All right. Good morning, everyone and we are going to wrap up one part of americas in the First World War by addressing explicitly the question of American Religion during the war, the role of the churches during the war, vast topic and we will only get part way through that today for class next time you have the readings that are more focused on the social gospel clergy and i respond to social gospel clergy so we wont be done with this today. We are going to give work our way through. A broad overview of the question. On the first day of class, you read Woodrow Wilsons neutrality from august 19th 1914. Within the first two weeks or so of the war and in there was a section. I said, im going to come back to this and this is a section of the neutrality proclamation. I wish i had paid closer attention to years ago. And this is the sentence wilson pleading with the nation, pleading neutrality in thought word and deeds said the spirit of the nation in this critical matter will be determined largely by what and society and those in Public Meetings do and upon what newspaper and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter in their pulpits and men proclaim as their opinions on the street. So that key phrase there, were going to zero in on what ministers utter in their pulpits pulpits. What striking about this original neutrality is that here, unlike whats going to happen after, us intervention in 1917 and on through the war itself on through the Peace Process at point wilson is appealing for caution restraint what not to say the passions not to stir up in the churches from the pulpit, not divide america ethnically religiously. Since americans have conflicting loyal especially if theyre recent immigrants coming from many different nations at war with each. So this is in the context of an appeal to hold back be cautious and thats not the case after u. S. Intervention in april 1917 then its a question of mobilizing the churches a little bit earlier come to think of it. There was an effort to mobilize the churches for the sake of preparedness maybe already in 1916. But much directly. In 1917. But now that question, what did ministers utter their pulpits now want to think through without this becoming too tedious . I want to think a little bit as we go along about today how, how we as historians, how we do job without getting too technical, because there are some serious obstacles here for us if want to understand what even even accumulate record of what pastors priests rabbis guys said in the pulpits pulpits. Now of course question of the american and world war one fits into a much much broader problem much broader question theres nothing new about religion and war. In 1914, the 1918 or 1919, nothing new about this at all. Any ancient. Mobilized religion for the sake of waging its wars, mobilize it, made sure it was on there side. Right. And defeated the enemies gods. Theres no to escape the question of religious practice religious worship in those days and, the violence of warfare its part of that that broader problem of Human Society human human conflict. But by the time you get the enlightenment and, the enlightenment thinking back on, the socalled wars of religion, the 1600 1600s, a common emerges that religion actually makes the world a more violent and dangerous place religion a problem to be solved. It makes the world a more violent, disordered and place and assessments of war, imperial wars of the 1700s. This is a common that it intensified his warfare. Is that actually true does religion. You can you can hear that im doing with no nuance at all and were going to have to nuance this quite a bit does religion just on its own intensify warfare, does it encourage the totalizing of war . We can think about that. We thought about this some already a little bit. The case of Woodrow Wilson. I want to return to that today. Does religion automate get code opted by governments for the sake of war . Does religion automatically get coopted taken control of by governments for the sake of justifying their wars or mobilizing manpower material wealth, continuing wars especially if wars become controversial. Unpopular. And is that all that we can really say about it is that is that is that the story of our experience that religion gets coopted and it it doesnt have the intrigue the institutional integrity to really defend itself in. Times of war. And im going to talk about one history and who made exactly argument concerning america in the First World War. Without telling this whole story and this would be this be a great upper level class maybe you can talk me into this. The United States had wrestled, i should say, even more broadly america pre United States america has always confronted the question of the role of religion, the role of the churches in its wars. You can find that in colonial america and the series of colonial wars. What is the role of the churches you local pastors preaching, militia sermons during the and indian war so is a common a common theme from the pulpit preaching on fast days preaching election day sermons. This is true the war for independence true during the war of 1812. Theres a strong. Kind of redemptive explanation given to the war of 1812 in americas victory, the mexican war, and the problems of a largely nation waging war against a predominately catholic nation and that comes up all the time. Theres been some great books written about that the us civil war saturated with questions of religion, questions of the role of the churches, questions of the impact of the war on the churches, question of the impact of the war of the churches on the war itself and justifying the war north and south, spanish war on beyond world war one into the Second World War and in a culturally divisive, deeply culturally divisive of way during the vietnam war was quite a bit of reading about this over the summer, doing some more research and writing about american civil religion and being reminded