Vestiges of the First Christendom

A Great Hour to Live

Christendom has passed into history.  Christian Europe was the first Christendom.  We await the development and rise of the second, third, fourth . . . Christendoms.  In the meantime, so pagan has Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world now become it is difficult to imagine a time where so many people--a majority in fact--once took the existence of God and Christian teaching for granted.  But such indeed was the case.

By the time of the Second World War, Western Christendom was in its final stages of dissipation, soon to be replaced by a militant, secular, atheistic, materialistic humanism.  Whilst on the cusp of this new violent and decadent world, glimpses of the former heights could still be seen from time to time.




In August 1941, Winston Churchill and retinue secretly sailed across the Atlantic in the battleship H.M.S Prince of Wales to meet with President Roosevelt and key members of his administration for the first time.  Churchill describes a service of worship held during the conference.

On Sunday morning, August 10, Mr Roosevelt came aboard H.M.S. Prince of Wales and, with his Staff officers and several hundred representatives of all ranks of the United States Navy and Marines, attended Divine Service on the quarterdeck.  This service was felt by us all to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck--the symbolism of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes draped side by side on the pulpit; the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers; the highest naval, military, and air officers of Britain and the United States grouped in one body behind the President and me; the close-packed ranks of British and American sailors, completely intermingled, sharing the same books and joining fervently together in the prayers and hymns familiar to both.

I chose the hymns myself--"For Those in Peril on the Sea" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers".  We ended with "O God, Our Help in Ages Past", which Macaulay reminds us the Ironsides had chanted as they bore John Hampden's body to the grave.  Every word seem to stir the heart.  It was a great hour to live.  Nearly half those who sang were soon to die.*  [Winston Churchill, The Second World War (London: The Reprint Society, 1950).  Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance, p.345.]

So have passed some of the last vestiges of the First Christendom.   Now, nearly 75 years later, such a scene would be inconceivable and incomprehensible.  Nevertheless, we merry Christian warriors have not lost heart.  We know that the glory of God will one day cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and so labour in faith and a certain hope that our children's children unto a thousand generations may see it.  In the meantime, accounts such as this by Churchill continue to stir the heart.  Ours remains "a great hour to live" as we remember the  past and strive for future glories.  The Lord will mark our faithfulness, not our success.  For, as always, whilst ours, too, is a great hour to live, the times remain always in His hands.

*The Prince of Wales was sunk on 25 October 1941 by Japanese aircraft.  327 perished.