Anglican war chaplains saw terrible things on the Western Front in the First World War and many were hailed as heroes for ministering to dying men amid the shell fire and machinegun bullets in no man\u2019s land. They returned to their pulpits with a righteous anger to change their church and British society.<\/p>\n
Linda Parker\u2019s wide-ranging book, Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Interwar Britain, tells the story of this brave band of Anglican clergyman \u201d\u201d who were awarded around 250 Military Crosses between them \u201d\u201d and then helped to transform the church. \u201cGiven the changes that occurred in the Church of England institutionally, liturgically and in its attitudes to a rapidly changing society, it is important that the role of former chaplains should be examined and their significance analysed,\u201d\u009d says Dr Parker, herself the daughter of a former Territorial Army chaplain.<\/p>\n
A harbinger of social change in the church was the Industrial Christian Fellowship founded by the Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, MC,in 1919 to encourage Christians to relate their faith to their working lives. As chief \u201cmissioner\u201d\u009d, Studdert Kennedy travelled the country evangelising in factories, mines and canteens, and gathered about him a team of other ex-war chaplains.<\/p>\n