Surrender Made': Remembrance and MemorialisationAfterword'Change and Decay'? The Church of England into the Twenty-First CenturyBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"A Church Militant: Anglicans and the Armed Forces from Queen Victoria to the Vietnam War, an excellent introduction to the subject of the relationship of the Anglican community and the military in the English-speaking world." — Peter Howson, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

"...a fascinating and insightful historiography of Anglican relationships with the Armed Forces of the English-speaking world in this period." — Darren Cronshaw, Journal of Religious History

"An impressive number of primary sources have been consulted in the writing of this book." — Mary Morrissey, Journal of Theological Studies

"I strongly recommend this book to scholars both of Anglicanism and of war during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." — Jean De Dieu Mampouya, The Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society

From the Publisher