The greatness and tragedy of Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill was laid to rest on this day in 1965. His was the largest state funeral in British history, and no wonder: Churchill was voted by his nation “the greatest Briton” of all time. This is saying something: the BBC poll of more than a million voters placed him ahead of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Elizabeth I, and Cromwell.

As a committed Anglophile, I am especially fascinated by Churchill’s life and legacy. His story is worth remembering not just because of the historical significance of his life but also because of the cultural significance of his faith—or lack thereof.

A bust of Churchill on my desk

Before 1940, few would have imagined that Churchill would become who he became. He had been widely lampooned as a failed leader in various government posts before arising improbably to the office of prime minister at the moment of his nation’s greatest peril.

Overnight, he became the great leader of the opposition against Hitler. His oratory inspired millions—it was said of him that he “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” His unbending courage fortified the alliance that eventually defeated the Nazi war machine and liberated Europe.

He was a member of Parliament for sixty-four years and served six monarchs from Victoria to Elizabeth II. Half American by birth (his mother was from Brooklyn, New York), he cherished his nation’s connection with the US and even coined the phrase, “special relationship,” in a 1944 speech promoting our alliance.

He is estimated to have written as many as ten million words across over forty books, thousands of articles, and other writings. In fact, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

Over the years, I have witnessed personally much of the breadth of his life:

• I visited the place of his birth and childhood at Blenheim Palace.
• I stood before his grave at St. Martin’s Church, in Bladon, UK, where I lectured to a group of Dallas Baptist University doctoral students on leadership principles from his life.
• I visited several times the Churchill War Rooms beneath London, where he conducted much of World War II.
• I stood in the place he stood in the House of Commons as prime minister.
• I have seen several of his paintings (he created over five hundred works of art).
• Over the years, I have read a good deal of what he wrote and what has been written about him.

I so admire his courage in leadership and the eloquence of his gifts that a bust of Churchill I purchased at Blenheim Palace sits permanently on my desk and watches as I write these words.

What I have not been able to do is visit a church where he regularly worshiped God. That’s because there isn’t one.

Churchill and Christ

Churchill was baptized into the Church of England as an infant and remained a member of the church. However, as he explained in My Early Life, he lost any semblance of actual Christian faith in his twenties. He held no belief in the divinity of Christ or in Christ as Savior; his speeches rarely referred to our Lord. While he relished the prose of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, he was indifferent to theology and doctrinal distinctions.

In his view, Christianity is a matter of moral and social utility holding together Western culture.

But this did not make Churchill an atheist. On the contrary, he believed there to be a supreme being who works in providential ways to shape the world. In this sense, his assurance that he was part of some larger purpose gave him the conviction that he was “walking with destiny.”

Accordingly, he supported national days of prayer to rally the people, though he held no personal belief in their efficacy. He helped organize national times of prayer during adversity and in celebration of victories. He supported these not for any religious significance but for their cultural value.

In this sense, Winston Churchill was much like Richard Dawkins, the bestselling author and famed atheist who now calls himself a “cultural Christian.” While he has no personal faith in a personal God, he acknowledges the positive impact of Christian ethics on society and considers the traditions of the faith to be vital to Western society.

“We have all of Jesus we want”

What is it about “cultural Christianity” that is appealing to people of great achievement?

I have met few people over the years who are struggling greatly in their lives and yet believe in a “spiritual” but not real religion. They are either so angry with God as to reject his existence or relevance, or they are so desperately in need of God as to implore his help and grace.

My story is much the same. In those few times when I have faced genuine grief and heartache, my instinct was to either question the reality or character of the God in whom I believe or to turn to him with anguished prayer and pleas for divine assistance. I have sometimes vacillated between the two.

What I did not do was redefine him as an amorphous “supreme being” who works anonymously in our world if at all.

It is when all is well that I am most tempted to see God the way Churchill did, as a force for the common good more than as a necessary King of my own heart. When I don’t think I need God’s help, I am more reluctant to seek it.

A wise member of one of the churches I pastored said of his prosperous friends, “We have all of Jesus we want. Not all of Jesus we need, but all we want.” I suspect you may understand the truth of his observation.

In this sense, Jesus warned, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). But here’s the problem:

• Wealth and success are not enough: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
• They are flawed foundations that will inevitably fail us: “Whoever trusts in his riches will fail” (Proverbs 11:28).
• They paper over the deeper crises of our lives: “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
• And one day, perhaps today, God will say, “This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20).

The eternal significance of present faithfulness

Accordingly, the Lord counsels us:

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lᴏʀᴅ who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth (Jeremiah 9:23–24).

When we see God less as a spare tire for emergencies and more as the very air we breathe, we see him rightly. When we understand that every moment we live is by his grace and a gift for which we are responsible, we view our days correctly. When we use our lives and our successes to honor him and lead others to him, we use our resources for their most significant purpose.

In many ways, Winston Churchill saved his nation. But his nation will outlive none of us. Ten thousand millennia after the United Kingdom and every other part of this planet have disappeared, Churchill’s eternity will only have begun. If he did not turn to Christ as his Savior, “the greatest Briton of all time” will spend that eternity separated from God in hell (John 3:18; Revelation 20:15).

By contrast, you and I cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness. When we know Christ and make him known, our lives achieve an abiding significance Churchill never knew. Our next step of obedience will echo in heaven forever. Every day we serve Christ as our king is a day that advances not the “united kingdom” of earth but the divine kingdom of eternity.

We can aspire to the self-reliance Winston Churchill modeled or to the abundant life Christ offers. But we cannot do both.

Choose wisely today.