Front-line Religion

‘No man is an atheist in a fox-hole’, an American once said, and there is much truth in his remark, though it lends itself to unfortunate interpretations. To some it suggests that overpowering fear will force a man to cast away the reasoning of a lifetime and clutch at any superstition or unseen power which might bring help or safety.

In the pacifist years what was called ‘front-line religion’ was dismissed as lightly as physical courage and described as a thing of no lasting value. Many chaplains lying in a slit-trench during a bombardment had an opportunity of testing this opinion. Certainly a man's thoughts turned to prayer, but fear did not seem to be the dominant motive. With death close at hand, many a married man used to think of his wife and children. The man in the trench could do nothing to make the shelling stop. As he listened to the scream of each shell he wondered whether he would be hit, and, if hit, whether he would be killed, buried, or crippled. The whole thing seemed to be a matter of chance. He would be hit or he would not be hit. Never did a man feel so unimportant, so humble, or so powerless.

The unforgettable emotions of enduring shellfire and seeing friends killed were bound to make a man take a more serious view of life. In this mood he found fresh meaning and comfort as he stood amongst his own friends at a Church service and listened to his own chaplain. The fact that he did not become a regular churchgoer for the rest of the war and the rest of his life proves nothing. And to suggest that front-line religion is just a cheap symptom of acute fear is as blasphemous as it is untrue.