A God of Love, not of Power: the passion of ‘Woodbine Willie’
WITH THE centenary of 1918 and the end of The Great War, it is perhaps timely to remember the contribution military chaplains made in that conflict. Their engagement with the armed forces challenged them to rethink much of the theology, liturgy and church thinking of their day. Many of them found that the churches were hopelessly out of touch with their wider flocks. One of those chaplains, very much steeped in the background of the Church of Ireland, has given us a powerful legacy: Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, later to become famous as ‘Woodbine Willie’. In the year 1996, as I engaged with staff and officer cadets at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, to prepare another volunteer group for Baptism/Confirmation, I felt content to be using, once again, my own Confirmation Course, developed some years earlier. Content, that is, until after discussion of the person of Christ, the question came: “But, Padre, what difference does he make?” I explained that in the person of Christ we do not merely have an example to follow, but somehow his life, death and resurrection, have fundamentally altered the relation between God and humanity. I offered no substitutionary atonement theory, as I questioned the implications of such thinking for the nature of who God is. I tried to express some idea of Christ and the love of God as made known in him, and especially his self-giving humility, as the key to what it is to be truly human: but by then I felt I’d somehow lost them! I knew what I did not want to say, but what I was saying didn’t ‘add up’! It was later, in the writings of ‘Woodbine Willie’, that I found someone who articulated my belief, that, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we see God for us, not as a God of Power, but as a God of Love.
* Full article available in printed copies.
Peter Rutherford
is rector of Kinsale, diocese of Cork, and was formerly Assistant Chaplain-General to HM Forces. He is Chaplain to the Royal British Legion, Republic of Ireland District.