The Churchill Cult in the United States finds its most tangible expression in Fulton, Missouri the site of his famous speech. Though most people are unaware of this, a small London church (reconstructed by Wren after the 1666 fire) was dismantled in the 1960's and moved to Missouri and is a symbolic platform for the Churchill museum. In a kind of strange commemorative fusion it combines Churchill, Christianity and (it would seem) the call to take up arms in the Cold War.
Rather than condemn this
confusion and heresy, the Christian Right champions this syncretism and more
than once I've heard revisionist historians on Christian radio attempting (but
failing) to argue that Churchill was some kind of Evangelical Christian. One of
the worst examples of this is seen with the 2016 Sandys-Henley work: God & Churchill: How the Great Leader's Sense of
Divine Destiny Changed His Troubled World and Offers Hope for Ours.
This ear-tickler received praise from the Evangelical community and
demonstrates the cultural and historical ineptitude of its endorsers, men such
as Os Guinness, Timothy George, and Ed Young. But what really got me was the
author of the forward. In some respects it's just the final insult to truth and
in other respects entirely appropriate – the author is another war criminal and
political deceiver, James Baker III.
And
speaking of blind Evangelical leaders and historical and cultural incompetents
I quote Albert Mohler's endorsement in full:
Winston Churchill was the
greatest leader of the 20th century, and yet he never stood alone. Churchill
understood what many of his biographers have not―that he was driven by an unshakable
confidence in God’s providence in his life and destiny, and in the destiny of
the cause he so bravely defended. In this book, Churchill’s great-grandson,
Jonathan Sandys, and an experienced student of political leadership, Wallace
Henley, clarify what so many other biographers of Churchill have confused.
Churchill believed that he was defending nothing less than Christian
civilization, and he believed that God was on his side. Readers of this book
will wholeheartedly agree.-- R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Dispensing with the absurdities of Christian Civilization
both on a theoretical level and in particular with regard to the blasphemous abomination
that was the British Empire, we must ask was Churchill really a paragon of
vigilance regarding evil, a man who understood the times? I think it a hard
case to make but it is not difficult to demonstrate his political opportunism
and endless warmongering which played no small part in the disastrous world
wars.
There are those such as Mohler who have long taken the
Churchillian posture with regard to the likes of Vladimir Putin and would paint
him as a Hitler-figure – only demonstrating their own (sometimes stunning) ignorance
about not only Russian history, but European and American history – and it
could be said with a special emphasis on the past thirty years.
In fact in their zeal to defend the West against a monster,
when combined with the false lessons they have supposedly learned via
Churchill, the very vigilance they endlessly trumpet has played no small role
in creating the monster that hitherto did not exist. This is not to defend
either Hitler or Putin – not for a moment. But they must be understood in a
context and not represented as sui generis, as unaccountable and ahistorical
evils – because they're not. They are evils that are the result of other evils
– broken and destroyed societies produce monsters and yet in the context of war
and geopolitics, it is usually other monsters that so devastate a society.
There is a circularity and self-perpetuating momentum to this process. And yet
the victors write the history and often play fast and loose with the record as
well as framing it in a self-serving manner.
What we have witnessed with the Churchill cult is a kind of tortured
and distorted moral lesson. They make him a hero of freedom but from a
Christian standpoint he should be viewed as a distorted thinker at best and an apologist
and defender of empire – once again not a person Christians should look up to.
Returning to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, they have made this
one-time actor whose administration was previously known for collaboration with
Ukrainian fascist elements and rampant political corruption (from the
manipulation of the judiciary to the outlawing of political rivals) into a
champion of liberal democracy, a beacon for the West, indeed the next Winston
Churchill. The comparison is frequently made.
It's absurd on every front. Sadly Zelenskiy is a compromised
figure who has shown little more than a willingness to sacrifice the lives of
his people on a massive scale – as stooges or proxies for the Western powers.
And there's more to the story that hasn't been told as he
seemed willing to cut a very un-Churchill-like deal with Moscow back during the
spring of 2022 – but a visit from Boris Johnson seemed to change that. Was it
matter of persuasion or threat? Time will tell.
In the meantime the legend lives on and continues to grow.
Regardless of what one thinks of Winston Churchill, from my perspective it's
telling the Evangelical Church has functionally beatified this man who was most
certainly no Christian but instead defended the sword and mammon values the
apostate Church of our day has come to treasure. In some respects it could be
said the Churchill Cult paved the way for another cult – that of Donald Trump.
Here are some pertinent links:
https://theaquilareport.com/winston-churchill-a-surprising-champion-of-christian-heritage/
The real value in the Aquila Report piece is the discussion
of Peter Hitchens who rightly argues that Britain came out the great loser in
the war and Churchill played no small part in that – even while World War II
has become the religion of modern Britain and Churchill its messiah. The
supposed Christianity of the man is little more than the Establishment
Anglicanism of the late Victorian period which conflated and confused
Britishness and the British Empire with the Kingdom of God – more a system of
ethics and deontological imperatives than anything to do with a gospel of
reconciliation, repentance, and faith, let alone union with Christ.
In the end the argument amounts to this – he wasn't actually
a Christian but even as an unregenerate man he thought and acted like one. This
kind of muddled and un-Christian thinking is the result of sacralist
categories, the other gospel that redefines redemption in terms of
non-covenanted kingdoms – which the New Testament reveals are in fact under the
aegis of Satan. And in positing this framework, even while meaning to serve and
glorify Christ, they instead corrupt the gospel, allow the wolves in the fold,
and pledge their lives, treasure, and honour not to Christ but to his
adversary. Confusing the promise of the Heavenly Kingdom with the offer made by
Satan to our Lord in the wilderness, they opt for the kingdoms of this world
and all their wealth and power – and worship its god as a result. This is how
serious this is. It's no trifle.
There are plenty of other examples such as the following confused
and muddled thinking about societal decline. This piece was written by the
co-author of the aforementioned book that argues Churchill was in fact a
Christian – as defined by Scripture.
Other links of interest:
https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/sinews-of-peace-iron-curtain-speech.html
https://www.amazon.com/God-Churchill-Leaders-Destiny-Troubled/dp/1496419839/
And finally some previous work by this author that also deals
with the question of Churchill.
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-end-of-world-war-ii-in-europe.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-end-of-world-war-ii-in-europe_10.html