FIRST-PERSON: WWI’S IMPACT ON CHRISTIANS
Town Hall
Aug 7 2014
Baptist Press | Aug 07, 2014
PADUCAH, Ky. (BP) — July 28th marked the centennial of the beginning
of the First World War (1914-1918). As indicated by the name for the
conflict, the war touched nearly everyone in the world at the time.
Perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and civilians died in the
conflict, and more than 50 million people died from the 1918 influenza
pandemic spawned by abysmal wartime conditions. Postwar famines in
Eastern Europe and Asia also stemmed from the conflict. Four empires —
the Ottoman, German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian — were toppled and
replaced by a collection of smaller states. The British government
gave legal recognition to the small Jewish community in Palestine
with the Balfour Declaration, clearing the way for the eventual
establishment of modern Israel.
In addition, postwar instability spawned a series of smaller conflicts
in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Armenian and Greek genocides
began during the war. Finally, 20th century Fascism, Nazism, state
Communism and Japanese militarism had roots in World War I and its
immediate aftermath.
While nearly the entire world was touched by the conflict, the First
World War greatly impacted the Christian community. The war made
its mark on at least four aspects of the Christian experience with
lasting effects.
1. The war triggered a paradigm shift in the Christian worldview and
“end of time prophecy.”
For hundreds of years Christians had read the book of Revelation
with its frightening images of the Apocalypse. World War I provided a
firsthand look at a real-life apocalyptic world. While many Christian
theologians believed the Apocalypse was more allegorical than literal,
the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse seemed to come alive during the
conflict and its aftermath. War, famine, disease and death occurred
on a worldwide stage and on a scale that truly was unprecedented. The
war and its destruction marked the beginning of a fundamental shift
in the Christian worldview. After the war and over time, Christians
felt less positive about their standing in the world and began to
express some pessimism about world affairs. The war launched a new
interest in “end of time prophecy” that peaked in the latter half of
the 20th century as the new millennium neared.
2. Postmillennialism waned among western Protestants.
In the years before World War I, western Protestants largely promoted
a view of eschatology called postmillennialism. Postmillennialists
believed that Christian teaching and societal reforms would foster
a time of increased Gospel success called the millennium prior to
Christ’s return. The triumph of the Gospel would usher in responsible
human governments promoting peace and prosperity. Human society,
postmillennialists believed, was going to improve. Postmillennialists
dominated the 19th century abolition and social reform movements
popular among many Christians of that century (and into the
20th century as well). Although they viewed many of the social
reform movements as incomplete since they had no Gospel element,
even prominent Southern Baptists like B.H. Carroll endorsed
postmillennialism.
As the horrors of World War I unfolded and uncertainty set in after
the conflict, many Christians began to question the idea that human
society would get better. Therefore, the First World War marked
the beginning of postmillennialism’s decline. Some still adhered
to it after the conflict, but a Second World War, the holocaust and
a Cold War with the threat of nuclear destruction led most Western
Christians to abandon postmillennialism. Human reform had not stemmed
the collective evils of the 20th century.
3. Premillennialism started to become popular.
While the First World War began to discredit postmillennialism,
the war gave new impetus to a premillennial view of the end times
popularized earlier by John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield.
Premillennialists rejected the belief that the world would get better
before Christ returned. They saw in the war proof that human society
without Christ was in fact getting worse. Pessimistic about human
affairs, they believed that Christ would return soon to redeem the
elect from an evil world. Like postmillennialists and amillennialists,
premillennialists did not speak with one voice. Some premillennialists
held that Christ would collect His own in a rapture before His second
coming while others thought believers would have to endure a period of
tribulation before Christ’s return. Yet all premillennialists believed
the world’s slide into anarchy and evil would not be fully or finally
reversed before Christ’s second coming. World War I seemed to offer
a contemporary glimpse into the future trauma awaiting the world.
4. Evangelism to a “lost generation” increased.
According to Ernest Hemingway, the American author Gertrude Stein
coined the phrase “the lost generation” to reference those who came of
age during World War I. Hemingway used the term in three of his works.
It proved to be an appropriate label. The war produced disillusionment
and experimentation with alcohol, drugs and immorality for many young
men and women. In the United States, even in an era of prohibition,
the public seemed powerless to prevent the excesses of the war years
and the “Jazz Age” that followed.
