Onward Christian soldiers

From The Tablet-

Seventy years on, it may be hard to imagine the Second World War as a religious conflict. Yet at the time it was defined as the ultimate struggle for the Church’s survival
Wednesday 2 September will mark the seventieth anniversary of the formal surrender of Japan, and with it the end of the most destructive war in history. The Second World War resulted in the deaths of more than 55 million people, most of them civilians; it triggered the Holocaust, laid waste vast swathes of Europe and Asia, and saw the advent of nuclear weapons.

But for all its significance it remains poorly understood, not least in Great Britain. Here, perceptions of the conflict are largely governed by a complacent national mythology that still has an unsettling resonance among English football fans (“Where were you in World War Two?”, as Chelsea fans chanted on the Paris Metro last February).

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http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/6470/onward-christian-soldiers