[CondoleezzaProtege]

In Christianity, the horror at the war led many thinkers to question easy assumptions about “Christendom”, about the natural alliance between the faith and the world, about any natural fit between faith and human culture, or human reason itself.

The Catholic Church was also completely transformed, and we see the war’s impact on key figures who would dominate the church’s thought through the second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict XVI actually took his name from the Pope who served in that war, a man he admired. Even when Pope Francis took office, his speeches quoted Léon Bloy, an apocalyptic French thinker of the Great War.

Two other epochal events for Christianity were a direct consequence of the war: the attempted genocide of Christians across much of the Middle East, and the birth of mass popular Christianity in black Africa. And the two greatest events in Jewish history during the century – the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel – could never have happened without the First World War.

For Muslims, too, all subsequent politics have been shaped by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, and the termination of the caliphate a few years later. Most insurgent Islamist movements around the world today trace their origins to that post-war crisis.

RNS: In some ways, we’re still feeling the affects of World War I today, then, aren’t we?

PJ: Across the board, whichever faith we look at...(Excerpt. See link.)

[kaehurowing]

My theory is you can trace the beginning of the decline and fall of Western civilization to the collapse of the “Christmas Truce” of 1914.

Every nation in that conflict (except the Ottoman Empire) was avowedly Christian. Most soldiers were Christians, either as being real believers, or at least culturally Christian and believed in and followed Christian teachings.

When the troops sang Christmas carols to each other on Christmas Eve and then came out of the trenches and celebrated Christmas Day with each other, that was the last opportunity for everyone to just put down their guns and say that the whole war was stupid and nobody knew what they were fighting about. But they got back into the trenches.

And everything followed.

Communism and the fall of Russia

The birth of Nazism (Adolf Hitler was a decorated soldier in the trenches—who knows how much of his derangement developed during that period).

Nihilism

Economic dysfuntion which led to runaway inflation in Germany and eventually worldwide economic depression.

World War II (continuation of WWI)

The worldwide spread of Communism and the Cold War

Etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KHoVBK2EVE

[PGR88]

The author is absolutely correct in his view that WWI set off great and far-reaching changes in society, Christianity and Islam.

I don’t know if leaders of the day saw it as a “crusade” though. The propaganda of the time certainly used religious imagery, but my favorite books on the subject by Tuchman, Max Hastings (and others) all point to the balance of power questions, alliances, naval power in the quest for colonial dominance, and military planning - as the motivations and direct causes of the war.

[Pelham]

World War One German belt buckle. 'God With Us'

[PAR35]

Were the good guys the ones with “God with us” on their belt buckles?

[Fiji Hill]

In his book The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2003), Richard Gamble of the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) argued that "progressive" Christians and devotees of the Social Gospel were instrumental in drumming up public support for a war to "make the world safe for democracy," to "end all wars," and achieve other lofty "progressive goals. Although Gamble confines himself to the Presbyterian church, other "main stream" denominations were likely doing their part to stir up pro-war sentiment.

[whistleduck]

Decent article until the end. The perfessor was overcome in his purple haze. Equates Christianity with moslem dictates. Convert or die perfessor? Where is that in the 10 Commandments?

Weak and illogical conclusion.