{"id":4866,"date":"2014-07-09T10:55:35","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T00:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=4866"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:24:01","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:24:01","slug":"beyond-the-church-parade-religious-beliefs-in-the-front-line-during-wwi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2014\/07\/09\/beyond-the-church-parade-religious-beliefs-in-the-front-line-during-wwi\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Church Parade: Religious beliefs in the front line during WWI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Soldier<\/a>
Australian WWI soldier-diarist, Henry Charles Marshall(1890-1915). Photo supplied by State Library of NSW.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today I am presenting a paper at the Religious History Association Conference which is running as an affiliated conference to the Australian Historical Association conference in Brisbane. This post provides an abstract of the paper and supporting information about my paper.<\/p>\n

To general readers of this blog I hope that this gives you a feel for the work behind an academic paper. This is the work I have been doing on and off behind the scenes for the last couple of years amidst everything else that life throws up. I hope to blog about the sessions I attended at the conference on Tuesday in the next couple of days. There have been some good discussions about how war both reinforces and challenges gender roles in society.<\/p>\n

Abstract<\/h2>\n

A review of World War I diaries reveals glimpses of the personal beliefs held by Australian soldiers serving on the frontline. Using research tools available to the twenty first century historian, such as digitised texts and programming, a collection has been made of the expressions of religious belief recorded by soldiers in their diaries while on active duty. Read with an understanding of the way audience and masculinity shaped the soldiers\u2019 reflections, these fragments give us greater insight into the forms and extent of personal religious beliefs held by Australian soldiers.<\/p>\n

A broad conception of religion has been used in this paper. This paper looks beyond the attendance at church parades to get some sense of the private beliefs of the soldiers.\u00a0I am not interested whether the expressions of faith by the soldiers conformed to the doctrines of traditional churches or even whether they were recognisably Christian at all.\u00a0 I am interested in a very broad conception of religious faith, one that recognises a greater mystical force, that explores life after death.<\/p>\n

This paper suggests that soldiers tended to keep their religious beliefs private in the face of a culture of masculinity in the Army which discouraged deep religious expression. However, it is important not to impute belief in the face of lack of evidence. There were Australian soldiers with religious conviction who served in WWI but ultimately we will never truly know what the soldiers were thinking and feeling. We have to accept that some things are hidden from the historian’s view.<\/p>\n

Suggested Posts to Read on this Blog<\/h2>\n

I have been writing around this topic on\u00a0Stumbling Through the Past<\/em> for some time. Aside from the relevant book reviews mentioned in the bibliography below, the following blog posts also relate to this paper:<\/p>\n