id of the effort, especially by the american left to mobilize the churches. They constantly, the church must have a prophetic witness, prophetic witness. It comes to civil rights domestically in a prophetic witness when it comes to International Relations and waging war in southeast. So really, dora, did efforts serious efforts to mobilize the clergy, mobilize congregations to raise their consciousness about these questions so this is this is we cant escape this we cant escape this and we can also safely say that nation at war. From 1914 to 1918 also wrestled with this problem of the churches and the war the german clergy. And there are some famous statements released. The german clergy during the war justify saying germanys war aims, the church of england and. I think we wont have time to explore this today, but think about the difference it makes to have nation with an established church and a nation with purely voluntary religious organizations like the United States, its going to look very different. The Russian Orthodox church, maybe youve seen pictures of the battlefields. Maybe youve seen pictures of soldiers preparing for battle on the eastern front. And theres an orthodox priest blessing the troops, blessing the weapons, blessing even Something Like a symbolic, a ceremonial drum for. The troops, the catholic in france, in italy, in austria and so on. As americans, we talk a lot and we debate a lot. Church and state and we boast about our institutional constitutional separation of church and state. First, on the National Level with the bill of rights, and then state by state even those states that held on to their churches such as massachusetts by the 1830s, there is no in the United States which has an established church, theres separation from top to bottom of church and state. But what if and im stealing this from from a smarter historian, what if we switch the question, we focus so much on the relationship between and state in america in our supreme decisions all over the place. But what if we substitute words for church and state . What if we say religion and nation . And if you say, does america have separation of religion and nation . The answer is emphatically no. And this gets noticed by. Our friends in europe when they when they observe our inaugural inauguration ceremonies they hear a president ial inaugural address they that our speeches speeches sound like sermons and our sermons sound like political speeches. Were really good at that. Weve been known for that for at least 200 years. So we routinely mix religion and nation politicians and right democrat republic and independent all quote from the bible. You can go through the most recent inaugural addresses, as i did last semester. Students in American Heritage and and every every new president , whether its donald trump, joe biden, every president is quoting from the bible bible. So while we affirm the institutional separation of churches from the government, while we defend freedom of worship, we mix religion and politics all the time there is currently the really hot topic of Christian Nationalism. But the more you look more carefully, you look at the history of Christian Nationalism, you find that its not a recent development, its not a product of. Right wingers. Its been around for a long long time and were going to see some of that today. This is part of the controversy during the First World War. This is part of the one of the causes of concern turn in various denominations that the that the government was creating with the cooperation of other churches was creating a Christian Nationalism was putting the churches of america totally in the service of the government and. Its war aims and its war mobilized asia. So if you hear people talk about Christian Nationalism and raise the alarm about it pause stop think it goes way way back in american and its as much a product of the american left as it is and this is so easy to demonstrate as much a product of the american as it is of the american right. So world war one, i think, makes this obvious. I think in most the real question is religious convictions get mixed, with which political agenda, not who mixes and who doesnt. The more the better diagnostic is. Which religious convictions get mixed with which political agenda. So whos whose theology mixes with whose ideology . Thats the question. And the rare. The rare voice is a and a pastor or Church Member who calls for an a politics pulpit. The non pulpit and. Im going to walk you through examples of this today. But that voice has been there . It has been heard. It was heard at the time, muted in every american war. And with the handout i gave it today going to im going to walk you through some of these concerns and problem is the problem is and this has been a 30 year long more than 30 year long struggle for me in thinking the First World War and religion. Historians are are are are blind to this to these distinctions. Im going to im going to show you exactly what goes wrong in the way weve tried to tell the story of religion in war. And i have to say that of the earliest scholarship on this in the 1920s and thirties was actually by an animus against it was driven by that conviction that religion makes world a more dangerous, intolerant, violent place. So of course, if we going to if are going to. Try to try to work against the modern total warfare, if we say were never going to were never going to endure something world war one again, then then then those scholars are going to say, so weve got to make sure we keep religion out of this. I i and and theres a flaw. Theres a flaw at the heart of of this scholarship big question here. Heres the kind of the big question you put a star by right. The question thats not new in world war one and doesnt go away. The question you can ask in the 21st century about domestic issues, well, is what does church owe the government what does the church owe the government specifically here . What