Most accounts of Canada and the First World War either ignore or merely mention in passing the churches' experience. Canadian Churches and the First World War addresses this surprising neglect, exploring the marked relationship between Canada's 'Great War' and Canadian churches in intricate detail. The authors of this volume provide a detailed summary of various Christian traditions and the war, both synthesising and furthering previous research. In addition to examining the experience of Roman Catholics (English and French speaking), Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Mennonites, and Quakers, there are chapters on precedents formed during the South African War, the work of military chaplains, and the roles of church women on the home front. Reprinted in the centenary year of the conflict's outbreak, Canadian Churches and the First World War acts as a sobering reminder of the devastating impact the Great War had on Canada - and the rest of the world - in the early twentieth century. It will inspire those with a keen interest in theological, military and women's history, along with academics and students whose areas of research cover the monumental events of 1914-18. This article gives an exquisite insight into the stance of the Canadian churches during the First World War. - Martin Grechat, Theologische Literatur Zeitung 141. Jahrgang, Heft 4, April 2016

Most accounts of Canada and the First World War either ignore or merely mention in passing the churches' experience. Such neglect does not do justice to the remarkable influence of the wartime churches nor to the religious identity of the young Dominion. The churches' support for the war was often wholehearted, but just as often nuanced and critical, shaped by either the classic just war paradigm or pacifism's outright rejection of violence. The war heightened issues of Canadianization, attitudes to violence, and ministry to the bereaved and the disillusioned. It also exacerbated ethnic tensions within and between denominations, and challenged notions of national and imperial identity. The authors of this volume provide a detailed summary of various Christian traditions and the war, both synthesizing and furthering previous research. In addition to examining the experience of Roman Catholics (English and French speaking), Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Mennonites, and Quakers, there are chapters on precedents formed during the South African War, the work of military chaplains, and the roles of church women on the home front.

The centenary of America's declaration of war in 1917 is a fitting time to examine afresh the reaction of the American churches to the conflict. What was the impact of the war on the churches as well as the churches' hoped-for influence on the nation's war effort? Commenting on themes such as nationalism, nativism, nation-building, dissent, just war, and pacifism, this book provides a window into those perilous times from the viewpoint of Mainline and Evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Quakers, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Also included are chapters on developments among American military chaplains in the First World War and the reaction of the American churches to the Armenian Genocide.

Canada in the early twentieth century was a profoundly religious nation, with nearly 95 percent of the population identifying as Christians. The churches were important nation-building institutions, active in social welfare and education, but they also played a more intimate role in the lives of Canadians, determining moral values, providing social gathering points, and offering emotional and spiritual support in difficult times. Throughout the Great War (1914-1918), the churches continued to fulfill these important functions, providing an ideological framework that helped people make sense of the war, understand their duties as both Canadians and Christians, and cope with the sacrifices required of them. This dissertation examines the four major Canadian denominations (Roman Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, and Anglicanism) in French- and English-speaking Canada. It looks first to establish the varying justifications offered for the war by the churches before using them to contextualize the variety of activities undertaken on behalf of the war effort, activities which included prayer and considerable charitable giving in addition to military service. It then examines the difficult final years of the war. In 1917, as conscription divided English and French Canada over the extent of the commitment to the overseas war effort, differing ideas of imperialism, internationalism, and the division between the moral and the political brought conflict both within and between denominations. Finally, an attempt is made to consider how the churches played a role in mourning the war-dead and imbuing the hoped-for peace with a meaning sufficient to justify the immense sacrifices. By using the churches as an interpretive model, this dissertation adds nuance to the Canadian historiography of the Great War, looking beyond the military effort to the experiences of the home front. It also looks to bring together the histories of French and English Canadians, showing the ways in which French-speaking Catholics supported the war in their own way and illuminating some of the conflicting interpretations of the war held by otherwise supportive English-speaking Canadians.

One hundred and forty-one people from MacKay Presbyterian Church, in Ottawa, served in the First World War. This is an astonishing record, but one that was by no means uncommon in Canada. Why did these men, their families, and their church enlist in this great war for “justice, truth, and righteousness, and for the Glory of God”? What was the impact of war on the surviving soldiers as they and their families adjusted to a changed world, to permanent injuries and to painful memories? This study of the experience of one church at war weaves together the stories of soldiers on the battlefields of Europe with those of the families who waited and prayed, enduring privation, fear, loneliness, and grief. It centres on the 19 men who fell in the war — some as heroes in desperate battles, others with tragic randomness or from illness, several with no known graves — and the widows they left to cope as best they could, the children who grew up without fathers, and the families who mourned their loss even as they took pride in their sacrifice. Using new methods including online research and the tools of genealogical study to bring to life people who did not leave a rich legacy of information on their lives and families, this study of a church at war deepens our understanding of the social history of Canada’s participation in the First World War, and provides a model for research on churches, communities, and institutions.

The First World War's appalling death toll and the need for a sense of equality of sacrifice on the home front led to Canada's first experience of overseas conscription. While historians have focused on resistance to enforced military service in Quebec, this has obscured the important role of those who saw military service as incompatible with their religious or ethical beliefs. Crisis of Conscience is the first and only book about the Canadian pacifists who refused to fight in the Great War. The experience of these conscientious objectors offers insight into evolving attitudes about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship during a key period of Canadian nation building.