The rabid anti-religious bias in historical scholarship today often leads to an almost comical conflict. Historians commonly claim that great figures in history were not Christians—even when the great figures themselves said they were!

Abraham Lincoln, among our most God-focused presidents, is victim of this bias and largely because he never joined a church and was shot while attending a play on Good Friday—the mountains of evidence in favor of his faith notwithstanding.

George Washington comes in for the same treatment, despite the fact he was a devoted man of prayer, constantly called his troops to God, and was a vestryman (think “trustee”) of his Episcopal Church for many years.

And so it goes.

No one, though, takes a beating quite like Winston Churchill—and it is largely own fault! His grand gift for humor was part of the problem. He liked to joke that he was ready to meet God but wasn’t sure the Almighty was ready for the “great ordeal’ of meeting him. He also lived at a time when the ability to hold down large amounts of alcohol was prized and Churchill wasn’t beyond exaggerating his capacity. The truth is there is no record of him ever being worse for drink. Then, too, he was easily bored and often found the droning tone of the traditional Anglican service of his day too much to endure. His church attendance broke no records. None of this has made him a candidate for sainthood in the eyes of modern historians.

Yet the truth is that Winston Churchill was a Christian, a man of fierce faith, and our generation should be deeply grateful that he was.

Early Influences on Churchill’s Faith

As with all true religion, Churchill’s faith was a gift of God, but the human vessel most responsible for what he became religiously was a humble nanny named Elizabeth Everest. She cared for him in his boyhood years and loved him as her own. While his parents neglected him, distracted by their aristocratic social life and romantic intrigues, she poured her deep faith into his life. She taught him scripture, prayed daily on bended knee with young Winston at her side, and sang the great hymns with him so often that their imprint upon his soul never faded.

Perseverance in Doubtful Seasons

He had his seasons of doubt, though, as when he read and believed the works of religious skeptics while a young Army officer in the late 1890s. He eventually returned to his roots in 1899 while escaping from a Boer prison camp in South Africa. He later wrote of the experience:

I found no comfort in any of the philosophical ideas which some men parade in their hours of ease and strength and safety. They seemed only fair-weather friends. I realized with awful force that no exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that High Power which interferes in the eternal sequence of causes and effects more often than we are always prone to admit, I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was swiftly and wonderfully answered.

It was a decisive return and all that Winston Churchill became publicly and privately afterward aligns with it. He even considered becoming a clergyman. “I might have gone into the Church,” he wrote years later, “and preached orthodox sermons in a spirit of audacious contradiction to the age.”

A Fiery Man of Faith

It was in the 1930s when Churchill began to take his Christianity into battle. The world started to see him for the fiery man of faith he had become. In a speech in 1933, he accused Hitler of conjuring up “the fearful idol of an all devouring Moloch.” This was the god the ancient Canaanites sacrificed their children to. Churchill said that Hitler was both the “priest and incarnation of this false and barbarous god.” Some were confused by this. Jews and Christians were impressed. Churchill was describing an evil prominent in scripture but rarely mentioned elsewhere and launching it at Hitler to declare the Fuhrer a pagan priest. It wasn’t the last time.

In years after, Churchill would proclaim World War II a battle against the “blackest paganism” and in defense of “Christian civilization.” Viewing England’s fight in spiritual terms, he summoned Britons both to arms and to faith, charging them to serve “with all the strength that God can give us.” In his famous Be Ye Men of Valour Speech, he closed with the words, “As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.”

A Public and Private Faith

Skeptics wondered if this was merely Churchill posturing for a largely Christian England. Did he really believe? He did. In a private conversation with Field Marshall Montgomery, he assured, “Christ’s story was unequalled and his death to save sinners unsurpassed.” Official biographer Martin Gilbert concluded that Churchill had read the Bible through at least sixteen times in his life. It was a devotional life to rival that of some clergymen. Did he believe it? Yes. He wrote that he was “unmoved” by those who viewed scripture as myth and insisted “we may be sure that all these things happened just as they are set out according to Holy Writ.” He concluded, “We rest with assurance upon ‘The impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.’” It was with great delight, then, that at his grandson’s christening party, Churchill toasted the boy with the words, “Christ’s new faithful soldier and servant.” This was an apt description of Churchill himself.

Yet his faith and the way it fashioned him was more than a public force. It shaped him in private, too. Mary Soames, his youngest daughter, remembered many times in church with her father that the public never saw. She also recalled seeing him at prayer, particularly in times of personal trial. Her favorite memories, though, were of her father being the devoted, rowdy instigator of fun at home. He would often wrestle a child to the ground to loud squeals of terror and delight. A favorite family game was “gorilla,” in which Churchill would dress in old clothes and hide in bushes or a tree. Then, at the right moment, he would descend. The children were so excited by the game they often could not sleep even hours later.

His adoration for his children was tenderly confirmed late on Christmas Eve in 1941 while he was visiting the White House. Churchill asked if the nine-year-old daughter of presidential aide Harry Hopkins might be brought to him. The sleepy girl was awakened and taken to see the Prime Minister. When she arrived, Churchill hugged her warmly and then said, “I’m a lonely old father and grandfather on Christmas Eve who wanted a little girl to hug.” Then, he sheepishly sent her back to bed. His Christianity had helped make Winston Churchill a loving family man, though his duties often made this a painful part of his life.

A Fierce Yet Tender Model for Faithful Men

The world, the western world in particular, owes Winston Churchill a great deal. He not only summoned the “Christian nations” to victory during World War II, but he framed that conflict in such supernatural terms that his worldview survives to this day for those willing to embrace it. He was a Christian, and of both the fiery and the tender kind. He is a model for us, then, and for all who would ask God to help them make this moment in history their “finest hour.”