G A Studdert Kennedy
A daring work of Christian theology forged amid the horrors of the First World War.When The Hardest Part appeared in 1918, G. A. Studdert Kennedy’s ideas challenged the comfortable religious assumptions of his age. Known to British soldiers as 'Woodbine Willie,' Kennedy was an Anglican priest and decorated army chaplain who witnessed the suffering of the Western Front at close quarters. What he saw forced him to confront a question that conventional theology could not easily answer:How can an all-powerful, loving God permit such terrible suffering?Kennedy’s answer was radical and controversial. He rejected the image of God as a distant, impassive ruler watching human agony from above. Instead, he presented the crucified Christ as the revelation of a 'suffering God'-a God who enters the world’s pain and shares humanity’s anguish. Some of its ideas were greeted in their day with anger and derision, yet they anticipated theological ideas that would become increasingly influential throughout the twentieth century.With startling honesty, Kennedy examines God in nature, history, and the Bible, as well as prayer, democracy, the sacraments, the Church, and eternal life. His theology was not formed in the safety of a study, but under the sound of guns and among wounded and dying soldiers.Blunt, compassionate, and born from battlefield experience, The Hardest Part remains a provocative Christian classic for readers wrestling with war, grief, doubt, divine love, the problem of evil, and the meaning of faith in times of crisis.
