Faith In the Fight (ebook)

Argumento de Faith In the Fight (ebook)

"[W]ith his well-written and well-researched book . . . Jonathan H. Ebel . . . has made a stellar contribution to the interdisciplinary study of religion in American history."--Malcolm D. Magee, American History Review

"[T]he book is an important contribution to the growing literature on war and American religion."--Jennifer Graber, Religious Studies Review

"In this book, Jonathan Ebel focuses on the Great War and the jolt it delivered to devout young American Christian soldiers. How were they to interpret this bloodletting and their own role in it? Where was God in the vast and terrible story of war? Where was God in relation to America? With keen sensitivity, Ebel takes up these and other questions. His book adds a fascinating and indispensable chapter to the scholarship on World War I."--Jean Bethke Elshtain, author of Sovereignty: God, State, and Self

"In this beautiful and poignant book, Jonathan Ebel draws on the letters and diaries of American soldiers of the First World War to illuminate how they understood their service to be a religious calling. Anyone who thinks about the morality of war must read this book."--Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University Divinity School

"Employing a wide variety of sources, Jonathan Ebel reconstructs the religious meaning of World War I for American soldiers and civilians, and his findings are highly revisionary. The conventional wisdom has been that the Civil War was the last 'romantic' war and that cynicism and disillusionment have ruled ever since. Yet when Ebel actually looks at the evidence, a very different picture emerges--one of deep-seated faith and an idealistic belief in America as a Christian nation."--Harry S. Stout, Yale University

"Faith in the Fight contributes a well researched and written addition to the understanding of a war that many Americans relegate to secondary or tertiary status. . . . As we approach the World War I centennial, this is a masterful work that should reignite historiographical interest in this vital event in the nation's history."--David E. Settje, Lutheran Quarterly

"Perhaps no word is more deeply associated with World War I than 'disillusionment.' In the compulsive attempts of the second half of the 20th century to tell secularization narratives, one prominent version had religious faith never recovering from the shell-shock it got in the trenches, 1914-18. Jonathan H. Ebel, in his well-researched and persuasively revisionist study Faith in the Fight, convincingly demonstrates that this loss-of-faith story is wrong, at least for Americans."--Books & Culture

"With a dizzying array of interesting points, Ebel provides a list of new avenues of study. . . . Faith in the Fight is an impressive book that all scholars of twentieth-century American religious history should read and that should be incorporated in all subsequent studies of WWI."--Paul Harvey, Religion in American History blog

"Faith in the Fight raises interesting questions about American culture and life, and it offers some valid insights into that culture."--Fred R. van Hartesveldt, Anglican and Episcopal History Reviews

"Ebel's first book, which helps fill the vast empty spaces of American religious historiography, is a truly fine work that displays expert research and storytelling abilities. . . . We should look forward to more of Ebel's work. His book on 'trench religion' will become the standard book on religious faith of the forgotten men and women during the forgotten war."--Matthew Lewis Sutton, Journal of Church History

"Faith in the Fight represents a valuable addition to the growing body of literature on the American experience of the Great War."--Edward Madigan, Religion, State and Society

"Ebel has written an excellent book that deserves a wide readership. . . . [T]he book is an excellent fit for graduate seminars and should interest scholars looking at the specific period or religion and war in general."--Steve Longenecker, Journal of American History

"Faith in the Fight illustrates the benefit of revisiting our current tidy categories of religion's decline in the face of modernity and secularism, and its readers are rewarded with a well written and fascinating glimpse of American soldiers and war workers' religious romanticism."--Sarah Miglio, Journal of Church and State

"One of Faith in the Fight's great strengths is its attention to the voices of the men and women on the front lines. . . . Faith in the Fight helps us better understand the relationship between religion and war in the not-so-distant American past. It is also a book that illustrates the dangers inherent in the American penchant for sanctifying state violence. As Ebel masterfully demonstrates, Americans would do well to abandon a little of their faith in the fight."--Matthew Avery Sutton, Christian Century0Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: Redemption through War 21
CHAPTER TWO: Chance the Man-Angel and the Combat Numinous 54
CHAPTER THREE: Suffering, Death, and Salvation 76
CHAPTER FOUR: Christ's Cause, Pharaoh's Army 105
CHAPTER FIVE: Ideal Women in an Ideal War 127
CHAPTER SIX: "There Are No Dead" 145
CHAPTER SEVEN: "The Same Cross in Peace": The American Legion, the Ongoing War, and American Reillusionment 168
CONCLUSION 191
Notes 199
Selected Bibliography 235
Index 249