The Second World War: Britain's Modern Moral Myth

I'm writing from Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, one of the Normandy coastal towns liberated by the Allies on D-Day, 6th June 1944. Here by Omaha Beach, the legacy of the Second World War is quite inescapable. Almost every signpost points to a battleground, memorial or museum, and the landscape looks just like those images ingrained in our minds by Saving Private Ryan (1998), Band of Brothers (2001) and, filmed on these same beaches, The Longest Day (1962).

The War, however, is inescapable everywhere, perhaps especially in the British mindset. The 'Blitz spirit' was invoked during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and Vera Lynn's 1939 song 'We'll Meet Again' was once again on the air; and, during the BLM protests in London, Winston Churchill's statue became the locus of public grievances. The War has permeated beyond our films and museums, and beyond our national pride and politics. The memory of the War has become intrinsic to our sense of morality. It is, in short, the foundation myth of modern Britain.

War films will always be popular. The extraordinary resourcefulness, bravery and heroism of men and women during these years rightly grip our imagination. One major reason why we find these stories so captivating is our instant familiarity with the world of these stories; we already know who the heroes and the villains are, we know what's at stake, and how the story will ultimately end. The moral force of the War as a climactic struggle between good and evil is made instantly accessible through the lens of story.

In a world that has lost its faith and rejected the moral framework of the Christian worldview, the grand and operatic theatre of the Second World War can act as a sort of proxy for our moral compass, providing an irresistible substitute moral myth. I love these films (and have particular favourites I would love to discuss), but I think it worthwhile to consider briefly some of the implications of adopting this as our moral story.

Prof. Alec Ryrie has written an excellent article on this subject for BBC History, 'Our Dangerous Devotion to the Second World War'. It is one of the most insightful essays I have read. Ryrie develops this idea of the potency of Nazism in the modern moral imagination, arguing that World War II has become 'the defining moral event of our times, the sacred story of a secular age', and I certainly agree. Ryrie continues: 'Our culture’s most potent moral figure is no longer Jesus Christ: it is Adolf Hitler. Once Jesus taught us what was good; now Hitler teaches us what is evil. To call someone a Nazi is the ultimate moral insult.' 

As Ryrie suggests, the War has displaced the Gospel as the central moral story of modern life. The Allies vs the Axis Powers, fighting for liberty and democracy against pure evil, is the apex of our moral code. Whilst other wars have good and bad causes, the Second World War has become the last just war. Britain proved her mettle and resolve, and the United States was sanctified as the saviour of the free world. Ryrie's observation that Hitler is our 'most potent moral figure' carries with it troublesome baggage, however. Hitler endures as the arch-enemy in popular culture and the closest approximation to ultimate evil we can point to, but he is no more the final word on evil than the First World War was "the war to end all wars". The twentieth century is riddled with evil men: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ceaușescu, Idi Amin, etc. I am not opining here on whether Communism or Nazism was a worse or more pernicious ideology; such a discussion misses the point. All this is to say, there is no such thing as 'ultimate' evil, and no person, group or ideology has a monopoly on it.

Nevertheless, the post-War mindset is largely built upon a storylike view of what evil is, but lacks a definition of proactive good. As Ryrie points out, 'good' no longer means imitating Christ's example, but means 'opposing evil'. This oversimplification of ethics is precarious ground upon which to build our moral framework. It is perhaps this that allows us to overlook the many faults of the Allies (e.g., brutal purges of Vichy collaborators, indiscriminate civilian bombings, Stalin's coldblooded tactics), excusing these as proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The opposite also seems to be true: A favourite pastime at the moment seems to be to dig up dirt on every man put on a pedestal as a hero. Perhaps somewhere in the philosophy driving this is a fierce rejection of the black-and-white stories we tell ourselves. 

Overlooking some evils whilst villifying some of the good indicates a real moral confusion. The root of this comes from replacing the Gospel with the War as the centre of our cultural focus. The War cannot offer a sufficient basis for our moral conversation. In the remaining space, let me offer three reasons for this incompatibility.

Firstly, the post-War worldview begins with evil, and then defines good. Christianity is the complete opposite; the Christian worldview begins with God: 'Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!' (Psalm 106.1) God is good, and so was the world he created. The refrain of Genesis 1 is 'and God saw that it was good'. 'Good', therefore, cannot be defined primarily as 'opposing evil'. It pre-existed evil. Evil - sin - is the distortion of the good. The centrepiece of the Gospel and its central moral episode is Jesus' death on the Cross. This did oppose evil, defeating Satan and conquering the power of sin and the grave, but the Cross is fundamentally the supreme act of love, reconciling us with the just Creator whom we have all sinned against. This good God of love must be the beginning and the end of the Christian moral framework.

Secondly, taking the story-view of 'good vs evil' also leaves us prone to the trap of thinking that evil is somehow 'out there', that evil is the result of destructive ideologies or the faults of other people. Placing this thinking at the core of our morality shows a fatal lack of self-scrutiny. After all, it was the totalitarians who thought the world's problems could be dealt with by removing certain undesirables from society. This line of thinking is deaf to the great, tragic lesson of the twentieth century: No one is without guilt. No one is beyond the touch of evil. Any one of us could have been a guard for the Gulag. Evil is not the result of a warped philosophy or a villainous class of people, but is spawned by every human heart. 

Again, Christianity accounts for this. Evil enters the world through the individual disobedience of Adam and Eve, and still blights Creation. The Bible does not put people into categories of 'good' and 'bad'. Rather:

The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14.2-3)

The root cause of evil is the sinfulness of every human heart. Surely, if this is not already self-evident, this is the legacy of the horrors of the last century? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, spent decades in the Soviet Gulags. He came to realise this himself:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? - The Gulag Archipelago (Collins, 1974), p. 168.

Who indeed?

Thirdly, and finally, history offers us no solution to this problem of evil. There will always be another villain, another war to be waged or injustice to be corrected. History is a long and sorrowful catalogue of our desperate situation. This returns us to the reason why the Cross of Christ is so deeply rooted, because it not only diagnoses the problem of evil, but provides a solution. Jesus is not merely a hero worth imitating, but, as John the Baptist exclaimed: 'Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!' (John 1.29) Jesus lived perfectly without sin, and his sacrifice on the Cross takes away our sin and secures for us a new life in him. Paul explains it this way to the Romans:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned [...] For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. [...] For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 6.12, 17, 19)

Justice and peace must be provided and protected, but Christianity does not say the world's problems are resolved by 'opposing evil' in these ways. Rather, it is by God cleansing us from sin and transforming each and every heart that we will be saved. And by his strength, many human evils have been opposed along the way. 

I enjoy the freedoms I have thanks to the bravery of the soldiers who landed on Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches, and the thousands of men and women who sacrificed so much, before and since, to protect and secure these freedoms. It is good and proper to honour them, but it is not by looking to the greatest generation that our age of moral confusion and discontent will be resolved. The solution is not to rewrite the narrative. The solution is to come to Christ.