Book Description

The First World War had powerful religious dimensions. The war after all, was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, and on all sides, clergy and Christian leaders offered a steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric. Many spoke the language of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. Not in medieval or Reformation times, but in the age of aircraft and machine guns, the majority of the world's Christians were engaged in a religiously defined struggle that claimed the lives of more than ten million soldiers and sailors and of millions of civilians. Later generations find that passionate religious commitment deeply troubling and in need of urgent explanation. Without appreciating its religious and spiritual aspects, we cannot understand the First World War. More important, the world's modern religious history makes no sense except in the context of that terrible conflict. The war created our reality. Remembering Armageddon grows out of a symposium held at Baylor University in 2014, which reflected on the role of religion in the First World War, and the relationship between Christianity and state violence. Contributors include Barry Hankins, Philip Jenkins, Darin D. Lenz, Sarah Miglio and Richard M. Gamble. Book jacket.