Kentucky and the Great War by Bettez David J.;

Author:Bettez, David J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

Religion

Religious organizations and their leaders played key roles in Kentucky during the Great War. The war had varying effects on each group. Some of these organizations changed little; for them, it was “business as usual.” Others were significantly altered by the war, at least for its duration, if not longer.

The war presented people of all religions with ethical and moral questions. The US Constitution is based on a separation of church and state. But prevailing sentiment in the country and passage of the Espionage and Sedition Acts caused people of all religions to think about loyalty.

Historian Philip Jenkins asserts, “The First World War was a thoroughly religious event, in the sense that overwhelmingly Christian nations fought each other in what many viewed as a holy war, a spiritual conflict.” Jenkins believes that “religion is essential to understanding the war, to understanding why people went to war, what they hoped to achieve through war, and why they stayed at war.” Each country fighting the war believed that God was on its side. This resulted in, “not just incidentally, but repeatedly and centrally, official statements and propaganda [that] declare that the war is being fought for God’s cause, or for his glory, and such claims pervade the media and organs of popular culture.”1

Jenkins points out that despite many Americans having “strong vested interests in avoiding war,” a “holy war ideology became social orthodoxy to an extent that is amazing if we think of the nation’s composition at the time.” Americans of Irish and German ancestry opposed a traditional enemy: England. Eastern Europeans, especially Poles and Jews, opposed Russia. Several American churches had a pacifist tradition and initially opposed US entry into the war. Because of these different backgrounds and beliefs, the likelihood of these groups agreeing about the war may have seemed remote. But Jenkins asserts, “By the time the United States actually did enter the war in April 1917, … not only were religious calls for holy warfare clearly in the ascendant but the nation’s rhetoric sounded very much like that of England or Germany three years before, and some of the most militant voices were penitent former pacifists.”2 Thus, the majority of religious denominations and churches in the nation supported the US war effort, sometimes vigorously. The notion of a holy and just war pervaded the rhetoric of churchgoers of most denominations in Kentucky, and most Kentucky churches supported the war as well.

In 1916 Southern Baptists made up the largest portion of Kentucky churchgoers, representing 26.1 percent of the population. Following were Catholics at 16.6 percent; Disciples of Christ at 13.4 percent; Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at 11.9 percent; and Baptists of the National Convention at 10.1 percent.3 Regardless of their denomination, believers had to balance the ideas of peace and nonviolence against the notion of a “just war,” a centuries-long debate.

Religious historian John F. Piper points out that many people, especially Protestants, took one of three positions about the war. Some denominations “claimed the pacifist position, which repudiated all participation in war, and rejected the war as evil.

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