Introduction

This is a book about the impact of war on theology. It discusses the ways in which the First World War affected the relations between British theologians (especially English Anglicans) and their German counterparts. It also discusses the changing perceptions in Britain of German culture and its theology. By offering a number of detailed studies of different aspects of the First World War and its precursor in the Boer War, as well as of the restoration of relationships between British and German theologians after the war, I show how the theology – and to some extent the broader church life of the Church of England – were affected by the cataclysm of the First World War. It will become clear that the partisan identities which had become so entrenched in the pre-war Church shaped the discourse of theology during the First World War. This was particularly associated with the critiques of liberalism which had made considerable inroads into English theology in the early years of the twentieth century. English modernism came to be tainted by its ‘Made in Germany’ origin. Furthermore, AngloCatholics were able to use the wartime alliances with Orthodox nations, especially Russia and Serbia, to bolster their conservative cause in the name of a broader ecumenism. This rhetorical assault mounted by several AngloCatholic theologians against liberalism served to scupper Anglo-German theological relations in the delicate conditions after the war. It took a very long time before relationships between English and German theology were restored, and they never returned to their pre-war state. Indeed, English liberalism took a different direction in the 1920s, as it moved away from its German origins. Overall, this had two effects: first, it helped boost AngloCatholicism as the ascendant force in the Church of England and, second, it created a very insular brand of English liberalism which remained quite untouched by theological developments on the Continent.