does the church owe the nation in time of war . And youre going to have deep disagreements about that. What does the church owe the nation . It comes to political issues. Just saturday i heard a pastor retired who wanted to remind all the pastors he was talking to. I ballard in november. You got to get out. You got to tell your people. Youve got to mobilize your people. If you want brochures. I have brochures for you that you can give your people whatever the merits of that. Theres that question what does the church owe the social political order . What does it owe the government in this case, time of war . What this has come up with the justice done a key book, right . And in both of his recent books in the bibliography essay in which he says there is no history of religion. America and religion in world war one. Thats true. Its been a hundred years and counting and we have no history standard history. Think about all the military histories we have of world war one. Think of the economic histories we have of world war one, the political histories, the biographies. We dont have. A standard comprehensive history of the question of the churches of religion and and the First World War and. That article i sent out if you had time to at it, its something i wrote about ten or 12 years ago. Thats what im driving in that piece. And what said in 2010 or 2012 is still just as true that we have never gotten busy to tell the story and to tell it well of religion and the war. So no general, one of the early is is a really dramatic visual aid here. One of the earliest to come out and still the most influential book called preachers present arms by ray h. Abrams, a sociologist, 1933 and. The book appeared be so thorough, so deeply researched, so authoritative that. It has been quoted for 90 years now as the definitive study of religion in world war one in america, and that really unfortunate, really unfortunate later. He published a new edition, an updated version of it to include clergy during World War Two and to include the clergy during the vietnam war. So 30 some years later, he was focusing on this this question as sociologist abrams argued, presupposed that the Institutional Church had been the word i used earlier had been by the federal government. It had been sort of naively cooperative, complacent, and and it had just allowed itself to be sucked into the war effort, which is not the story is not the story. But what he did here and its a remarkable bit of research. This is way before the digital age, way before newspapers com this guy went through hundreds and hundreds of newspaper hours and drew what the preachers had said about the meaning of the war, why were fighting who we are, america, who the germans are whats whats the cause . Whats the meaning of the war . And he up quote after quote and thats easy to so heres my little historical method point right we talk method about whats our principle of selection and whats our principle of exclusion. You might call it cherry picking. Its easy to go out and find everything, find all the most embarrassing things that every bishop, every pastor, every evangelist, every professor, every religious editor. Its so easy to go out and find the most quotable of the quotable and string them together and say, see, and because historians keep pulling book off the shelf and i see this happen all the time, pull it off the shelf. And i look in the footnotes and there it is. Oh abrams preachers present arms. Congratulations for having such a successful book, but youve distorted our understanding of the war and it and it seems to be so hard to loosen grip of this book. And so then you end with quote selective quotation from selective quotations. And that makes the problem even worse it compounds it and to and to work beyond. This requires an entire read conceptualizing of the whole Historical Research problem. Now, i dont i dont to distort this book theres a lot of valuable information in it and it can lead you other sources. But let me let me think about a related here. Lets think about lets think what we would to do. Lets think about what we have to do if we were going write a better book, how do we do this . If you want to steal of this, i just check with me first. I dont know if im going live long enough to get around to this project. I badly, badly want to check with me. So what would it take to do a better job as historians, a more nuanced portrayal, a more sensitive portrayal . How could we help make visible what historians and im not even saying intentionally what historians have made invisible were really good at that as we can draw these things to the surface and make Everything Else disappear and we can bring things to the surface that are not truly representative, that are not truly in proportion to what everybody was saying and doing and thinking. And then somebody who reads the book says, oh, thats what thats what americans thought. So my my least favorite abstract category, its ranks right up there with the north and the in the 1860s. Well, in north they thought this and ive said this before the semester right except for those who didnt write so American American christians thought this during world war one except for those who didnt add that mentally add that to almost every claim this. Where would we go . Well would want to look at sermons. This is what woodrow said. It matters what is uttered. Of course, youre Woodrow Wilson. You cant say said or preach has to be whatever is uttered in the pulpits. So you want do that and ill talk about how hard that you would want to think. How did christians worship . Did they in any different way during the war . Did they sing different and there were there were hymns added to the hymn books during world war one for the sake of war mobilization in britain, in america battle hymn of the republic added to the church of englands book during the war, added to the presbyter here in hamburg here and the United States. So woul