God and Churchill HB Page 11
Churchill recognized that Britain, like Mattathias and Judas in 1 Maccabees, faced an enemy crowded on the borders of their nation, wanting to enslave them and destroy their culture. In May 1940, Churchill knew that Adolf Hitler had the whole of Europe – and more – in his sights. Britain represented the ‘men of valour’ on whom the outcome of the battle rested. Thus, with great care, Churchill chose his words.
Though the Blitz would soon set London and other English cities ablaze, Churchill believed that ‘under Providence, all will be well’, as he said in a message of 9 February 1941 to President Franklin Roosevelt.32
Churchill’s call for valour and courage had its intended effect. ‘You have never done anything as good or great’, wrote Anthony Eden, the Secretary of State for War, adding, ‘Thank you, and thank God for you.’33 Former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, at whose feet lay much of the blame for Britain’s lack of preparedness, wrote:
My dear PM, I listened to your well known voice last night and I should have liked to have shaken your hand for a brief moment and to tell you that from the bottom of my heart I wish you all that is good – health and strength of mind and body – for the intolerable burden that now lies on you. Yours always sincerely, SB.34
The great weight that Churchill carried was, to his mind, nothing less than the survival of ‘Christian civilization’ against the greatest threat it had ever faced. Churchill knew it was not just Britain’s survival that had been laid upon him, but also all the values of justice, freedom, respect for humanity and peace inherent in Western culture. He sensed that, if he failed, the world would become hellish.
It was indeed an ‘intolerable burden’, but one that Winston Churchill was willing not only to tolerate but to carry all the way to victory – or, if need be, to death.
PART III
SAVING ‘CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION’
6
Churchill and the Sermon on the Mount
I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian Civilization.
WINSTON CHURCHILL, ‘THEIR FINEST HOUR’ SPEECH, 18 JUNE 1940
WHAT WAS IT THAT WINSTON CHURCHILL – who was neither an engaged churchman nor a pious religious devotee – saw in ‘Christian civilization’ that, to his mind, made its survival worth the immense sacrifices required to stop Hitler and the Nazis?
In a 1943 speech at Harvard University, he said that it was nothing less than the choice between ‘world anarchy or world order’.1
The degree of Winston Churchill’s passion for Christian civilization is evident in the number of times he spoke or wrote about it. Here is a brief list of his statements, enough to establish the point:
In a 1931 article in The Strand Magazine, Churchill wrote about ‘our duty to preserve the structure of humane, enlightened, Christian society’.2
In a speech to the House of Commons about the Munich Agreement in 1938, Churchill said, ‘There can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism.’3
In an appeal to Benito Mussolini in 1940 to keep Italy from joining the war on Germany’s side, Churchill said, ‘Down the ages above all other calls comes the cry that the joint heirs of Latin and Christian civilization must not be ranged against one another in mortal strife.’4
As he contemplated the defence of London during the Battle of Britain, he referred to the metropolis as ‘this strong City of Refuge which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian civilization’.5
‘It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the whole world and the hopes of a broadening civilization founded upon Christian ethics depends upon the relations between the British Empire or Commonwealth of Nations and the USA,’ Churchill said in 1941.6
In his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech on 5 March 1946, Churchill was still sounding the warning. The Communist parties that had infiltrated post-war nations ‘constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization’, he said.7
In October 1946, Churchill revealed to the Conservative Party leadership what he felt its ‘main objectives’ should be. The list begins: ‘To uphold the Christian religion and resist all attacks upon it.’8
In a 1949 speech to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Churchill said, ‘The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide. To guard and cherish it is our first interest, both spiritually and materially. The fulfilment of spiritual duty in our daily life is vital to our survival. Only by bringing it into perfect application can we hope to solve for ourselves the problems of this world and not of this world alone.’9
Churchill also believed that ‘the more closely we follow the Sermon on the Mount, the more likely we are to succeed in our endeavours.’10
