Issue 121 Faith in the Foxholes

What's inside

The crisis of the West

World Wars I and II proved to be more than a political crisis: they were a spiritual one

Jeffrey B. Webb

No atheists in the foxholes?

Some people found religion in the experience of wartime, but others lost it

Kevin L. Walters

A war story: Italian Catholics and a Fascist Europe

Mussolini, two popes, and hundreds of false papers

Matt Forster

A war story: “There is no pit so deep God’s love is not deeper still“

Corrie ten Boom worked to save Jews; Edith Stein was martyred because she was one

Kaylena Radcliff

Spreading light in a dark world

The world wars served as a pivotal time for Christian relief efforts

Jared S. Burkholder

World Wars, Did you know

Cigarettes, chaplains, and the Confessing Church

the editors

Letters to the editor

Readers respond to Christian History

Our readers

Editor's note: The World Wars

Heroic, fascinating, and troubling stories from the great wars

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Franz Joseph (1830–1916)

Tragedy dogged Emperor Franz Joseph

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

Wilson took the United States into a European war

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

Churchill's speeches encouraged Britain and the allies during World War II

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Josef Stalin (1878–1953)

Stalin's brutality defeated Germany but replace Nazism with Communism

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945)

FDR led the United States during most of World War II

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)

Hitler’s early successes fatefully brought him widespread German support

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

A sacred conflict or an unfortunate necessity?

Firing Scriptural “grenades” over war on the home front

Barry Hankins

“The world must be made safe for democracy”

Wilson counseled war after campaigning to keep America out of it

Woodrow Wilson

Inklings at war

J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and the crucible of World War I

Paul E. Michelson

Wittgenstein’s war

A philosopher found God in the trenches

Jeffrey B. Webb

Suffering in the trenches

A million soldiers may have suffered from trench fever

Paul E. Michelson

Services in leaky tents

Chaplains in the Great War

Ronit Y. Stahl

Service for peace

Conscientious objectors rejected a world at war

Steven M. Nolt

Alvin York

The Christian pacifist who went to war

Matt Forster

Christian History timeline: World Wars

In the space of just over three decades, large portions of the world were plunged into life-changing conflict

The church of the bystanders

Christians and Nazism

Christopher Gehrz

Karl Barth preaches on the Jewishness of Jesus

Jewish blood was in Christ's veins

Karl Barth

Dietrich Bonhoeffer sees the handwriting on the wall

Grace is costly because it was costly to God

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A war story: Romania above all

The saga of Jews—and Christians—in Romania

William D. Pearce

Melting down the bells

Orthodox and atheists in Russia

Paul E. Michelson

Christ and the remaking of the Orient

The general who ordered Bibles and the mission that held on

Darren Micah Lewis

The problems of peace and the problems of war

Excerpts from two war sermons

Harry Emerson Fosdick; Edward Talbot

Mitsuo Fuchida: from Pearl Harbor attacker to Christian evangelist

What sparked Fuchida’s interest in Christianity?

Matt Forster

John Birch: Fighting missionary

He would not leave until the last Japanese had left

Don Haines

Christmas miracles

Four men recall war at the front

various

World Wars: Recommended resources

The landscape of resources about faith in the world wars is vast. Here are some recommendations from CH editorial staff and this issue’s authors.

the editors
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