The War and the Churches — Edition Insights

The Clergy’s Conflicting Explanations

McCabe devotes sustained attention to the speeches of prominent Nonconformist ministers at a Church Council meeting. He quotes the Rev. J. H. Rushbrooke, who called the war 'God’s judgment upon the Church’s failure' and admitted that European civilisation rested on 'foundations of sand.' McCabe pounces on the logical strain: if God sent the war to punish clergy for neglect, the deity becomes a monster. He contrasts this with the Rev. A. T. Guttery’s more cheerful claim that churches had already succeeded in making 'the Pagan glory of war for its own sake' obsolete. The two positions—divine punishment versus moral progress—are left to collide without resolution, exposing the incoherence of clerical rhetoric under pressure.

A Pattern of Evasion and Admission

Across the excerpts, McCabe identifies a recurring pattern: ministers acknowledge Christian failure in one breath and retreat into institutional defence in the next. Rushbrooke’s confession that organised Christianity had failed is immediately undercut by his appeal to recent peace efforts, which McCabe dismisses as 'paltry' compared to the churches’ historic power. Guttery’s optimism is undercut by the very war that disproves it. McCabe’s method is to let the speakers’ own words indict them. He notes that Rushbrooke 'stumbles into' the God-sent-war theory, a phrase that implies intellectual carelessness rather than malice. The effect is a portrait of a leadership caught between candour and self-preservation.

The Rationalist’s Counterpoint

McCabe does not merely catalogue clerical failings; he offers an alternative framework. Where Rushbrooke invokes divine judgment, McCabe insists the war will bring 'the judgment of man and the judgment of history' upon Christianity. This shift from theological to human accountability is the book’s central move. The excerpts show McCabe treating the war as an empirical test of religious claims: if Christianity had truly shaped Europe, how could this catastrophe occur? His answer, implied throughout, is that the churches’ power was never matched by their moral application. The preface’s reference to 'the most enlightened century' being 'darkened' sets up a paradox that the body of the work aims to resolve through evidence, not faith.

Readers approaching The War and the Churches should attend to McCabe’s use of quotation: he rarely summarises an opponent’s view without letting the original phrasing stand. This makes the book a valuable primary source for early wartime religious discourse, even for those who reject its rationalist conclusions. The argument is tightly bound to 1915, but the questions it raises—about institutional hypocrisy, theodicy, and the gap between preaching and practice—remain pointed.

I think of McCabe’s bitter little book often—how he watched faith bend itself to war. Yet beside it, I keep returning to Golden Lads — Inside the Classic, a gentler thing, almost a whisper. They share a quiet sadness, two observers of mortal frailty, speaking across decades without ever raising their voices.