Onward Christian Soldiers?

Question

Great hymn isnt it? My question is about WW2! Not all Germans were fascists, in fact just a minority, most were Christians, their religious leaders went into battle with them, and they all prayed to their Christian God.
The vast majority of the allies were Christians, and their religious leaders also went into battle with them! and they also all prayed to their Christian God!
Then they all set about killing each other!
Question :- Is fighting for your country more important than your Christian beliefs ??

Answer 1

Doing what you know is right is more important than either of those things. "I was just following orders" doesn't cut it anymore.

"That's what is says in the bible" REALLY doesn't cut it.

Answer 2

From Hitler downwards they were for the most part Roman catholics, please do NOT get Rcs mixed up with Christians they are NOT.
Most of the SS were RCs and they did a fine job of cruelty, they loved torturing people, they were so wicked, and all supported by the Vatican. Don't tell me they are Christian. They pray and worship idols and their god is a piece of bread! What has that got to do with Christianity?
Not all Germans were fascists, that is true But ALL THE RC LEADERS WERE!
Did you know that if any of the Jews in the death camps converted to Catholicism they would have had their lives spared!
The God of the Bible is a far greater God and He is more important than any beliefs.

Answer 3

Can't say it's a favourite of mine but I always understood the hymn to refer to a spiritual battle rather than any specific 'worldly' conflict.

Certainly there must have been Christians on both sides of WW2. However, perhaps for another thread, Hitler was known to be interested in the occult.

Personally, I don't believe that the Christian faith conflicts with fighting for your country. It would conflict with war crimes and some of the atrocities we hear about though.

Seems to me that wars are inevitable and a sad reflection on how people can be. Christians have fought Christians and may do so in the future.

Answer 4

No. Nothing comes before God.

If there is a war, due to a Faith based as Christian, then, load your guns pal.

I know where your going with this. and NO. That won't work either. Good try.

ONE GREAT BIG MAJOR FLAW MY FRIEND. The Christian God will not have Christians killing one another. end of story.
Lets stic with WW2, that war is not Old Testament.


Have a nice week.

Answer 5

I think you're confusing religion with theology or ideology a little bit - most Christians would tell you that you can't be a Christian AND a fascist, but there have been a heck of a lot of people who would dispute that over the years since WW2, and there are still plenty of people who would happily call themselves Christian AND fascist, or even a Nazi. There are a number of groups in the US particularly, but also Europe who call themselves Christian but support viewpoints that many other people consider fascistic, such as those that are pro-life but also pro-death sentence for example. It's such a big question to answer because religion, even Christianity, means such different things to different people. You also need to consider the propaganda machine that was at work on both sides during the war - you can't have people being sent to war thinking about killing their fellow Christians, so it was necessary for both sides to work to paint a picture of the other side that disregarded their religion completely, and merely painted them as "the enemy". Otherwise you'd have people refusing to fight, and they couldn't let THAT happen... I guess the answer would be that fighting for your country is always going to take precedence over fighting for your religion for the majority of people, because most people want to protect what is nearest to them (friends, family, home), but you only have to look at the bombings in London, or what happens everyday in Iraq to see that there are an increasing number of people who are prepared to put their religion before their country (by attacking their country for the sake of their religion) and I think most people would agree that kind of single-mindedness doesn't lead in a very healthy direction, as religion tends not to when it's taken to extremes.

Answer 6

The Germans were killing millions of people in Concentration Camps and trying to wipe out all of those who did no conform to their ideal (Jews, Gypsies, gays, non-aryans, political dissenters, resistance members). In my opinion they were not acting in a Christian manner. Many of the German soldiers were conscripted and children were forced to be in the Hitler Youth, they were doing what they had to in order to survive. The Allies however were against all the efforts to create a Master race, eradicating the Jews etc and trying to tale over all of Europe. Which side was acting in a true Christian manner? You got it, the Allies. We were fighting against cruelty, oppression and needless killing, the Germans were fighing for all thise evil things. It wasn't a case of religious war, not like the Crusades but a war of right against wrong.

Answer 7

Yeah my well-known, sums up my Christian faith a take care of, the author odf nthe lyrics, Baring-Gould wrote about this hymn: . i pick­ed the youngster­ren to sing even as march­ing from one vil­lage to a unique, yet couldn’t imagine of any­element particularly in good structure­a­ble; so I sat up at evening, re­solved that i might want to write some­element myself. “Onward, Christ­ian Sol­diers” became the re­sult. It became writ­ten in tremendous haste, and that i'm afraid a number of the rhymes are defective. Cer­tain­ly no­element has sur­prised me more advantageous than its pop­u­lar­i­ty. . the first verse is, Onward, Christian squaddies, marching as to warfare, With the flow of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal carry close, leads adverse to the foe; ahead into conflict see His banners bypass! You ignored a line and also you ignored a verse What the saints known that I carry for real. What the saints believèd, that i have self belief too. lengthy as earth endureth, adult males the religion will carry, Kingdoms, international locations, empires, in destruction rolled. Brass Band foremost banners flying the Salvation military dont choose guns with song like this, Muslims aint were given no longer something even remotely similar., unlike in Zulu with Michael Caine even as the Zulu horde attacked the only hundred Welshmen, and former Dai all started making a song adult males of Harlech, and the boys joined in and the Zulus were gruntin and the welsh making a song and as they attacked the Zulus heard the Welsh and the Zulus are wonderful musicians and they realised that any one which sung that badly might want to be fightin adult males no longer musicians and it became so undesirable they stuck their hands of their ears and its confusing to chuck a spear along with your hands on your ears.

Answer 8

There is a big difference here. The Allies were fighting for their freedom. And that is more important than your christian beliefs.
The germans weren't doing that. They were trying to eradicate other races, and invading other countries. Not very christian at all.

Answer 9

No, i think that these so called leaders of our countries should be put in a boxing ring and told to sort out their differences themselves! My betting is that would put a stop to all these needless wars and the killing of all these Innocent people who would probably have been Friends with the people they are fighting if the circumstances had been different.

Answer 10

YES it is more important than your religious beliefs. Religion is nothing more than brainwashing and a cult. If another nation invaded your country, IRAN for example, and gained control, because your religion came before fighting for your country, do you honestly think that you would be able to practice Christianity?

Answer 11

If you believe the bible and that god does exist, then this life is only mortal and fleeting, and your beliefs are much more important that what man whats.
Myself..i dunno..but thank god and god bless to all the men and woman who did have the courage to allow me to be able to respond to this question.