Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War

by Jonathan H. Ebel

Faith in the Fight tells a story of religion, soldiering, suffering, and death in the Great War. Recovering the thoughts and experiences of American troops, nurses, and aid workers through their letters, diaries, and memoirs, Jonathan Ebel describes how religion--primarily Christianity--encouraged these young men and women to fight and die, sustained them through war's chaos, and shaped their responses to the war's aftermath. The book reveals the surprising frequency with which Americans who fought viewed the war as a religious challenge that could lead to individual and national redemption. Believing in a "Christianity of the sword," these Americans responded to the war by reasserting their religious faith and proclaiming America God-chosen and righteous in its mission. And while the war sometimes challenged these beliefs, it did not fundamentally alter them.


Revising the conventional view that the war was universally disillusioning, Faith in the Fight argues that the war in fact strengthened the religious beliefs of the Americans who fought, and that it helped spark a religiously charged revival of many prewar orthodoxies during a postwar period marked by race riots, labor wars, communist witch hunts, and gender struggles. For many Americans, Ebel argues, the postwar period was actually one of "reillusionment."


Demonstrating the deep connections between Christianity and Americans' experience of the First World War, Faith in the Fight encourages us to examine the religious dimensions of America's wars, past and present, and to work toward a deeper understanding of religion and violence in American history.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Hotavio]

Ebel’s Faith in the Fight retells the American participation of the Great War from a religious standpoint. That is, Ebel argues that in the early 20th century, there was a resurgence of religious fervor which was brought on by the feminization of societies and liberalization of church which harkened desires to get bring back a masculine and aggressive America, albeit with strong religious overtones. The Great War offered the perfect opportunity with its demonization of the Germans to fight a pitched battle of morality. This idea permeated the thoughts of the public in the launch to war, it drove the soldiers on the field, and it resonated with the veterans long after the war.
Ebel’s primary source in relaying the religious imbued accounts of American soldiers is Stars and Stripes newspaper, which ran at the height of American participation in the Great War. Since the paper was laden with religious editorials, cartoons, poems, and personal accounts from the soldiers, Ebel declares it is the definitive resource for “Faith in the Fight” (17). Stars and Stripes contributes heavily in his books, with numerous cases coming straight from its pages. He also uses the paper’s religious cartoon propaganda in his book. In postwar years, beyond the print run of the paper, he uses The American Legion Weekly which seems to harbor similar unitary religious sentiments with the slightly different aim of keeping the moral sacrifice alive. Both are well embodied in the text. Also used for first hand religious reflections are some of the journals of the soldiers.
The introduction sums up his argument well, with his first chapter expounding on it. It is here that Ebel relays the building of the moral foundations on volunteerism. The chapter, “Chance and the Combat Numinuous,” further constructs the idea of the soldier assuming supernatural abilities. It is here that Ebel skillfully relays that men (and women) have chosen a heightened path and are bestowed a level of providence not given their adversaries. One example of a brash young atheist whose fate catches up to him contrasts the many who fully believe in the divine who may or may not die, but not without fulfilling some sort of worthwhile cause (64). “Suffering, Death, and Salvation” tells of the hardships of war and the view of American exceptionality in a war with mentally constructed religious applications. “Christ’s Cause, Pharoah’s Army” includes the African American moral experience and the perceived opportunity to be accepted as first class citizens through their service abroad. Chapter Five deals with women’s roles in the war with greater attention though he is fairly inclusive of women in his examples in other chapters. Here he relays the different motivations behind female participation and even mentions conflictions and rivalries between the types of women who participated (138). As Ebel points out, there was a lot of scrutiny of other’s motivations behind participation in the Great War. “There Are No Dead” deals with perceptions of the afterlife amongst the soldiers, as they were faced with the reality of their invincibility. The final chapter brings up the Armistice and what it meant for the soldiers as they backed the newly created American Legion. With the rise of socialism, labor, and the failure of world peace, veterans were forced to admit that the Great War was not the epic battle of religion that they had fought and struggled with the worth of their sacrifice (182).
Ebel’s Faith in the Fight covers a variance of applications behind the religion in the Great War. He identifies with the layman’s need for worth in a mechanized world. Because Europe was toying with the idea of war in the era of alliances, he introduces many of the religious based organizations in the US including the quasi-militaristic Boy Scouts and the YMCA, which once stressed the importance of being fit for possible conflict. Ebel’s conclusion rightfully questioned the permanence of the Great War as it was quickly out shadowed by World War II. The lack of permanent meaning of the Great War was a contrast to the epic emphasis placed on it at the time. Perhaps the need to build the American cause for fighting and the lack of permanent meaning points to idea that the US should have remained uninvolved in the first place. The American Legion would have said this could not have been further from the truth. I found the book to give an informative perspective on the subject and I had no major wants in reading it.

