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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: 27-Apr-2010 I, Roger Burns-Watson , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Philosophy in History It is entitled: Co-Starring God: Religion, Film, and World War II Student Signature: Roger Burns-Watson This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: David Stradling, PhD David Stradling, PhD Thomas Sakmyster, PhD Thomas Sakmyster, PhD Christopher Phillips, PhD Christopher Phillips, PhD Wayne Durrill, PhD Wayne Durrill, PhD 5/10/2010 603 Co-Starring God Religion, Film, and World War II By Roger Burns-Watson Bachelor of Science, Master of Divinity, Master of Arts Dissertation submitted in requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Cincinnati McMicken College of Arts and Sciences Department of History Dr. David Stradling, Committee Chair April 27, 2010 ABSTRACT Motion pictures played a significant role in American society during the Second World War. Hollywood studios, as well as United States Army, used movies to educate audiences about the reasons for the war; to define America’s allies and enemies; address the changing roles of women and African-Americans in society; and to build up morale. Filmmakers deliberately used religious characters, imagery, and dialogue to help them accomplish their propaganda goals. This dissertation explores how Hollywood studios and the United States Army employed religion in World War II-era films. It examines the role that film censors, the Production Code Administration, and the Office of War Information played in shaping and limiting the ways that religion could be used by filmmakers. This dissertation also highlights how the actions and attitudes of American clergy before and during World War II impacted how screenwriters and producers used religious character, images, and dialogue in their motion pictures. Finally, this dissertation looks at the legacy that these films had with regards to the relationship between religion and World War II. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 Chapter 1 Render unto Caesar: American Churches, Hollywood, and the Coming War 14 Chapter 2 Onward Christian Soldier: Religion and the United States Army 45 Chapter 3 When the Role is Called up Yonder, I’ll Be There: The Conversion Narrative and the American GI 66 Chapter 4 Thus Says the Lord: Religion and the Role of Women, Ministers, and African-Americans 101 Chapter 5 Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us: Religion and the Christianization of America’s Allies 139 Chapter 6 Get Behind Me, Satan: Religion and the Axis Enemies 179 Chapter 7 Conclusion 196 Bibliography 209 INTRODUCTION 2 To truly explain the relationship between film and religion during the Second World War--the purpose of this dissertation--it is necessary to start in December 1939, far away from the bright lights of Hollywood. Out of more than two hundred thousand clergy in the United States, the editors of Fortune magazine chose to profile the 31-year- old Reverend Edwin Daniels and his congregation, the First Presbyterian Church of Fulton, New York. There was neither anything special about First Presbyterian, nor was their anything that made this congregation stand out from any other in the country. The church was populated by solid, conservative, middle-class Americans: businessmen, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and workers from various other occupations. Each Sunday, approximately two hundred of these average Americans gathered at First Presbyterian to worship God and hear Rev. Daniels preach the gospel. Each Sunday, the service was conducted in good order, after which the good people left the church to resume their lives much as they had week after week, year after year before. That First Presbyterian seemed indistinguishable from other Protestant churches in the late 1930s made it appealing to the editors of Fortune. The members of the congregation reflected the values and aspirations of people all over the United States: hard work, faith, and patriotism. The same could not be said, however, of its young pastor, Edward Daniels. Daniels had been reared in Long Island, gone to college in Indiana, and then returned to New York to attend Union Theological Seminary. As a seminary student, he ministered to some of the poorest areas of the city while learning from some of the most able theological minds in the country. After completing his formal education, Daniels was called to a church in upstate New York where he labored in the service of the Lord until he was invited to fill the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church. Daniels displayed a secure, steady faith that was well-suited for his 3 congregation, with one notable exception. Unlike most of the members of his congregation, Edwin Daniels was an ardent pacifist. Edwin Daniels was in ministry when American clergy were struggling with the morality of war. The death and disillusionment created by the First World War made it difficult for religious leaders to reconcile faith with war. Yet the troubling events in Spain, Ethiopia, China, Austria, and Czechoslovakia demanded that theologians rethink their beliefs about armed conflict. By the late 1930s, the opinions of American clergy about war and peace ran the full spectrum. Some hung to their earlier conclusions that God required a complete and total rejection of military solutions to solve world problems, while others began to move towards a position that recognized that armed conflict was a hideous, yet sometime necessary, evil. Finally, a few saw no conflict between war and religion, arguing that the Bible was full of references to God sanctioning and supporting Israel as it went to war with its neighbors. Edwin Daniels was part of a shrinking yet still influential group of clergy who were unable or unwilling to concede that there was such a thing as a just war. This troubled the editors of Fortune, who used Daniels to represent those spiritual leaders whose dogmatic rejection of war placed them outside of the mainstream (at least Fortune’s definition of the mainstream). The horrors of World War I, atrocities that still troubled and paralyzed American clergy, were in the past. By December 1939, death and destruction were a new and serious reality in Europe and China. What Daniels failed to understand, the editors implied, was that something evil was moving in the world, something that required the United States to do more than offer a prayer for peace and certainly to do more than to turn the other cheek. The editors of Fortune were frustrated 4 that Daniels and his antiwar contemporaries failed to take seriously the threat that fascism posed to the world.1 Fortune was not alone in asking questions about American clergy and the stand they took on war and peace. In November 1939, Time magazine raised similar concerns about the direction American Catholics were headed: Although the Roman Catholic Church hates war as much as the next Christian, its attitude towards war has always been realistic. Modern simon-pure pacifism, as unrealistic as it is high-minded, has been fostered more by Protestants than by Catholics. Yet as World War II began to loom, widespread signs of pacifist leanings appeared among U.S. Catholics.2 That national publications such as Fortune and Time would devote pages to complaining about ministers’ opinions on international relations is a telling sign about the authority the public gave to religious leaders on the eve of the Second World War. Though it may be difficult for some contemporary readers to understand, before and during World War II, clergy in America held an important place in society. Their opinions, even about issues such as foreign policy, mattered. There were, of course, critics who opposed religious leaders for having too much power in the political process, but, in general, clergy held a respected and important place in American society. Their authority was not necessarily tied to the number of people that went to church or to synagogue each week. Less than 50 percent of the population, in fact, did so during the Depression. Rather, it was grounded in a widely shared conviction that clergy were the moral voice of the nation. People disagreed about what ministers, priests, and rabbis said in public, but they took seriously their right, indeed their obligation, to speak out. That is why this dissertation is relevant. Religion, and religious leaders, mattered in America 1 “Presbyterian Church,” Fortune (December 1939): 69-72, 123-124. 2 “Religion: Pacific Ifs,” Time (November 27, 1939). 5 and needs to be accounted for in order to fully understand American society during the war. Which leads to my second point: the Hollywood film industry at this time understood the importance of religion. Just like the editors of newsmagazines, studio executives, producers, and screenwriters paid attention to what clergy members said and what they believed. Yet studio heads also lived with the reality that religion and religious leaders were dangerous subjects to project on the silver screen. Unlike print journalists, filmmakers were not able to be as direct in their portrayal of the spiritual. In 1915, the United States Supreme Court ruled that movies were not protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, a decision that would not be overturned until the 1950s. Newspapers and magazines had a constitutional right to print what they wished without interference from the government, though they could be sued if the information they published was erroneous or slanderous. The state, however, could censor motion pictures before the public ever saw them.3 There were numerous topics that almost all state and local censorship boards considered unacceptable in films. These included sex scenes, criminals not being punished for the crimes they committed, and excessive violence. Censors were extremely sensitive about religion.