Providence, thanksgiving, and VE Day
Throughout the day, a series of services was held at St Paul’s Cathedral, the high point being the packed victory thanksgiving service held at noon. There the worshippers were implored not to take service sheets away with them as there was a shortage and they would be needed subsequently. Crowds waited for hours on the steps outside the cathedral and beyond to be admitted.
At 9 p.m., King George VI’s broadcast to the nation was relayed to the final congregation of the day. In all, about 35,000 people visited the cathedral that day to give thanks - Church Times.
His Majesty's address commenced:
Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance.
He ended:
In the hour of danger we humbly committed our cause into the Hand of God, and He has been our Strength and Shield. Let us thank Him for His mercies, and in this hour of Victory commit ourselves and our new task to the guidance of that same strong Hand.
The Bidding in the 'Short Thanksgiving for Victory' service which was repeated on the hour in Westminster Abbey on this day in 1945 declared:
Let us therefore offer high praise and thanksgiving to the God of all mercies for the success which He has granted to us and to our Allies: for the faith which has upheld us through the years of danger and suffering; for the skill of our leaders and the valour and steadfastness of sailors, soldiers and airmen; for the hope that we are about to enter upon a righteous and abiding peace; for the holy memory and high example of that great company of men and women, known and unknown, whose faith and courage God has inspired and used.
What is striking in these texts and accounts is the unembarrassed sense of providence underpinning the thanksgiving and celebration. Europe had been delivered from the dark evil of Nazism. This was an act of providence. Robust thanksgiving was called for.
Affirming the working of providence ensured that victory was understood to be gift and blessing. In other words, it could not be meaningfully understood in purely secular terms. Thanksgiving ordered the outpouring of celebrations towards God's goodness and mercy.
To state the obvious, discerning the workings of providence is not always as straightforward as it was on 8th May 1945. This, however, should not prevent the Church from affirming God's providence, seeking to discern such providence, and giving thanks for the evidences of God's goodness and mercy in the affairs of the nations. A failure to do so, preferring a rather tortured discourse of uncertainty and ambivalence, lacking coherence and conviction in the public realm, marginalises the Christian Faith and allows secular narratives to shape the cultural imagination.
It is worth noting in this regard that post-1945 saw noticeable growth for Anglicanism in England, Canada, Australia, and the United States. A number of factors, of course, contributed to this, but a case can surely be made that the ability to coherently and convincingly draw the events of the Second World War into a meaningful and culturally resonant Christian narrative was one such contributing factor.
On this 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe, let us give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance. And let us strive to recover a public theology unembarrassed by providence and God's workings in the affairs of the nations of this world.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we offer unto Thee humble and hearty thanks for the victory with which Thou hast blest the cause of freedom and for once more guiding our feet into the way of peace. In this hour of triumph keep us humble and fully mindful of our dependence upon Thee, remembering that Thou alone canst enable us to secure through this victory in war a just and durable peace - VE Day prayer prepared by the then Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
(The photograph is of St Paul's Cathedral illuminated on VE Day 1945.)
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