Faith In War

Faith in the Fight tells a story of religion, soldiering, suffering, and death in the Great War. Recovering the thoughts and experiences of American troops, nurses, and aid workers through their letters, diaries, and memoirs, Jonathan Ebel describes how religion--primarily Christianity--encouraged these young men and women to fight and die, sustained them through war's chaos, and shaped their responses to the war's aftermath. The book reveals the surprising frequency with which Americans who fought viewed the war as a religious challenge that could lead to individual and national redemption. Believing in a "Christianity of the sword," these Americans responded to the war by reasserting their religious faith and proclaiming America God-chosen and righteous in its mission. And while the war sometimes challenged these beliefs, it did not fundamentally alter them. Revising the conventional view that the war was universally disillusioning, Faith in the Fight argues that the war in fact strengthened the religious beliefs of the Americans who fought, and that it helped spark a religiously charged revival of many prewar orthodoxies during a postwar period marked by race riots, labor wars, communist witch hunts, and gender struggles. For many Americans, Ebel argues, the postwar period was actually one of "reillusionment." Demonstrating the deep connections between Christianity and Americans' experience of the First World War, Faith in the Fight encourages us to examine the religious dimensions of America's wars, past and present, and to work toward a deeper understanding of religion and violence in American history.

War-Worn Faith You want the flare of your faith to burn as intensely as a fire on the battlefield. That means digging into God’s truth regardless of the chaos raging around you. These devotions are written by a man who had considered war something that someone else always did, and was then himself deployed to Iraq as a company commander. From the frontlines of the blackest days and in the face of inexplicable suffering, you’ll discover the heart of the question, “Why, God?” and its often unsettling answer. Because in war, as in contemporary America , reality involves struggle, trial, and triumph. Let God meet you in the midst of life’s nonsense to find the peace that is a crucial part of His impeccable plan. Why, God? War screams the same questions whispered in everyday life. The battlefield explodes with the same tenacity of emotions that wretch our souls. Smoke fills the air just as doubt clouds our minds. Are you on the frontlines of war overseas? Or perhaps your battle is personal, deep within. These devotions, penned by Captain Chris Plekenpol while on the battlefield in Iraq, expose the depths of inexplicable suffering as well as the heights of incredible victory in God. Through every adversity and in any circumstance, you will find a still voice reminding you of God’s sovereignty…in war and peace. “Faith forged in the crucible of combat! Chris Plekenpol is a warrior and he has compiled a great guide for victory in the battles we all face.” Oliver L. North Host of “War Stories” on Fox News and author of The Assassins “There is no theory here. Just the battle-tested insights of a soldier who has learned to trust his heavenly Father in the valley of the shadow of death. You are going to love this book.” Andy Stanley Pastor, North Point Community Church “Amazing encouragement from the heart of the battle!” Louie Giglio Passion Conferences Story Behind the Book “I began writing devotionals as both a preparation for seminary and as a ministry tool during my service in Korea . At first, I sent them only to a few people. Then, as I wrote more frequently, I received e-mails requesting my devotions. I continued writing during my deployment to Iraq , tackling such issues as life in combat as well as the triumph of God in the battle. My purpose in writing this book is to further God’s work in my life by ministering to others through my experience in the heart of the battle.” —Chris Plekenpol

Faith in War the Soldiers Bible is a true story that takes place from 1967 through 2019. It is the first hand accounts of 7 U.S. Army combat veterans. These veterans fought in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Combined these veterans have 11 combat tours between them. Some of the awards they amassed on these tours include 3 bronze stars with V device for valor, 2 purple hearts, two combat infantryman’s badges and a combat action badge. The common link all these veterans share is that they all carried the same war torn pocket bible and by God’s grace all made it home alive.

This three-volume reference provides a complete guide for readers investigating the crucial interplay between war and religion from ancient times until today, enabling a deeper understanding of the role of religious wars across cultures. Containing some 500 entries covering the interaction between war and religion from ancient times, the three-volume War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict provides students with an invaluable reference source for examining two of the most important phenomena impacting society today. This all-inclusive reference work will serve readers researching specific religious traditions, historical eras, wars, battles, or influential individuals across all time periods. The A–Z entries document ancient events and movements such as the First Crusade that began at the end of the 10th century as well as modern-day developments like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Subtopics throughout the encyclopedia include religious and military leaders or other key people, ideas, and weapons, and comprehensive examinations of each of the major religious traditions' views on war and violence are presented. The work also includes dozens of primary source documents—each introduced by a headnote—that enable readers to go directly to the source of information and better grasp its historical significance. The in-depth content of this set benefits high school and college students as well as scholars and general readers.

