God in a Foxhole

Reverend William T. Cummings, who served at Bataan, is famous for declaring
“ There are no atheists in foxholes.” William Thomas Cummings (1924 - 2006) was a liberal Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist with international stature. A variation on this quote came from Chaplain F.W. Lawson of the 302nd Machine Gun Battalion, who was wounded twice in wartime, and declared "I doubt if there is such a thing as an atheist. At least there isn't in a front line trench." In addition, Henry More wrote: "In agony or danger, no nature is atheist. The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God."  On the other hand, the organization Freedom from Religion claimed that there are atheists in foxholes;  leader Anne Nicol Gayler has said “The membership of the Freedom From Religion Foundation includes many veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam." The Military Religious Freedom Foundation represents self-declared atheists in the US military, many of whom have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In recent years the organization Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers has taken up use of the slogan "Atheists in Foxholes" as a list of those men and women who serve the country while lacking a belief in a god.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons, for dismissing the existence of God, is that most people have life too good.  Few of us will ever find ourselves hunkered down in a foxhole, or fighting in man to man combat, even though some days it feels like we do. Agony and extreme danger usually don’t find their way into our lives, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. As Christians we remember how Jesus himself suffered in the garden, “He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.”  Luke 22:44.  Instead of denying or giving up on God, he drew closer.  Can we say the same?  And what about those unbelievers?   It is human nature to seek out physical and emotional support in times of distress, because that’s how our Creator made us. I love that line about flying to God, when we don’t know where else to go. Staring death in the eye, without the hope of Heaven is a bleak proposition indeed, compared to the joy of flying into eternity.

Who knows how many foxhole conversions there have been; quite a few I’d guess, after all what would you have to lose!  If after my last breath there is nothing else, like the atheists say, I won’t regret a moment of my life in Christ. Don’t wait for a horrific event to make your mind up about God, or worse yet, be like Job‘s wife who told her husband to curse God and die.  Rather be like the psalmist when he said, “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.” Psalm 9:10.