Stephen Mansfield believes this urgent focus came through the influence of Elizabeth Everest, Churchill’s childhood nanny. ‘In an age of mounting skepticism, Churchill proclaimed the cause of “Christian civilization”’, notes Mansfield.11 Churchill saw external threats in the ‘barbarous paganism’ of the Nazis, who embodied principles that were the polar opposites of ‘Christian ethics’. Furthermore, Churchill was concerned about the internal threats from some of his own countrymen who had lost their Christian vision. Every Christian, thought Churchill, had a ‘duty to preserve the structure of humane, enlightened Christian society’. To neglect this would send society spinning into chaos because, said Churchill, ‘once the downward steps are taken, once one’s moral intellectual feet slipped upon the slope of plausible indulgence, there would be found no halting-place short of general Paganism and Hedonism.’12
ALL THAT MAKES EXISTENCE PRECIOUS
Churchill tells us generally what he meant by the term ‘Christian civilization’ in a 1938 radio broadcast to America:
Since the dawn of the Christian era a certain way of life has slowly been shaping itself among the Western peoples, and certain standards of conduct and government have come to be esteemed. After many miseries and prolonged confusion, there arose into the broad light of day the conception of the right of the individual; his right to be consulted in the government of his country; his right to invoke the law even against the State itself… . Now in this resides all that makes existence precious to man, and all that confers honour and health upon the State.13
For Churchill, what was at stake was the well-being not merely of a privileged few but of all who could benefit from the fruits of a beneficent, coherent society. Richard Langworth reminds us that Churchill believed that Christianity’s ‘principles applied broadly to all of mankind regardless of religion’. Thus, ‘when Churchill in speeches referred to “Christian civilization” … he did not mean to exclude Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. He meant those words with a much broader sense. Just as, to Churchill, the word “man” meant humankind, his allusions to Christianity embodied principles he considered universal.’14
Under the tutelage of Elizabeth Everest, Churchill no doubt would have read – and probably memorized – Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.15
Let’s look briefly at how these teachings, commonly known as the Beatitudes, intersected with the life of Winston Churchill.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven
The poverty of spirit to which Jesus refers is the humble recognition of one’s own need. Churchill recognized it while hiding in a ditch in South Africa in his youth; and again, decades later, when he stepped into No. 10 Downing Street as prime minister. Churchill knew that humility of spirit must also apply to his nation and its allies, and he said as much amid the deepening gloom of 1940.
We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.16
Churchill knew where the ultimate outcome of the struggle rested – in the hands of God. This, as much as anything, distinguished Churchill’s confidence from Hitler’s arrogance.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted
Elizabeth Nel, one of Churchill’s personal secretaries during the war, wrote, ‘When a city had received a bad bombing, he would try whenever possible to pay it a visit, to cheer up the inhabitants, but his grief at the sight of the devastation was moving to see.’17
Yet Churchill understood the importance of controlling his grief, and ‘he was always on top of his feelings, and the people, revitalized, would show their delight at the sight of him.’18
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth
Meekness is an unlikely characteristic for a man characterized as a bulldog and a lion. However, when we look at the original Greek, the language in which Jesus’ words were recorded in the Bible, we see that meekness is an apt description.
The Greek word prautes actually refers to strength under proper restraint. A common example is that of a mighty stallion under control of a bridle. But true meekness is not based on external restraint, for that would imply an inner weakness that required the control and enforcement of law. Rather, the idea is that of self-control. Churchill would have known Edmund Burke’s words:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites… . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon the appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there be within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.19
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled
Churchill was not known for his piety, nor did he pretend to it. Once when he was told he could not imbibe in the presence of the king of Saudi Arabia because of the ruler’s Muslim beliefs, he replied, ‘If it was his religion that made him say such things, my religion prescribed as an absolute sacred ritual smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and if need be during, all meals and the intervals between them.’20
However, as with meekness, we understand what righteousness may have meant to Churchill when we see it in the original language of the New Testament. There, righteousness refers to that which is upright and straight. Another word for it might be alignment. Proverbs speaks of those ‘whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways’.21 A ‘crooked path’ veers away from the true course.
