After War, Is Faith Possible?

The Life and Message of Geoffrey "Woodbine Willie" Studdert Kennedy

Studdert Kennedy, Walters

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781498270533
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

There are no words foul and filthy enough to describe war. So declared Geoffrey Woodbine Willie Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), a decorated frontline chaplain whose battlefield experiences in World War I transformed him into his generation's most eloquent defender of Christian pacificism. Studdert Kennedy was also a tireless champion of the social gospel who wrote a dozen books, scores of articles, hundreds of poems, and preached countless sermons in both the UK and the US promoting economic justice.Studdert Kennedy's writing and preaching influenced an entire generation. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, described him as a true prophet. Even though he's fallen into obscurity with the passage of years, Studdert Kennedy's message still inspires the likes of Desmond Tutu and Jurgen Moltmann.This collection of Studdert Kennedy's work, the first in sixty years, seeks to introduce this most relevant of thinkers to our troubled times. The book pulls together Studdert Kennedy's most important writings on war and peace, poverty, the problem of evil, the church's role in the world, sin and atonement, the suffering God, love versus force as world powers, and the beloved community. Editor Kerry Walters introduces the texts with a biographical and thematic essay.

part one

Broken Dreams

The Christian Creed won’t wash or wear. When you plunge it into the cold water of reason it shrinks until there is nothing left of it, nothing save this splendid but shadowy Figure who fades away into the mists of time, and leaves us alone with wars and workhouses, factory chimneys and squalid streets—alone in a modern mechanical, vulgar world of sordid realities. O my God, these tales of unbearable beauty that break the hearts of men because they are not true! I came out of Birmingham Cathedral, from the Burne-Jones window of the Ascension, into the twilight streets, and an amateur prostitute giggled. The oldest profession in the world—dreams and reality.

(1921)

What Is God Like?

When I had been in France as a chaplain about two months, before I had heard a gun fired or seen a trench, I went to see an officer in a base hospital who was slowly recovering from very serious wounds. The conversation turned on religion, and he seemed anxious to get at the truth. He asked me a tremendous question. “What I want to know, Padre,” he said, “is, what is God like? I never thought much about it before the war. I took the world for granted. I was not religious, though I was confirmed and went to Communion sometimes with my wife. But now it all seems different. I realize that I am a member of the human race, and have a duty towards it, and that makes me want to know what God is like. When I am transferred into a new battalion I want to know what the Colonel is like. He bosses the show, and it makes a lot of difference to me what sort he is. Now I realize that I am in the battalion of humanity, and I want to know what the Colonel of the world is like. That is your real business, Padre; you ought to know.”

. . . I pointed to a crucifix which hung over the officer’s bed, and said, “Yes, I think I can tell you. God is like that.” I wondered if it would satisfy him. It did not. He was silent for a while, looking at the crucifix, and then he turned to me, and his face was full of doubt and disappointment. “What do you mean?” he said. “God cannot be like that. God is Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, Monarch of the world, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, whose will sways all the world. That is a battered, wounded, bleeding figure, nailed to a cross and helpless, defeated by the world and broken in all but spirit. That is not God; it is part of God’s plan: God’s mysterious, repulsive, and apparently futile plan for saving the world from sin. I cannot understand the plan, and it appears to be a thoroughly bad one, because it has not saved the world from sin. It has been an accomplished fact now for nearly two thousand years, and we have sung hymns about God’s victory, and yet the world is full of sin, and now there is this filthy war. I’m sick of this cant. You have not been up there, Padre, and you know nothing about it. I tell you that cross does not help me a bit; it makes things worse. I admire Jesus of Nazareth; I think He was splendid, as my friends at the front are splendid—splendid in their courage, patience, and unbroken spirit. But I asked you not what Jesus was like, but what God is like, God Who willed His death in agony upon the Cross, and Who apparently wills the wholesale slaughter in this war. Jesus Christ I know and admire, but what is God Almighty like? To me He is still the unknown God.”

(1918)

What’s God Up To?

June 7th, 1917. In the assembly trenches on the morning of the attack on the Whyschaete-Messines Ridge. The __________ division attacked first, and our men went through their lines to the last objective.

•

It is God alone that matters. I am quite sure about that. I’m not sure that it is not the only thing I am sure about. It is not any Church of God, or priest of God; it is not even any act of God in the past like the Birth of Christ or His death upon the Cross. These may be revelations of what God is or means by which He works; but it is God Himself, acting here and now upon the souls of men; it is He alone that can save the world.

There is only one commandment really: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy strength—with the whole bag of tricks in fact. It’s got to be a whole hog, go-ahead and damn the consequences kind of love—a complete and enthusiastic surrender of the whole man to the leadership of God. It is funny that the body isn’t mentioned; it comes in here a bit, the giving of the body. It’s about all some of these dear chaps know how to give, and they give like kings: better than many kings, God bless ‘em. There is the whole of vital religion, and therefore the whole of life, in a nutshell—Love God all out, and then live with all your might. The other commandment is only a bit off the big one. You couldn’t help loving your neighbor if you once loved God. You may love churches and services and hymns and things, and not love your neighbor; lots of people do, but that is not loving God. These things become ends in themselves, and then they are worse than useless. That’s always been the bother with religion.

It’s a difficult business. I suppose loving God means knowing God. You can’t love a person unless you know him. How can a man know God? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” I suppose that r...

Table of contents

• After War, Is Faith Possible?
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Broken Dreams
• Part Two: A Suffering and Triumphant God
• Part Three: The Plain Bread of Religion
• Part Four: Getting Christ Out of the Churches
• Sources
• Bibliography