This is an ambitious volume of nine essays which try to cover aspects of the Church of England's understanding of and involvement in armed conflict through the course of the twentieth century. It begins at the turn of the century with the Boer War, and concludes with the military interventions in the Gulf and in Kosovo in the 1990s. In his wide-ranging essay on the Boer War, particularly as this affected the clergy of the Diocese of Winchester, Mark Allen shows that the Church of England was more subtle in its response to the war than might have been expected and was very far from being blindly supportive and jingoistic. His local study confirms many of the findings of my essay on a similar theme (‘Theological Responses in England to the South African War, 1899–1902’, Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte/Journal for the History of Modern Theology 16.2 (2009), pp. 181–96) which forms his starting point. This chapter is followed by another impressive essay by Stuart Bell on the Church and the First World War, which provides a useful summary of past work on the subject as well as pointers for further research. Bell's essay seeks to understand the responses of the Church in context rather than through the lens of the kind of rhetoric of ‘Oh! What a lovely War’: Bell offers a useful overview of both church history and theology, especially the idea of a suffering God so passionately maintained by chaplains such as Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy.

Stephen Parker addresses a different set of issues in his essay on ‘Reinvigorating Christian Britain’ where he discusses ‘The Spiritual Issues of the War, National Identity and the Hope of Religious Education’ in relation to the Second World War and the issue of compulsory religious education in state schools. From a different perspective, Andrea Harris addresses Sex and the Church, particularly in relation to sexually transmitted diseases, which were regarded by many as a symptom of national moral decline. The Moral Welfare Council, for instance, produced pamphlets charting the terrible emotional traumas and desires suffered by the young people serving their nation, some of whom were ‘tortured by masturbation’ and ‘crazy with homosexual desires’ (p. 89). Many – including Archbishop William Temple – felt that the only way out of such depravity was to reawaken a sense of obligation towards God. What was quite extraordinary was the level of ignorance about sex, as well as a reluctance among the Church and the Ministry of Health to offer practical advice on how to avoid disease. One Mass Observation interviewee is reported to have said: ‘I suppose that's the influence of the bloody Church. I think the Ministry of Health ought to set it aside and take the thing seriously’ (p. 97). It was not until the 1960s that sex education came to be regarded as acceptable in school classrooms (rather than in the lavatories).

Philip Coupland's essay discusses peace activists and visions of reconstruction during the Second World War, focusing on the complex political views of such characters as Maurice Reckitt of the Christendom Group, as well as the opposition to war that came from supporters of fascism, which had a modest number of supporters among Anglican clergy. Sometimes a nostalgic romanticism seemed to prevail over the realities of politics, although for the most part the Christendom Group supported the sorts of activities that led to the Malvern Conference of 1941 with its call for a welfare state and the creation of a more egalitarian England. The next essay, by Dianne Kirby on the Cold War, is a wide-ranging and solid piece that tackles the Anglican hierarchy's response to perceived Soviet aggression, and its use of Cold War rhetoric. In an excellent essay, Matthew Grimley charts the role of Anglicans within the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and notes Christopher Driver's accurate assessment of what he called ‘a strange form of inverted nationalism’, ‘a belief that Britain was still so great a power, that, if it unilaterally disarmed, the world would have to take note’ (p. 164). It took the nation, like its church, a very long time to wake up to the decline of its perceived status of invulnerability.

Cliff Williamson then discusses the Church of England's role during the Falklands War. Although the main thrust of the account is accurate, especially in the role taken by Robert Runcie, the essay is littered with factual errors: Canon John Collins is called ‘Dean of St Paul's’, Geoffrey Paul, suffragan bishop of Hull, is called Geoffrey Hull, and Hugh Montefiore is said to have been ‘suffragan bishop of Southwark’ when Runcie was appointed archbishop in 1979, when he was already in Birmingham (and he was suffragan bishop of Kingston in the diocese of Southwark before that). Even more inaccurate is the claim that the indefatigable Donald Soper was the ‘first Wesleyan bishop to sit in the Upper House’ (p. 170) which would have surprised him as much as anybody else. The final essay by Peter Lee brings the collection almost up to date with a discussion of military intervention after 1989, with a good case study of the different reactions to the Gulf War of 1991.

Overall, this is a worthwhile volume that adds a great deal to our understanding of the role of the Church of England through a century of unprecedented conflict. It is a great pity that there are such large numbers of elementary grammatical errors, for instance, where commas are used in place of full stops. There are also a few elementary errors in the use of ecclesiastical titles and the like: at one point the Anglican Communion is called the ‘Anglican Community’ (p. 132). That said, this is a valuable and important volume which helps in the reappraisal of the role of the Christian Churches in time of war.