The standard for such alignment is nothing less than the perfect character of God. Thus, God must be the reference point for personal behaviour and for the character of a civilization. Though Churchill at times leaned away from God’s perfect standard – as we all do – he certainly understood its importance in society. Such ethical alignment is what he probably had in mind when he offered this perhaps idealized assessment of Britain and a Christian consensus:
There are a few things I will venture to mention about England. They are spoken in no invidious sense. Here it would hardly occur to anyone that the banks would close their doors against their depositors. Here no one questions the fairness of the courts of law and justice. Here no one thinks of persecuting a man on account of his religion or his race. Here everyone, except the criminals, looks on the policeman as a friend and servant of the public. Here we provide for poverty and misfortune with more compassion, in spite of all our burdens, than any other country. Here we can assert the rights of the citizen against the State, or criticize the Government of the day, without failing in our duty to the Crown or in our loyalty to the King.22
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy
‘The finest combination in the world is power and mercy’, Churchill wrote to his mother, Jennie, in 1919. ‘The worst combination in the world is weakness and strife.’23 These values, expressed early in his career, were what guided Churchill throughout the most crucial periods of his life. Both power and mercy were evident in Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons on 14 July 1940, when he said, ‘We may show mercy – we shall ask for none.’24
Churchill felt that Neville Chamberlain’s weakness had placed Britain in peril as Hitler’s power grew. Nevertheless, he revealed an understanding of the importance of mercy in his eulogy of Chamberlain:
It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? … What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart – the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour… . We can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority … to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged.25
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God
To be ‘pure in heart’ is to be free from corruption. Winston Churchill was not pure in the sense of functional perfection; but the term also refers to a purity of motive that others can trust, and there Churchill is amply acquitted. In Churchill’s example, we find the idea of sincerity, of ‘something that has been cleansed by shaking to and fro as in a sieve or in winnowing’.26
This understanding becomes clearer in the Bible’s admonition to ‘purify your hearts, you double-minded’.27 Ambivalence about belief in God, or about right and wrong, constitutes double-mindedness. It is the position of the agnostic and thus is among the reasons we disagree with those who believe that Churchill retained the agnosticism of his youth. Throughout his life, he spoke of God and his providence with confident certitude.
The British people recognized Churchill as a man with a singleness of heart and mind. This quality, perhaps more than anything else, gave Churchill the capacity to lead and to guide through the Second World War. The British citizenry sensed that they could trust him, that he spoke with no hidden agenda. This purity of trust and its attendant credibility had not come easily but was hard-earned through all the ‘winnowing’ trials through which Churchill had passed.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God
Churchill is sometimes accused of being a warmonger. ‘Some critics characterized Churchill as a bold, but impetuous buccaneer, long on character but short on judgment’, writes Kenneth W. Thompson. ‘However, the picture of the prime minister as a soldier of fortune, an adventurer and a troublemaker was misleading.’28
Churchill’s first and continual hope was peace. On 3 December 1936, he said:
If we wish to stop the coming war – if coming it is – we must in the year that lies before us – nay, in the next six months – gather together the great nations, all as well armed as possible and united under the Covenant of the League [of Nations] in accordance with the principles of the League, and in this way we may reach a position where we can invite the German people to join this organisation of world security
; where we can invite them to take their place in the circle of nations to preserve peace, and where we shall be able to assure them that we seek no security for ourselves which we do not extend most freely to them.29
In his appeal, Churchill added ‘peace and strength’ to his equipoise of ‘power and mercy’. Rather than desiring war, this old soldier yearned for peace. But he did not delude himself about human nature or the character of the enemy – Hitler. Churchill’s insistence on rearmament was crucial to the establishment and maintenance of his real objective – peace. Indeed, Churchill’s foreign policy was based on strength with diplomacy, power and negotiation, as Kenneth Thompson points out.
Even after the Second World War, there were still some who tried to stick the ‘warmonger’ and ‘adventurer’ label on Churchill. Finally, in 1951, The Times had had enough.
It will be seen by historians as an extraordinary perversion that Mr. Churchill should have come to be regarded by so many critics and opponents in politics as a man eager for war… . Perhaps because so much of his fame and character has been made – with uncommon zeal and gusto – in the midst of world carnage, his thought has always been, between the wars, upon the means of making peace among the peoples.30
Thompson concludes, ‘Someone who possessed only a passion for war would hardly have been as tireless in exploring the narrow paths to peace. No one who was incurably a warmonger would have been willing to pay so high a price for peace.’31
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Winston Churchill didn’t suffer for the Christian cause in the same sense as the early followers of Christ. However, if we view righteousness as a desire for rightness, fairness and justice aligned with God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and the Bible, then Churchill endured much scorn for such a cause. Jesus’ teachings would have prompted Churchill to expect derision and would have steeled him to keep standing. At the same time, Churchill was not a passive target; he could fire back with the best of them at those who took shots at him.