As Christians had done for previous generations, they reached out to
the “lost generation” during and after the war. Believers rallied to
support the troops with gifts and charitable donations during the
conflict and fed the world’s starving masses afterward. Military
chaplains addressed the spiritual needs of the troops both at home
and abroad. In the United States evangelists like Billy Sunday and
Mordecai Ham (a noted Southern Baptist) led “urban campaigns” to reach
both servicemen and civilians for Christ. These campaigns were not new
to Christian culture (D.L. Moody pioneered them in the late 1800s),
but the war years stimulated their development. Evangelists continued
their efforts to reach the “lost generation” well after the war. Sgt.
Alvin York, who later became the most decorated American soldier of
WWI, became a Christian shortly after the war’s outbreak and remained
a lifelong witness to those around him.
Alongside their concern and compassion for the “lost generation,”
many Christians championed social reforms to curb the temptations
young men were experiencing during the war years. A popular song
included the refrain, “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm once
they’ve seen Paree?” Prohibition (the 18th Amendment), sought by
many Christians in the United States and passed during the war (but
implemented afterward), sought to end the manufacture, distribution
and sale of alcohol. Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the Navy
during the war, closed down all houses of prostitution within five
miles of a military base, including the famed New Orleans “red light”
district of Storyville and other centers of urban vice. While these
moves admittedly did little to curb the excesses of the “Jazz Age,”
the urban revivals of Sunday, Ham and other evangelists during the
1920s led tens of thousands of the “lost generation” to saving faith
in Christ. The urban campaigns proved to be forerunners of the mid-20th
century evangelistic “crusades.”
The First World War and its aftermath have influenced Christians right
up to the present time. A renewed interest in end of time prophecy,
the decline of postmillennialism, the rise of premillennialism, the
rise of evangelistic crusades and some of the Christian social reform
movements either began, peaked or surged during the war era. What
started on July 28, 1914, impacted Christians for the next 100 years.
Stephen Douglas Wilson, a former member of the SBC Executive Committee,
is a writer in Paducah, Ky. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking
news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress)
and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Description:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
From: Katia Peltekian
Subject: WWI’s impact on Christians
Town Hall
Aug 7 2014
FIRST-PERSON: WWI’s impact on Christians
Baptist Press | Aug 07, 2014
PADUCAH, Ky. (BP) — July 28th marked the centennial of the beginning
of the First World War (1914-1918). As indicated by the name for the
conflict, the war touched nearly everyone in the world at the time.
Perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and civilians died in the
conflict, and more than 50 million people died from the 1918 influenza
pandemic spawned by abysmal wartime conditions. Postwar famines in
Eastern Europe and Asia also stemmed from the conflict. Four empires
— the Ottoman, German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian — were toppled
and replaced by a collection of smaller states. The British government
gave legal recognition to the small Jewish community in Palestine with
the Balfour Declaration, clearing the way for the eventual
establishment of modern Israel.
In addition, postwar instability spawned a series of smaller conflicts
in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Armenian and Greek
genocides began during the war. Finally, 20th century Fascism, Nazism,
state Communism and Japanese militarism had roots in World War I and
its immediate aftermath.
While nearly the entire world was touched by the conflict, the First
World War greatly impacted the Christian community. The war made its
mark on at least four aspects of the Christian experience with lasting
effects.
1. The war triggered a paradigm shift in the Christian worldview and
“end of time prophecy.”
For hundreds of years Christians had read the book of Revelation with
its frightening images of the Apocalypse. World War I provided a
firsthand look at a real-life apocalyptic world. While many Christian
theologians believed the Apocalypse was more allegorical than literal,
the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse seemed to come alive during the
conflict and its aftermath. War, famine, disease and death occurred on
a worldwide stage and on a scale that truly was unprecedented. The war
and its destruction marked the beginning of a fundamental shift in the
Christian worldview. After the war and over time, Christians felt less
positive about their standing in the world and began to express some
pessimism about world affairs. The war launched a new interest in “end
of time prophecy” that peaked in the latter half of the 20th century
as the new millennium neared.
