Huge subject - but I've been reading memoirs and histories of WWII in the past couple of years, and pondering the spiritual effect this six year conflict had on the British people, especially.
I have known for a while that WWI was the last time there was a significant Christian revival in the UK, in terms of a great increase in interest in "higher things" as well as full churches and more participation in public activities.
This is confirmed by comments by CS Lewis and his circle, who noticed the revival and specualted about its meaning and direction.
But I have become more aware of the negative effects of the war on British spiritual life. The obvious thing was recorded by Orwell - the qualitative acceleration of totalitarian bureaucracy, which is intrinsically evil - by which I mean, the totalitarian systematization and directing of Mankind is evil, and corrupts men; no matter what purpose it is used for.
As part of this totalitarianism; the war brought a tremendous increase in systemic dishonesty. It seems that - from top to bottom - the attitude became focused on the predicted behavioural effect of statements - to which an understanding of actual reality would routinely (and indeed compulsorily) be subordinated.
I suspect that a great deal of the Christian revival was atavistic, backward looking, and attempt to recover an irrecoverable earlier stage of human religious consciousness.
The revival mostly took the form of a (doomed to fail) attempt to revive the church-rooted ("medieval-premodern) form of top-down and mediated Christianity - and Christian spirituality was linked to this earlier, traditional, social form.
After the war, the nation moved forward from its totalitarian (hence atheistic) wartime basis; and this was extended by the merger, bureaucratisation, and nationalization of many major industries and social activities. This created a secular public discourse, hence excluded Christianity, and the wartime revival rapidly collapsed.
It appears that, in this era of human consciousness, war is always totalitarian, therefore innately hostile to the kind of spirituality that is necessary to Christianity.
The sense of a nation or people in unity, self-sacrificing and cooperating on communal projects, working together for a common cause -- these are no longer net-benefits, but mostly mass psychological manipulations with evil intent behind them.
I suspect that it would now be mistaken to expect any large scale spiritual benefits from war - which may be why so much high-level geopolitical activity is currently focused an escalating and spreading wars.
In other words, mass Christianity used to be a benefit of war; but I think that mass Christianity is no longer possible - and the attempt to revive it will instead feed into the evil of totalitarianism.
Of course, any individual person may choose to take personal spiritual responsibility, and learn spiritually from whatever his situation - including war.
But modern war is extremely hostile to this situation of "ultimate beingness".
For proof, we need look no further than the sin of dishonesty - and the extent to which systemic misrepresentation (untruthfulness of all kinds: hype, spin, selectivity, distortion, lies; i.e. a focus on shaping mass behavioural responses to "information") - has become integral to societal functioning.
Once you become aware of this lethal defect, and begin to look for it; you will find manipulative dishonesty to be pervasive - not just at the political-institutional-corporate level, but almost everywhere and continuous among those who contribute to public discourse (including bloggers!).
Of course, everyone who is part of the systemic dishonesty will publicly justify himself by claiming that it is in a good cause. But unless he recognizes and repents (privately, at least) the innate evil of dishonesty; then he is lost - spiritually speaking.
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