American Churches and the First World War ed. by Gordon L. Heath (review)

World War I feels like a neglected moment of history despite the conflict's magnitude, the lost lives, and what it set in motion for the twentieth century. Scholars have given it less attention than subsequent wars, including historians of religion. Solid studies, such as Jonathan Ebel's Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War (2010), are few and far between. Now Heath's book adds an edited collection of well written and solidly investigated denominational and institutional histories to understandings of World War I.

Most of the essays are closely researched and soundly interpreted pieces on how the war affected single denominations. For example, pacifist denominations struggled internally over the viability of their antiwar stance; Pentecostals suffered public persecution and discord in the ranks; Quakers had an internal leadership skirmish followed by the U.S. government attacking them; and Jehovah's Witnesses faced discrimination because of their pacifism. Mennonites, and to a lesser extent Quakers, best navigated their pacifism by combining it with alternative means to serve the country, thus avoiding some of the harshest attacks on their patriotism while actually strengthening their pacifism amidst the war. Evangelicals prove the most difficult to study because of their decentralization and the range of their political and theological opinions, leaving the chapter about them somewhat too historiographical and less concrete than others. The Catholic Church confronted its ethnic diversity and myriad of differing stances on the war, but in general backed away from support for American neutrality and turned to supporting the war, with little internal opposition. For the Mormon Church, the war proved a turning point in its conflicted history with the nation. Mormons moved from a careful detachment and suspicion of the United States, through a questioning of nationalism, and arrived at a more pro-American patriotism that held sway throughout the twentieth century. In addition to these denominational histories, an essay on the military chaplaincy and Christian responses to the Armenian Genocide round out this excellent book.

While religious history too often overlooks Lutherans, this volume includes them! Mark Granquist was a fine choice to author this chapter, having written the most recent and soundly argued history of American Lutherans (Lutherans in America: A New History, 2015). He incorporates Lutherans of varying ethnicities and theological stances, thus offering a broad overview of their World War I reactions. He also discusses the influence of historic Lutheran quietism on World War I, and explains how the war nonetheless served as a change catalyst. The conflict moved many Lutherans away from German-language services and also thrust them into taking on a bigger role in leading global Lutheranism amidst the war's destruction of European institutions. Despite their affinity for isolationism and mild leaning toward a pro-German viewpoint prior to the United States's entry, Lutherans demonstrated loyalty to America with ministry to troops and a broader integration into American life. Granquist's essay proves one of the best, with a skillful summary of a complex history in a compact format, without the temptation to over-simplify American Lutheranism.

Some might criticize the majority of contributions for their top-down approach, but with the scant attention paid thus far to World War I, these meaningful and crucial essays serve to stimulate conversation. Frankly, this concern illustrates that much more study of World War I is needed to provide a complete picture. In addition to more lay opinions, more denominations need to be added, such as the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Episcopalians. The volume could have doubled in size and still missed worthy aspects of World War I's religious dimensions. More problematic for this volume, and a desperate need for future studies, is the need for diversity with the inclusion of historically African American denominations and other minority racial communities.

Nonetheless, Heath's concise, readable book advances the historiography and establishes starting points for scholars to expand our knowledge about...