Throughout American history, Christianity has shaped public opinion, guided leaders in their decision making, and stood at the center of countless issues. To gain complete knowledge of an era, historians must investigate the religious context of what transpired, why it happened, and how. Yet too little is known about American Christianity's foreign policy opinions during the Cold and Vietnam Wars. To gain a deeper understanding of this period (1964-75), David E. Settje explores the diversity of American Christian responses to the Cold and Vietnam Wars to determine how Americans engaged in debates about foreign policy based on their theological convictions. Settje uncovers how specific Christian theologies and histories influenced American religious responses to international affairs, which varied considerably. Scrutinizing such sources as the evangelical "Christianity Today," the mainline Protestant, "Christian Century," a sampling of Catholic periodicals, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Church of Christ, "Faith and War" explores these entities' commingling of religion, politics, and foreign policy, illuminating the roles that Christianity attempted to play in both reflecting and shaping American foreign policy opinions during a decade in which global matters affected Americans daily and profoundly.

A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, and evangelicals among its ranks. Enlisting Faith traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. Moving from the battlefields of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam and between the forests of Civilian Conservation Corps camps and meetings in government offices, Ronit Y. Stahl reveals how the military borrowed from and battled religion. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition as American faiths. At times the state used religion to advance imperial goals. But religious citizens pushed back, challenging the state to uphold constitutional promises and moral standards. Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, the federal government authorized and managed religion in the military. The chaplaincy demonstrates how state leaders scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexities. While officials debated which clergy could serve, what insignia they would wear, and what religions appeared on dog tags, chaplains led worship for a range of faiths, navigated questions of conscience, struggled with discrimination, and confronted untimely death. Enlisting Faith is a vivid portrayal of religious encounters, state regulation, and the trials of faith—in God and country—experienced by the millions of Americans who fought in and with the armed forces.

An eye-opening political travelogue that reveals the Muslim world as never before Drawing on reporting from more than a dozen Islamic countries, Faith at War offers an unforgettable portrait of the Muslim world after September 11. Choosing to invert the question of what "they" have done to "us," Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov examines the unprecedented American intrusion in the Muslim heartland and the ripples it has caused far beyond the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. What emerges is a penetrating portrait of people, faith, and countries better known in caricature than reported detail. The ordinary Muslims, influential clerics, warlords, jihadis, intellectuals and heads of state we meet are engaged in conversations that reveal the Muslim world to us from a new, unexpected perspective. In Mali, one of the most successful democracies in Africa, we encounter Ousmane Madani Haidara, an influential cleric who sees Wahhabi extremists, rather than his country's secular government, as the real enemy of the true faith. In Saudi Arabia, we explore the bizarre world of exporting dead bodies from a kingdom that bars the burial of non-Muslims. On a US Navy aircraft carrier floating just off the coast of Pakistan in October 2001, we witness the mechanics of war: the onboard assembly of bombs that, hours later, are seen on T.V. exploding in Kabul. And in Iraq, we accompany Trofimov as he negotiates his escape from an insurgent mob, rides in a Humvee with trigger-happy GIs, and gets lectured by a Shiite holy man on why America is the foe of mankind. Whether exploring the badlands of the Sahara or a snow-covered village of Bosnian mujahedeen, Faith at War helps us understand the hidden relationships and often surprising connections, so crucial to America's future, that link the Islamic world to our own.

While the social and cultural history of the early modern military has greatly advanced in the last few decades, the religious dimension of the military life in the Holy Roman Empire between 1500 and 1650 has hardly been explored. The Reformation brought profound political, social and cultural upheavals, but the religiosity of the men and women who followed the Christian life in the chaos of war still represents a large gap in the historiography. Faith in War shows that confessional antagonisms lost much of their meaning during war and coexistence became a fact of army life. Connecting military and civilian social and cultural history in these ways, Nikolas Funke’s case study on this period brings new life to important current historiographical discussions in a military context, including stereotyping, confessionalization, social discipline, deviance, toleration, religious violence, and the culture of death.

From Islam declaring Jihad against the west, to Arab against Jew, to Catholic against Protestant, one question resonates with the global threat we face today: Why does God inspire the killing of Man? Renowned historian Christopher Catherwood vividly recounts a saga of passion and prejudice that laid the foundation for our own troubled age. Beginning with the death in 632 of Muhammad--as much political leader and general as prophet--Islam commenced its breathtaking spread, which, under Muhammad's successors, eventually conquered an empire larger than Rome's. Even as this vast realm broke apart into Sunni and Shiite factions, the Christian retaliation--ruthlessly and unscrupulously unleashed in 1095 with the First Crusade--sparked a clash between East and West that continues to this day. The pattern would repeat itself again and again: with the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, in which the same Islamic faith that had once been an institution of tolerance in places like Spain became an instrument of expansion; with the wars of the Reformation, when Catholic and Protestant slaughtered each other in the name of the Prince of Peace; and with the endless conflicts of today's Middle East, savagely fought over by three faiths that all worship the same God. Based on exhaustive research and written with an unflinching, unbiased eye toward revealing the often painful truth, Making War in the Name of God unveils humanity's ancient habit of sanctifying bloodshed--and exposes a past that we forget at our peril. Christopher Catherwood teaches history at Cambridge University in England and at the University of Richmond (Virginia). A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is the author of several acclaimed books, including Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq, A God Divided: Understanding the Differences Between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and Whose Side Is God On?