'Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance': confident public Christianity on the 80th anniversary of VE Day

Dear friends, we have come together on this day to commemorate the anniversary of Victory in Europe. We come together conscious of our need for God’s forgiveness for the sin and the desire to dominate others that leads to conflict between people, and war between nation ... We gather joyfully today, as those who gathered on that first Victory day, glad of each other's company, and grateful for the laughter and love that follows times of sadness and loss

Such is the sterile, flat and distinctly uninspiring introduction to the Church of England's 'Outline Service for VE Day'. If this was not bad enough, there are the suggestions for the prayers - written by someone who appears to have been absolutely determined not to acknowledge the need for victory over Nazi Germany:

Prayers may include the following: 

- an expression of sorrow for the atrocities of war; 

- that former enemies may be forgiven, 

- that we may be freed from feelings of fear, revenge, and xenophobia, 

- and finally, that we may be thankful for times of peace and find joy in the company of one another. 

And missing entirely from this 'Outline Service for VE Day'? Any notion of thanksgiving unto God Almighty for Victory in Europe.

It is difficult to know what this abysmal offering most represents: the empty, vacuous liturgies the CofE produces for such national occasions; the CofE's profound embarrassment at being a national church; or the suffocating progressivism which dominates the CofE's public presence.

What makes all this particularly offensive is that there is a rich, 'thick' narrative which places public Christianity at the heart of VE Day.

Consider King George VI's broadcast on 8th May 1945, which commenced with the words "Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance" - a phrase that should have been significantly placed in the service outline for this 80th anniversary. The broadcast continued:

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.

We can also think of Winston Churchill's VE Day speech to the House of Commons:

I recollect well at the end of the last war, more than a quarter of a century ago, that the House, when it heard the long list of the surrender terms, the armistice terms, which had been imposed upon the Germans, did not feel inclined for debate or business, but desired to offer thanks to Almighty God, to the Great Power which seems to shape and design the fortunes of nations and the destiny of man; and I therefore beg, Sir, with your permission to move:

That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from the threat of German domination.

This was similarly reflected in the House of Commons' Humble Address to the Crown on 15th May 1945:

It is our earnest prayer that, under God's grace, the glorious victory won in Europe may be followed by a speedy and successful conclusion of the struggle against Japan and that Your Majesty's reign, so many years of which have been darkened by war and the threats of war, may long continue in a world at peace.

Such statements were not empty rhetoric, mere vestiges of a past era. They both deeply resonated with and significantly reflected the mood of the British people on 8th May 1945. As the Imperial War Museum notes, "London’s St Paul’s Cathedral held ten consecutive services giving thanks for peace, each one attended by thousands of people". A Church Times' report on the day further demonstrates that this was also outside of London:

St Paul’s held its great service of thanksgiving earlier in the day, at noon when the Lord Mayor was received at the west door by the Dean. People surged up the steps and into the nave where many stood in the alleyways because there was no room anywhere else ... In Canterbury Cathedral the great service of the day was held at ten o’clock in the morning. All the chairs had been removed so that more people could be admitted; and there must have been five thousand worshippers standing shoulder to shoulder for the thanksgivings and prayers ... In Oxford, the Cathedral and parish churches were thronged with worshippers at a succession of services that continued throughout the day, and large numbers of men took part in the services in the college chapels. In the great cities of the north of England, the workshops had emptied their workers into the churches.

The report also mentions the Scripture reading at the service in St. Paul's:

The Lesson, the Song of Moses and the children of Israel, as read by Canon Alexander: “The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil: my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.”

One can only imagine the horrified response of the drafters of the CofE's 2025 'Outline Service for VE Day' at the very idea of reading the Song of Moses at services on this 80th anniversary.

In his excellent account of the post-1945 Church of England, Sam Brewitt-Taylor notes how the public Christianity evident on VE Day 1945 reflected a wider vision of Christian civilisation triumphing over the darkness of a pagan tyranny:

'Christian civilization' was widely thought to provide the cultural foundations of British liberty; indeed, Britain had fought the Second World War and the early Cold War expressly in its defence. The nation's Christian identity was proudly reiterated during VE Day celebrations in 1945, the Festival of Britain in 1951, and the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Even after Britain's elites redefined Britain as a 'secular society' in the early 1960s, it is not clear that ordinary people immediately believed them.

Church statements, sermons, and liturgies on the 80th anniversary of VE Day should confidently evoke the public Christianity which defined and gave meaning for the victory over Nazism. The failure to do so not only robs commemoration of the anniversary of the very significant spiritual aspect of the victory over Nazism - it also fails to proclaim to the contemporary United Kingdom how Christianity can provide a spiritual and moral core to national life. There is a pressing need to challenge the empty secularism and desiccated accounts of 'British values' that presently shape our public culture. As Richard Chartres has said in his review of Bijan Omrani's superb new book God is an Englishman: Christianity and the creation of England:

This thin gruel, a handful of “disjointed theoretical notions”, as Omrani says, is shorn of any narrative that can convey some sense of “identity, character and purpose”. Civilisations die in the night when no one can be found to give their lives for them, and, in the context of our current perception of the dangers that we face as a nation, the adequacy of a handful of tentative ideas must be doubtful.

Today, therefore, should be a day for a confident, grateful expression of public Christianity in our national life, not for a liturgy seemingly composed by an EDI officer and statements apparently written by Guardian editorial staff. Today we should "give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance."

(The first photograph is of St. Paul's Cathedral, London on the evening of VE Day, 8th May 1945. The second is servicemen giving thanks in Belfast Cathedral on VE Day.)