It ended 100 years ago, and on 11 November, church leaders will remember World War 1, praying and calling for reconciliation, despite a century passing since one of humanity’s most brutal conflicts.
The centenary of the armistice that ended World War I is a poignant moment. A national project, INSPIRE, will engage thousands of children in remembrance and in peacebuilding.
Beekeepers and market gardeners, university lecturers, teachers and men who left school aged twelve, doctors, printers and politicians, were conscientious objectors in World War I. Their courage – and the global plight of COs today – has inspired an art exhibition in London, set in a chamber resembling a WWI field tent made of bandages.
When Norman Gaudie refused to participate in World War I he acted from the deepest conviction that all life is sacred.He knew it was wrong to take a life and so he refused to fight. Faced with conscription, he was prepared to die for his belief.