The United Reformed Church Chesham

Dear Friends,

Onward Christian Soldiers

When I was a child, Onward Christian Soldiers, sung to the tune St Gertrude by Sir Arthur Sullivan, was a favourite hymn in the first part of the church service when Sunday School scholars joined the Congregation. It was based on 2 Timothy 2 v 3 which in the NRSV translates as “Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”

When Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met in August 1941 on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales to agree the Atlantic Charter, a church service was held for which Prime Minister Churchill chose "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and afterwards in a radio broadcast explained his choice.

“We sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers" indeed, and I felt that this was no vain presumption, but that we had the right to feel that we were serving a cause for the sake of which a trumpet has sounded from on high. When I looked upon that densely packed congregation of fighting men of the same language, of the same faith, of the same fundamental laws, of the same ideals, it swept across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation.”

Reading the above in Wikipedia brought back a memory that my mother told me the Second World War was a just war unlike all the previous wars. However, as Christian leaders reflected on the theology of war and with the evil of using children as soldiers becoming prevalent the hymn went out of fashion and was rarely sung in church. When the Revd Margaret Callow was minister at Walton on Thames Methodist Church it coincided with the centenary of Arthur Sullivan’s death in November 1900 in Walton on Thames. The Arthur Sullivan Society asked Margaret if they could come to a service to sing Onward Christian Soldiers. Margaret was not at all happy with the request, however I discovered that a new hymn “Onward Christian Pilgrims” had been written by Michael Forster for the same tune. Fortunately, the Arthur Sullivan enthusiasts were only interested in the tune and readily agreed to the different words.

However, led by the Government of the United States the concept of Christian Soldiers appears to be returning with the claim of a “just war”. It is good to see the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and our own Church leaders make clear their disagreement. It has always worried me that human beings seem to need a divine justification to go to war whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish. The God we worship sides with the oppressed, hears the cry of the wounded, and judges the arrogance of those who believe violence will secure their future.

May we all be channels of peace.

Alan Callow