In 1936, the British convert Arnold Lunn was disturbed at his countrymen’s slide into a post-Christian sentimentalism that blurred their vision of threats abroad and decadence at home:
"Our amiable sentimentalists still believe that Europe can be governed from the Albert Hall, and that votes of censure can strike terror into the hearts of ruthless dictators.
Extremists who will have nothing to do with fighting and who follow Canon Sheppard forget, as Canon Sheppard himself forgets, that those values of Christian civilization to which he is so attached were saved from destruction not by facile vapourings about ‘the technique of Calvary’ but by the swords of Christian men. Had Christians not been prepared to fight for Christian civilization Imam Sheppard would to-day be broadcasting a sentimental interpretation of the Koran."
Arnold Lunn, Within That City (London: Sheed and Ward 1936; reprinted by Roman Catholic Books, 1999), p. 215
