A Chorus of Support.

In January 1918 Sydney Strong, a Congregational minister in Seattle, Washington, distributed a questionnaire to his fellow clergymen, asking what they would like to see happen after the war. A fellow Congregationalist, Charles Aked of San Francisco, responded with a call for "the repentance in sack cloth and ashes of ten thousand ministers of Christ who have howled for blood and raved the ravings of the jingopress." Aked could have cited numerous examples of such sins, for America's religious leaders had demonstrated that they were not immune to the "war fever" that swept the nation, especially after the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. Rhetorical excesses characterized many of the sermons, articles, and even hymns put forth by some of the country's most prominent preachers as they offered up a "chorus of support" for...