http://www.army.mod.uk/firstworldwarresources/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/103990.jpg.
A shared national and imperial sense that Germany had declared war unjustly Christians in common with the rest of the population of UK and the British Empire had no reason to doubt the fact that Germany had initiated war and invaded Belgium and France. This was not based on government controlled war propaganda.
A universal national and imperial sense that Germany’s actions in war were unjust Christians in common with the rest of the population had no reason to doubt the evidence of the atrocious actions against civilian villagers and townsfolk in Belgium and of the disdain for the cultural heritage of the city of Louvain. The War Department reinforced these reports, but they were documented independently.
The traditional and biblical teaching that ‘the powers that be are ordained of God’ ie ruling authorities are there with divine approval In common with German Christians this was the working assumptions of most of the churches of the UK and Empire. The fact that the government had declared war was for in itself sufficient authority to be believed and responded to in a positively supportive way.
The initial and continuing identification with the war effort on the part of the King, irrespective of his own German family lineage From the outset of the war, George V’s working Christian assumptions and close self-identification with all the subjects of the Empire at home and abroad was plain to see. By the end of the war he had “amassed 450 troop visits, 300 more to hospitals, the same again to munitions factories and shipyards; and with his own hand conferring more than 50,000 awards”. Alexandra Churchill In the eye of the storm: George V and the Great War (2018) p 373. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/george_v_king_of_great_britain. Extracts from Pathe news reels: https://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/df699ffd537d4e0c74710ad015dfd64d/ww1-george-v.
Advice in sermons by church leaders. For details, see Section 9: UK Christians – What was the response of the different churches towards WW1? A sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury is quoted at length with the message: “We were beyond question lovers of peace. But if the ideal to which peace contributes, and for which we seek peace and, ensue it, is simply the undisturbed enjoyment of the good things of life, then the love of peace can hardly be called either robust or meritorious… There are the moments when nations and empires are put to the test; when they must prove, by the tenor of their response, what vocation they have in the moral order of the world, or whether they have any vocation at all. When this happens religion uncovers its other face. Alongside ‘the peace of God’ is the ‘strife of God.”
Across the Free Church denominations and the Roman Catholic Church, the words may have been different, but the substance was the same: for most Christians to right a grossly moral wrong, the war was a necessary evil
Comprehensive list of sermons.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=World%20War%2C%201914-1918%20--%20Sermons&c=x
The considered views of leading theologians. With genuine surprise and sadness the British scholars, who had high regard from German theological scholarship and who had developed joint associations and personal friendships with their German counterparts, now challenged their working assumptions. This was perhaps easier since German church theologians were state appointees working inside that institutional mindset, whereas in Britain they were independent university appointments.
Oxford theologians response was dismissive of both an earlier pamphlet To the Evangelical Christians Abroad and the German Manifesto of the Ninety-Three, drafted by Adolf von Harnack amongst others, and signed by leading academics from across Germany. From Oxford William Sanday, B H Streeter, Henry Scott Holland, and Samuel Driver, along with other theologians and churchmen of the university signed and published To the Christian Scholars of Europe and America in October 1914. They ‘questioned the Germans’ suggestion that they had been for the previous forty-three years a peaceful nation, pointing to their increase in armaments and the expansion of colonial territory. It also challenged their claim that Germany was compelled to fight “under the compulsion to repel a wanton attack”, criticising their suggestion that the Russians were barbarous, and also citing the not inconsiderable number of Roman Catholics in military service to dispute the German claim that this was a war between purely Protestant nations. Moreover, they claimed, the involvement of the colonies in the global fight was indicative of “the true inner cohesion of the British Empire” and “believing that she and her allies are at war for a just cause, does not admit that that cause becomes less just in Asia or in Africa than it is in Europe.” In subsequent writings, they urged impartiality, with care for the German population at large and a future with an international council to manage mutual interests. This is all reviewed in detail in an article by Daniel D Inman:
https://www.academia.edu/23490205/Theologians_War_and_the_Universities_Early_English_interpretations_of_the_Manifesto_of_the_Ninety-Three_1914_15.