2. Postmillennialism waned among western Protestants.
In the years before World War I, western Protestants largely promoted
a view of eschatology called postmillennialism. Postmillennialists
believed that Christian teaching and societal reforms would foster a
time of increased Gospel success called the millennium prior to
Christ’s return. The triumph of the Gospel would usher in responsible
human governments promoting peace and prosperity. Human society,
postmillennialists believed, was going to improve. Postmillennialists
dominated the 19th century abolition and social reform movements
popular among many Christians of that century (and into the 20th
century as well). Although they viewed many of the social reform
movements as incomplete since they had no Gospel element, even
prominent Southern Baptists like B.H. Carroll endorsed
postmillennialism.
As the horrors of World War I unfolded and uncertainty set in after
the conflict, many Christians began to question the idea that human
society would get better. Therefore, the First World War marked the
beginning of postmillennialism’s decline. Some still adhered to it
after the conflict, but a Second World War, the holocaust and a Cold
War with the threat of nuclear destruction led most Western Christians
to abandon postmillennialism. Human reform had not stemmed the
collective evils of the 20th century.
3. Premillennialism started to become popular.
While the First World War began to discredit postmillennialism, the
war gave new impetus to a premillennial view of the end times
popularized earlier by John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield.
Premillennialists rejected the belief that the world would get better
before Christ returned. They saw in the war proof that human society
without Christ was in fact getting worse. Pessimistic about human
affairs, they believed that Christ would return soon to redeem the
elect from an evil world. Like postmillennialists and amillennialists,
premillennialists did not speak with one voice. Some premillennialists
held that Christ would collect His own in a rapture before His second
coming while others thought believers would have to endure a period of
tribulation before Christ’s return. Yet all premillennialists believed
the world’s slide into anarchy and evil would not be fully or finally
reversed before Christ’s second coming. World War I seemed to offer a
contemporary glimpse into the future trauma awaiting the world.
4. Evangelism to a “lost generation” increased.
According to Ernest Hemingway, the American author Gertrude Stein
coined the phrase “the lost generation” to reference those who came of
age during World War I. Hemingway used the term in three of his works.
It proved to be an appropriate label. The war produced disillusionment
and experimentation with alcohol, drugs and immorality for many young
men and women. In the United States, even in an era of prohibition,
the public seemed powerless to prevent the excesses of the war years
and the “Jazz Age” that followed.
As Christians had done for previous generations, they reached out to
the “lost generation” during and after the war. Believers rallied to
support the troops with gifts and charitable donations during the
conflict and fed the world’s starving masses afterward. Military
chaplains addressed the spiritual needs of the troops both at home and
abroad. In the United States evangelists like Billy Sunday and
Mordecai Ham (a noted Southern Baptist) led “urban campaigns” to reach
both servicemen and civilians for Christ. These campaigns were not new
to Christian culture (D.L. Moody pioneered them in the late 1800s),
but the war years stimulated their development. Evangelists continued
their efforts to reach the “lost generation” well after the war. Sgt.
Alvin York, who later became the most decorated American soldier of
WWI, became a Christian shortly after the war’s outbreak and remained
a lifelong witness to those around him.
Alongside their concern and compassion for the “lost generation,” many
Christians championed social reforms to curb the temptations young men
were experiencing during the war years. A popular song included the
refrain, “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen
Paree?” Prohibition (the 18th Amendment), sought by many Christians in
the United States and passed during the war (but implemented
afterward), sought to end the manufacture, distribution and sale of
alcohol. Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the Navy during the war,
closed down all houses of prostitution within five miles of a military
base, including the famed New Orleans “red light” district of
Storyville and other centers of urban vice. While these moves
admittedly did little to curb the excesses of the “Jazz Age,” the
urban revivals of Sunday, Ham and other evangelists during the 1920s
led tens of thousands of the “lost generation” to saving faith in
Christ. The urban campaigns proved to be forerunners of the mid-20th
century evangelistic “crusades.”
The First World War and its aftermath have influenced Christians right
up to the present time. A renewed interest in end of time prophecy,
the decline of postmillennialism, the rise of premillennialism, the
rise of evangelistic crusades and some of the Christian social reform
movements either began, peaked or surged during the war era. What
started on July 28, 1914, impacted Christians for the next 100 years.
Stephen Douglas Wilson, a former member of the SBC Executive
Committee, is a writer in Paducah, Ky. Get Baptist Press headlines and
breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook
(Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email
(baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
http://townhall.com/news/religion/2014/08/07/firstperson-wwis-impact-on-christians-n1876193
http://townhall.com/news/religion/2014/08/07/firstperson-wwis-impact-on-christians-n1876193