Life after Tragedy
Essays on Faith and the First World War Evoked by Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy
Edited by Michael W. Brierley and Georgina A. Byrne
Foreword by Andrew Studdert-Kennedy
Imprint: Cascade Books
Much has been written on the centenary of the First World War; however, no book has yet explored the tragedy of the conflict from a theological perspective. This book fills that gap. Taking their cue from the famous British army chaplain Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, seven central essays--all by authors associated with the cathedral where Studdert Kennedy first preached to troops--examine aspects of faith that featured in the war, such as the notion of "home," poetry, theological doctrine, preaching, social reform, humanitarianism, and remembrance. Each essay applies its reflections to the life of faith today.
The essays thus represent a highly original contribution to the history of the First World War in general and the work of Studdert Kennedy in particular; and they provide wider theological insight into how, in the contemporary world, life and tragedy, God and suffering, can be integrated. The book will accordingly be of considerable interest to historians, both of the war and of the church; to communities commemorating the war; and to all those who wrestle with current challenges to faith. A foreword by Studdert Kennedy's grandson and an afterword by the bishop of Magdeburg in Germany render this a volume of remarkable depth and worth.
Michael W. Brierley is the canon precentor of Worcester Cathedral. He is the editor of Public Life and the Place of the Church (Ashgate, 2006), and the author of a dozen articles on the history of twentieth-century theology.
Georgina A. Byrne is a residentiary canon of Worcester Cathedral and a chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen. She is the author of Modern Spiritualism and the Church of England, 1850-1939 (Boydell, 2010).
“Padres were given a rough ride by British memoir writers of the First World War. However, Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, ‘Woodbine Willie’ to the soldiers, demonstrates how wrong they were. His reflections on the war and its implications for his own Christian faith resonate to this day. The innumerable insights in this powerful book make plain how the conflict’s spiritual challenge still reverberates.”
—SIR Hew Strachan, author of the Oxford University Press History of the First World War
“Michael Brierley and Georgina Byrne have judiciously gathered these measured essays on ministry, suffering, tragedy, and hope: they leave the reader more immersed in sadness, admiration, desolation, and ultimately faith. After all, if Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy’s life was a failure, so was that of Jesus.”
—Sam Wells, Vicar, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
“Life after Tragedy is a profound and moving account of the struggle of Christian theology with the ravages of the First World War. . . . Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the earthquake that was the Great War.”
—Jay Winter, Yale University
“A significant contribution to the flourishing revisionist scholarship on religion and war, the central essays in this volume . . . offer a set of moving, often provocative reflections on the complex and transformative relations between faith and suffering that are as relevant now as they have ever been.”
—Sue Morgan, University of Chichester, UK
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