Werner

I'm not sure you should be talking of 'thinning ranks' to an Episcopal Vicar!

Also, is the apparent use of military language confined to this period? When did 'Onward Christian Soldiers' arise? Wasn't The Pilgrim's Progress full of military images ("Appollyon straddling the way" and all). Isn't the Old Testament primarily about military/political manoeuvring? Isn't the 'kingdom' of heaven a political image already?

Or is this symptomatic of the notion that religious institutions, like most others, continuously harks back to a putative 'golden age', and always sees itself as beseiged in the present?

cheer

the sunshine warrior