Faith, Suffering, and American Soldiers' Experiences of the First World War

Team Members/Contributors

Jonathan H. Ebel University of Chicago Divinity School Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

My dissertation, Faith, Suffering, and American Soldiers' Experiences of the Great War, is study of the faith of American soldiers of the Great War. This project is the first study of the religious experience of the Great War from the perspective of the American soldier. My thesis is that war-time experiences and post-war developments challenged a pervasive, if not always explicit, progressive Christian faith, transformed the faith of American soldiers, and left those who survived with far different notions of America's religious culture and appointed place in the world than they had at the outset, or that American culture embraces. I am drawing primarily on memoirs, diaries, and letters written by over two hundred and fifty American soldiers of diverse religious and economic backgrounds. The diaries of young men at war may appear to be an odd place to look for theology. Yet this body of personal literature contains extensive and complex religious reflections that have yet to be examined as such or woven into the larger narrative of America's religious history. My study also draws on the soldier-authored, Stars and Stripes, a widely-read newspaper published between February 1918 and June 1919. Both personal and public sources provide strong evidence of frequent, overtly religious conversations and reflections about the war.

The religious topics on which I have found the most extensive reflection are death and the afterlife, the question of design, the nature of religious authority, and the religious meaning of the Great War as an individual and a communal experience.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  Heroes in the Cause of God: Faith, Suffering, and American Soldiers' Experiences of the Great War 2005 Dissertation Jonathan H. Ebel
  "The Great War, Religious Authority, and the American Fighting Man" 2009 Journal Article Jonathan H. Ebel
Vol. 78(March 2009):99-133.
Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War 2014 Book Jonathan H. Ebel