Duty and Destiny
The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill
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- $30.99
Publisher Description
A nuanced portrait of a great historical figure considered everything from a "God-haunted man" to a "stalwart nonbeliever"
What did faith mean to Winston Churchill?
Churchill was far from transparent about his religious beliefs and never regularly attended church services as an adult, even considering himself "not a pillar of the church but a buttress," in the sense that he supported it "from the outside." But Gary Scott Smith assembles pieces of Churchill's life and words to convey the profound sense of duty and destiny, partly inspired by his religious convictions, that undergirded his outlook. Reflecting on becoming prime minister in 1940, he wrote, "It felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial." In a similarly grand fashion, he described opposing the Nazis—and later the Soviets—as a struggle between light and darkness, driven by the duty to preserve "humane, enlightened, Christian society."
Though Churchill harbored intellectual doubts about Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless valued it greatly and drew on its resources, especially in the crucible of war. In Duty and Destiny, Smith unpacks Churchill's paradoxical religious views and carefully analyzes the complexities of his legacy. This thorough examination of Churchill's religious life provides a new narrative structure to make sense of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith (A History of Christianity in Pittsburgh), professor of history emeritus at Grove City College, takes a cursory look at "how religious convictions may have influenced his objectives and policies" in this thin study. Drawing on existing scholarship as well as Churchill's letters and diaries, Smith walks readers through Churchill's childhood of neglect, how attending boarding schools inspired in him a dislike for authoritarian rules (particularly from Catholic clergy), his experiences as a soldier and war correspondent, and his role as a "statesmen and evangelist" working to defeat and reform Europe after "the Devil" Hitler's catastrophic rise to power. It's difficult, however, to find any argument or thesis here. The bulk of the work consists of quotes or statements from other historians or the Churchill family, which appear with little or no analysis or comment from Smith himself. The author assembles a rich trove of source material, but fails to do anything of note with it.
