Later, beginning about 1517, the religious revolt that produced Protestantism increased the fighting and killing among the peoples professing Christianity. G. M. Trevelyan, as professor of history at Cambridge, wrote:

“Religion was in that age almost the sole intellectual and moral influence, [yet] . . . humanity was no part of its special teaching. It must indeed be allowed that religion was then associated with the rack, the stake, the burning town, the massacre of women and children, the hate that never dies, the wrongs that can never be avenged. The greatest mass of mental suffering and physical pain that Europe has undergone since the barbaric ages was brought about by the partially successful struggle of the Catholic reaction to recover revolted Christendom.”⁴⁷

The Roman Catholic Church fought savagely to bring protesters, or Protestants, back within the fold. Protestants strongly resisted. Antwerp, for example, was besieged in 1576, and one history says: “Those gentle messengers of Holy Mother Church, the Spanish soldiers, went into the fight with these cries upon their lips, ‘Saint James, Spain, blood, flesh, fire, sack!’ Eight thousand men, women and children were murdered.”⁴⁸

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) between Catholics and Protestants was especially terrible. During it Germany lost some three fourths of its population. Augsburg dropped from 80,000 to 18,000 inhabitants. And only about one quarter of the people of Bohemia remained. The fall of the Protestant city of Magdeburg illustrates the savagery of the fighting.

On the other hand, World War I had primarily political causes. Yet the role of religion in this modern war was remarkably similar to that played by religion in the earlier “holy wars.”

Commenting on this, the Chairman of the Faculty of Religion at Claremont Graduate School, Joseph C. Hough, pointed to the example of the bishop of London, A. F. Winnington-Ingram. This bishop urged the English people:

“Kill Germans​—do kill them; not for the sake of killing, but to save the world, to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill the young as well as the old, to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as those fiends . . . As I have said a thousand times, I look upon it as a war for purity, I look upon everyone who died in it as a martyr.”⁵⁵

Yet the words of the bishop of London and the archbishop of Cologne are not unusual. Rather, they are typical of the spirit that prevailed in the churches on both sides during World War I.

Professor Bainton said of the churches in America:

“American churchmen of all faiths were never so united with each other and with the mind of the country. This was a holy war. Jesus was dressed in khaki and portrayed sighting down a gun barrel. The Germans were Huns. To kill them was to purge the earth of monsters.”⁵⁷

This is not an exaggerated description of the attitude of the clergy. An editorial in Fortune magazine observed: “Such hatred for the enemy as there was in the front lines produced no oratory to compare with the invectives hurled against Germany by the men of Christ.”⁵⁸ Ray H. Abrams wrote a book, Preachers Present Arms, in which an entire chapter entitled “The Holy War” is devoted to the clergy’s whole-souled endorsement of the war. For example, Randolph H. McKim exclaimed from his pulpit in Washington:

“It is God who has summoned us to this war. It is his war we are fighting. . . . This conflict is indeed a crusade. The greatest in history​—the holiest. It is in the profoundest and truest sense a Holy War. . . . Yes, it is Christ, the King of Righteousness, who calls us to grapple in deadly strife with this unholy and blasphemous power [Germany].”⁵⁹

Also, Albert C. Dieffenbach, editor of The Christian Register, wrote in an editorial:

“As Christians, of course, we say Christ approves [of the war]. But would he fight and kill? . . . There is not an opportunity to deal death to the enemy that he would shirk from or delay in seizing! He would take bayonet and grenade and bomb and rifle and do the work of deadliness against that which is the most deadly enemy of his Father’s kingdom in a thousand years.”⁶⁰

Do those expressions sound shocking to you? Yet, this is what many clergymen and religious publications were saying during World War I. Few religious leaders on either side were opposed to the fighting and killing. R. H. Abrams said he was unable to locate a single priest who was against the war.

You can understand, therefore, why British Brigadier General Frank P. Crozier said: “The Christian Churches are the finest blood-lust creators which we have, and of them we made free use.”⁶¹

Churches and World War II

Was it any different during World War II? It is said of the eminent Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “He led many American Christians from pacifism to an acceptance of the moral necessity of fighting Hitler in the Second World War.”⁶³

The modern historian A. P. Stokes said: “The Churches as a whole threw themselves heartily not only into matters of war relief . . . but into the more vigorous support of the War. Some went so far as to call it a religious war.”⁶⁴