The 2025 Winter Meeting will address the theme of the Church and the Military, a term which (for the purpose of these conferences) includes naval and air forces as well as armies. The Church’s encounter with men and women at arms, whether professionals or amateurs, is as old as Christianity itself and its approach has taken many different forms across time and space– including rejection, an impulse to evangelise, influence or control, endorsement, and even the flattery of imitation. If a perennial strain of Christian pacifism means that military organisations and their representatives will always be treated with some suspicion, in many militaries in the historically Christian world the closeness and longevity of their relationship with the Church has left an indelible mark on their identities and cultures.

The Church’s conflicting attitudes and approaches towards military service reveal fundamental tensions and divergencies in its understandings of the ethics of war, its attitudes towards the state and secular authority, its obligations to wider society, and even its approaches to gender. Furthermore, the Church’s complex and diverse relationship with military (or paramilitary) organisations and personnel embraces a multitude of periods, traditions, and perspectives, extending from the first to the twenty-first century and involving all branches of Christianity. The history and dynamics of this relationship can also be studied from a rich variety of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary viewpoints, including biblical reception, moral theology, art history, music, sociology, and gender and literary studies.

Proposals for twenty-minute papers are welcomed. These might address, but are by no means confined to, questions such as:
- How have military models, imagery and tropes been appropriated and exploited by the Church?
- How have Christian themes, iconography, and practices been adopted and harnessed for military purposes?
- How has the Church acted as a ‘force multiplier’ in military campaigns?
- How has the Church sought to evangelise, reform, or regulate military personnel?
- How has the requirement of military service influenced relations between Church and state?
- How has the Church cared for the spiritual, pastoral, and material needs of men and women at arms?
- What has motivated Christian conscientious objectors to military service and what has been their experience?
- What role has gender played in the ministry of the Church to military personnel?
- How has military service influenced patterns of Church growth and decline?
- How has military experience been reflected in the Church’s art, literature, and devotional life?
- How has the Church responded to military veterans?
- How has the man or woman at arms been memorialised by the Church?

Submission deadline: 30 October 2024

The proposal form can be found on our website, https://ecclesiasticalhistorysociety.com/24-25-winter-meeting/, and should be sent to ehseditorial@gmail.com

The conference will take place online on 11 January 2025.