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Activities for Community Groups: Faith in Wartime

These activities are designed to be introduced by youth workers and other leaders of children's and young people's groups. They can be used as part of learning activities, drama presentations and community work.

The lessons on faith in wartime can be used as part of religious teaching in both Christian and other faith groups for children.

These activities draw on story extracts from the Archive. Story extract titles appear in the activities below, eg A Child Remembers the Outbreak of War. These extracts can be found in the Story Extracts file.

Conscientious objectors

Activity 1

Write on a board the statement: 'Love your neighbour'. Split your young people into groups of four. Ask them to produce a short role-play to illustrate what they think is the meaning of this statement. Feedback and discuss the variety of meanings they suggest. Introduce the fact that this statement underpins the main ideas of Christianity.

Conscientious objectors

Explain to your group how, on 3 September 1939 all men aged between 18 and 40 became legally liable for call-up under the new National Service (Armed Forces) Act. The age limit was raised to 51 at the end of 1941, when single women between 20 and 30 also were required, for the first time, to do some kind of war service. More information is available in the Conscription Introduced (1939) fact file in the Timeline.

Discuss with the members of your group what objections they would raise themselves if they were similarly told to go to war. Point out how for some people their views might be linked to their religious faith. Some ideas the young people might consider are: that fighting goes against their religious faith; that they do not believe in war; that they are afraid of going to war. Discuss the fact that in Britain, during World War Two, most conscientious objectors were Christians. Link the discussion to the ideas explored in the role-play in the previous activity.

Using the information box below, you could explain what happened during the period of World War Two to people who objected, and how even though they did not fight, they still often did dangerous work in order to help support people during the war.

Conscientious objectors

Conscientious objectors had to attend a tribunal. The chairman was normally a county court judge. Every tribunal panel had to have a trade union member on it and also, if the conscientious objector applicant was female, a woman member. Conscientious objectors were asked to present witnesses to give a character reference.

The tribunal could exempt people from military service, recommend alternative civilian service, recommend they join the non-combatant core of the armed forces, or dismiss the application. About 60,000 men and 1,000 women applied for exemption on the grounds of conscientious objection. Almost 3,000 were given unconditional exemption. Around 18,000 applications were dismissed. The rest were either recommended to do alternative civilian work, or put on the military service register as non-combatants.

Non-combatant work involved duties such as bomb disposal, or working in medical units. Civilian work included agricultural, forestry, social or hospital work, and towards the end of the war coal-mining was added to the list. Many tribunals wanted to send male objectors away from home, so that they made similar sacrifices to those of fighting men.

Activity 2

Read the following extracts aloud, or get the young people to read them aloud or in pairs.

• Only I Can Speak for my Conscience
• A Conscientious Objector's Wartime Story

These extracts can be found in the Story Extracts file.

Now discuss the questions below with the whole group, or split the young people into smaller groups if you wish.

After you have read the stories and talked about the questions, discuss why people treated conscientious objectors differently during World War Two, and why it was very brave of these people to stick to their principles despite the attitudes of others. Discuss the idea that many objectors did difficult jobs during the war and made a real contribution to the war effort, yet others often thought they were cowards and did not understand their actions.

Activity 3

Split the young people into groups of four. Read the following extracts aloud, or get them to read them aloud in their groups.

• God's Providence: Dunkirk 1940
• D-Day and Belsen Concentration Camp
• Church Service at the Front

These extracts can be found in the Story Extracts file.

Ask each group to produce a radio broadcast to explain why conscientious objectors could not fight, and why their actions can be seen as being brave. Use extracts from the full versions of the stories to support the show. You could record these broadcasts, and then play them back to an invited audience.

Faith under fire

Activity 4

Write the words 'Fear', 'Prayer', 'Help' and 'Promise' on large sheets of paper and stick around the room. Discuss with your group what each word means. Split the young people into groups of three, and ask them to construct a sentence that links all four words together. Example: 'When a person is living in fear of an event they sometimes say a prayer, asking for help, and they promise to do something in return.' Get each group to feedback their ideas. Discuss as a class why people may use these words/actions in wartime.

Write the word 'Faith' on a large sheet of paper and stick up in the room. Ask the young people to shout out other words that express the meaning of this word. In pairs ask the young people to compose a sentence that expresses the meaning of faith.

Hand out copies of the extract Church Service at the Front, and highlighter pens. Read the extract aloud. Ask the group to say 'Stop' when they hear words that indicates faith. For example, 'closer to God', 'treasured hymns', 'never had a hymn meant so much'. Once someone has said 'Stop', the group should discuss why they want to highlight the word. Either as a whole group or split into pairs, ask the young people to use the parts they have highlighted to discuss why these elements of faith would have been important to many soldiers during World War Two.

Split the group into different pairs. One person is to represent a participant in World War Two who lost their faith, and the other is to represent someone who was supported by faith. Each person takes five minutes to prepare reasons for their position, and write a statement to give to their partner. They then swap statements and ask each other questions about their views, using evidence from the extracts.

Each pair should then complete the following sentence: 'Members of the armed forces and medical personnel held different views about religion at the end of World War Two because ...'

These extracts can be found in the Story Extracts file.

Religious comfort

Activity 3

Play the song 'These are a few of my favourite things' from 'The Sound of Music'. Then get your group to create a list of the comforting parts of the song that could help when people are afraid. You could get the young people to add their own examples of their favourite comforting things.

Read the extract The Faith of a Child - Light in Darkness. As you are reading the story ask your group to identify the words and phrases that indicate comfort, for example 'consoled'.

Read the extract Kept Safe During the Manchester Blitz by 'BK'. Discuss what other religious activities people perform to help them feel safe - for example praying, singing, sitting quietly in church.

These extracts can be found in the Story Extracts file.

Write the word 'Christmas' on a large sheet of paper. Ask the young people to write words around this that indicate the meaning of Christmas as a Christian religious festival - for example 'Peace', 'Celebration'. Split the group into pairs and, using the words on the board, ask them to discuss why the ideals of Christmas would be difficult to celebrate during wartime. Feedback and discuss as a group. This could be applied to the difficulties of celebrating any religious festival in wartime.

Compose a Christmas song that might have been written during World War Two, using the words from the extracts and referring to the actions of the second extract. The song should be comforting and uplifting, but should reflect the fact that many people were separated from their families at Christmas and many had relatives fighting. This activity could be related to any peaceful religious festival - or none. You could just produce a song aiming to comfort people during a time of war. You could then perform these songs in front of an audience.

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