[Alexander Kennedy]

Religion was not the cause of the Great War, but Ebel argues that in America religion created an environment that was conducive for producing a warrior spirit. Ebel stated that “the properly religious man was a man of action, willing to welcome danger and sacrifice, and happy to deal harshly with God’s enemies” (2) Muscular Christianity stressed strenuous activity as opposed to the sort of white collar desk jobs that were becoming more common in America. Jesus was not portrayed as the passive turn the other cheek man who let the Roman soldiers scourge him. White soldiers connected to Christ as a warrior, but African American soldiers on the other hand were more likely to connect to Christ’s sufferings. For African Americans “service to country was not service to God.” (125).
While the war was fought over seas, many internal issues in America contributed to the war. Ebel asserted that “the American soldiers and war workers hoped that their sacrifices and struggles would redeem a fallen world, unite a fractured country, and bring a just and lasting peace” (47). Redemption factored significantly for the individual as well on a personal level. Many young men felt like their lives did not mean much and or had not yet amounted to much, and to die as a war hero offered them the glory and significance thy otherwise lacked. Shockingly, some men actually lamented not having the opportunity to die and be guaranteed salvation. As far as uniting a fractured country went, this motif was most evident in the actions and thoughts of African American soldiers. If they served on the side of justice in the face of international tyranny, then how could the U.S. government and people not recognize their equal status as citizens? When this did not happen post war, people like W.E.B. Dubois became very disillusioned.
Ebel drew heavily on poetry to build his case. Poetry is a very tricky type of source to use because the meaning of poems is not always clear and can often be layered. While he did admit that he was engaging in conjecture, Ebel on numerous occasions would point out what a poem meant on the surface and then provide a deeper, usually darker interpretation. Poetry is meant to be interpreted and can mean different things to different people, so this is a legitimate tactic to use but sometimes I think he stretched interpretation a little too far.
One poem that I fund particularly troublesome for Ebel’s argument was Thomas F. Coakley’s “The Holocaust.” Despite being Catholic, I found Coakley’s poem to actually sound quite Jewish. He equated the soldiers to “Unspotted holocausts who kept Thy law” which is odd imagery for a Catholic who neither has a temple that he offers holocausts in nor follows the Mosaic Law (93). This poem has interesting implications for Ebel’s thesis. There is nothing particularly glorious about being equated with unspotted holocausts which would liken the soldiers to livestock sacrificed in the Temple. One could make the argument that the soldiers were the best America had to offer as “first born sons” and thus make them a noble sacrifice, but Ebel does not do so in his analysis of Coakley. The poem does not even emphasize the redemptive quality of war which is theme critical to Ebel’s argument. In the same way that you can’t take your crippled yearling lamb and fix it up to make it a suitable sacrifice at Passover, neither can dying in war make amends for passed misdeeds. The soldiers were “pure of heart” thus they should have been bound for heaven’s gates regardless of the war. I also disagree with Ebel’s connection to the Passion. Christ died to redeem others, not himself. The soldiers died to save the world from tyranny and despotism, not their souls.