The Church of England and the Second World War

John D. Alexander is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has served parishes in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. He holds degrees in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University (BA and MA) and in theology from Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div.), Nashotah House (STM), and Boston University School of Theology (Ph.D.). He has contributed scholarly articles and reviews to Anglican and Episcopal History, Anglican Theological Review, and Ecclesiology. In 2024 he was awarded the Nelson Burr Prize of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church.

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

1 War and Peace: Christian Ethical Traditions
 1 Christian Pacifism
 2 The Just War Tradition
 3 War’s Justification—Jus ad Bellum
 4 War’s Conduct—Jus in Bello
 5 War’s Ending—Jus Post Bellum
 6 Humanitarian Intervention
 7 Holy War and Crusade
 8 Holy War and Chivalry
 9 Classical Realism
 10 Christian Realism
 11 A Traditions-Based Approach

2 The Church of England and the British Constitution
 1 Establishment
 2 The First World War
 3 The Church Assembly
 4 Christian Socialism and COPEC
 5 The 1926 Strikes
 6 The 1928 Prayer Book
 7 The Rediscovery of Christian Civilisation
 8 The Abdication Crisis
 9 Foundations of the Welfare State
 10 The 1944 Education Act
 11 A Dynamically Evolving Relationship

3 The Pre-war Church of England and Nazi Germany: Uses and Limits of Soft Power
 1 The Anglican Legacy of Protesting Persecution
 2 Responses to Persecution of the Jews
 3 The German Church Struggle
 4 Anglican Responses to the German Church Struggle
 5 The Autumn 1934 Crisis
 6 Temple and the Concentration Camps
 7 Bell and the Refugees
 8 Repression Intensifies in 1935
 9 Ribbentrop in London
 10 Escalating Conflicts, 1936–1937
 11 Niemöller’s Trial and Imprisonment
 12 Bell’s Refugee Advocacy
 13 After Kristallnacht
 14 Bell’s Lucien Wolf Lecture
 15 The End of the Church Struggle
 16 The Uses and Limits of Soft Power

4 The Church’s Function in Wartime: ‘To Be Still the Church’
 1 Wartime Days of Prayer
 2 Military Chaplaincies in Wartime
 3 The Clergy Exemption
 4 The Wartime Use of Church Buildings
 5 The Wartime Church and the British Constitution
 5 Justifying War: Jus ad Bellum and Christian Realism
 1 The Just War in Anglican Context
 2 The Just War in 1914–1918
 3 An Incipient Christian Realism
 4 The Treaty and the Covenant
 5 The Failure of Collective Security
 6 A Righteously Regulated Coercion
 7 The 1937 Oxford Conference
 8 Appeasement and Its Discontents
 9 The Munich Agreement
 10 From Kristallnacht to Prague
 11 A Just War Debate on the Eve of War
 12 The Just War in the Theological Colleges
 13 Eve of War Sermons
 14 Thoughts in War Time
 15 A Plain Duty
 16 Waging Just War Justly
 17 Relevance of the Jus ad Bellum and Christian Realist Traditions

6 War as Divine Judgement: the Call to Repentance and Prayer
 1 War in the Anglican Liturgical Tradition
 2 Challenges to a Providential Universe
 3 Divine Judgement in World War I
 4 The Theology of Crisis
 5 Divine Judgement in 1939–1940
 6 Critiques of Divine Judgement
 7 Prayers for Victory
 8 A Vanishing Discourse

7 The Struggle for Christian Civilisation: Holy War, Crusade, and Chivalry
 1 Crusade and Chivalry in the Great War
 2 The Struggle for Civilisation in 1939
 3 Five Books of 1939
 4 Henson: the Good Fight
 5 The Persistence of Chivalry
 6 Henson: Last Words in Westminster Abbey
 7 Was the Second World War a Crusade?

8 Justice in Warfare I: the City-Bombing Debate
 1 Reprisals in World War I
 2 Protesting Inter-war Atrocities
 3 The First Year of War
 4 A New Method of Warfare
 5 The Committee to Abolish Night Bombing
 6 The May 1941 Convocation
 7 Churchill and Retribution
 8 The Switch to Area Bombing
 9 Temple’s First Year at Lambeth
 10 The Air War Escalates
 11 Seeking Clarifications
 12 The Bishop’s Speech
 13 Temple’s Christian Realism
 14 Seed of Chaos
 15 Sentimental Nonsense and Sheer Humbug
 16 The Bombing of Ethics
 17 Dresden and Churchill
 18 Competing Ethical Perspectives

9 Justice in Warfare II: Internment, Prisoners of War, Blockade
 1 Internment of Enemy Aliens
 2 Shackling Prisoners of War
 3 Blockade and Famine Relief
 4 Relevance of the Jus in Bello Tradition
 10 Peace Aims and Jus Post Bellum
 1 Seeking an Early Settlement
 2 The Berggrav Initiative
 3 New Year’s Resolutions
 4 Christianity and World Order
 5 The Hope of a New World
 6 Sword of the Spirit
 7 The December 1940 Joint Letter
 8 The Stoll Theatre Meetings
 9 The Canterbury Convocation and Churchill
 10 The Elusive Quest for Christian Cooperation
 11 Vansittartism
 12 Bell’s Visit to Sweden
 13 Bell’s Return to England
 14 Campaigning for the Resistance
 15 Germany and the Hitlerite State
 16 News from America and Russia
 17 Temple on the Balance of Power
 18 The Momentous Summer of 1944
 19 Debating the Occupation
 20 Envisioning Europe’s Future
 21 Peace Aims and Jus Post Bellum

11 The Church of England and the Pacifist Conscience
 1 Conscience and Objection
 2 Conscientious Objection in British Law
 3 Conscientious Objection in World War I
 4 Anglican Pacifism between the Wars
 5 Dick Sheppard
 6 The Peace Army
 7 The Peace Pledge Union
 8 Saying No to War
 9 Heresy versus Apostasy
 10 The Church Assembly Debates Pacifism
 11 Over the Bridge to Lambeth
 12 Pacifism as a Personal Vocation
 13 A Pacifist Interpretation of Article 37
 14 The Archbishops Meet the APF
 15 Pacifist Episcopacy
 16 An Anglican Compromise

12 The Pacifist Witness in the Church of England
 1 A Pacifist Academic: Charles Raven
 2 A Pacifist Parson: Percy Hartill
 3 A Pacifist Mystic: Evelyn Underhill
 4 A Pacifist Activist: Vera Brittain
 5 Assessing the Anglican Pacifist Witness

13 The Church of England and the Holocaust
 1 Antisemitism and Ambivalence
 2 Henson on Judaism
 3 James Parkes on Church and Synagogue
 4 The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ)
 5 Initial Responses to Genocide
 6 The Allied Joint Declaration
 7 The Bar of History, Humanity, and God
 8 The Bermuda Conference
 9 Radio Broadcasts to Hungary
 10 Vagaries of Bystander Scholarship
 11 Lawson’s Critique
 12 Assessing the Anglican Witness

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

All interested in the twentieth-century Church of England, Christian attitudes to war and peace, the ethics of foreign and military policy, and the history of the Second World War.