Faith, Fallout, and the Future: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction in the Early Postwar Era

Abstract

In the early postwar era, from 1945 to 1960, Americans confronted a dilemma that had never been faced before. In the new atomic age, which opened with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, they now had to grapple with maintaining their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future while also controlling their fear of an apocalyptic future resulting from an atomic war. Americans’ subsequent search for reassurance translated into a dramatic increase in church membership and the rise of the evangelical movement. Yet, their fear of an atomic war with the Soviet Union and possible nuclear apocalypse did not abate. This article discusses how six post-apocalyptic science fiction novels dealt with this dilemma and presented their visions of the future; more important, it argues that these novels not only reflect the views of many Americans in the early Cold War era, but also provide relevant insights into the role of religion during these complex and controversial years to reframe the belief that an apocalypse was inevitable.

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Article
Faith, Fallout, and the Future: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
in the Early Postwar Era
Michael Scheibach


Citation: Scheibach, Michael. 2021.
Faith, Fallout, and the Future:
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction in
the Early Postwar Era. Religions 12:
520. https://doi.org/10.3390/
rel12070520
Academic Editors: Yuki Miyamoto
and Susumu Shimazono
Received: 28 May 2021
Accepted: 7 July 2021
Published: 10 July 2021
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
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iations.
Copyright: © 2021 by the author.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Independent Scholar, Miami, FL 33179, USA; mscheibach@comcast.net
Abstract:
In the early postwar era, from 1945 to 1960, Americans confronted a dilemma that had never
been faced before. In the new atomic age, which opened with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, they now had to grapple with maintaining their faith in a
peaceful and prosperous future while also controlling their fear of an apocalyptic future resulting
from an atomic war. Americans’ subsequent search for reassurance translated into a dramatic increase
in church membership and the rise of the evangelical movement. Yet, their fear of an atomic war
with the Soviet Union and possible nuclear apocalypse did not abate. This article discusses how six
post-apocalyptic science fiction novels dealt with this dilemma and presented their visions of the
future; more important, it argues that these novels not only reflect the views of many Americans
in the early Cold War era, but also provide relevant insights into the role of religion during these
complex and controversial years to reframe the belief that an apocalypse was inevitable.
Keywords:
atomic age; atomic bomb; atomic war; apocalypse; evangelism; faith; faith in the future;
postwar; cold war; social science fiction; Fahrenheit 451; nineteen eighty-four; the shrinking man;
shadow on the hearth; on the beach; a canticle for Leibowitz
1. Introduction
Martha Bartter, author of The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science
Fiction, argues that many Americans expressed guilt and anxiety after the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though the bombings undoubtedly helped to end World
War II. Americans also exhibited increasing concerns about a future atomic war; communist
influence and possible infiltration in the government, education, and other areas; and the
expansion of governmental power. Yet, despite these general concerns, which permeated
society, writers of fiction in the early postwar era, 1945–1960, often encountered criticism,
and even banning, for dealing with these issues. Writers of science fiction, however, had a
better opportunity to comment on sensitive and controversial political and social issues by
incorporating them into their post-apocalyptic storylines. “The fantastic elements of the
stories were a cover, or a frame, for discussion of many real issues which were hardly open
to serious consideration in any other popular medium” writes Tom Shippey in his book,
Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (Shippey 2016, p. 227).
Bartter goes on to suggest that science fiction became more rather than less pessimistic
as the postwar progressed, in many ways reflecting what historian Paul Boyer calls a
vision of “bleakness and despair” (Bartter 1988, p. 2; Boyer 1985, pp. 264–65). This paper
discusses six science fiction novels that fall within this vision. George Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four, Judith Merril’s Shadow on the Hearth, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Richard
Matheson’s The Shrinking Man, Neville Shute’s On the Beach, and Walter Miller, Jr.’s A
Canticle for Leibowitz all provide a better understanding of Americans’ concerns and fears at
the opening of the atomic age.
Daniel Wojcik, in his book, The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and
Apocalypse in America, argues that the proliferation of nuclear weapons has resulted in
“widespread fatalism about the future of humanity.” He writes, “The dropping of atomic
Religions 2021,12, 520. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070520 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions

Religions 2021,12, 520 2 of 11
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 initiated an era of nuclear apocalypti-
cism that has flourished in American religious and secular cultures” (Wojcik 1999, p. 1).
The novels cited here, by mirroring the widespread fears about an unavoidable apocalypse,
provide another perspective on the postwar religious flourish to reassure Americans that
their lives had meaning and that their faith—or “atomic faith,” a term often used during
these years—in an uncharted future would be rewarded (see Figure 1). Addressing the
significance of “atomic faith,” newspaper columnist H. I. Phillips wrote that scientists
might control the power of the atom, but their achievements did not compare to the “fusion
of the gospels and the Psalms.” Rather than fear the deadly effects of radioactive poisoning,
Phillips urged people to place their faith in the “radioactivity” of the church. “I believe in
the atomic rosary beads, the atomic prayer book and the atomic thumb-worn family Bible,”
he wrote. “It is my belief that it is not through the blinding glow of hydrogen bombs that
man will end his harassments and worries, but through a blinding glow of atomic faith,
and through a white cloud, not of desolation and death, but of Faith, Hope and Charity”
(Phillips 1954, p. 20).
Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 12
Daniel Wojcik, in his book, The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and
Apocalypse in America, argues that the proliferation of nuclear weapons has resulted in
“widespread fatalism about the future of humanity.” He writes, “The dropping of atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 initiated an era of nuclear apocalyp-
ticism that has flourished in American religious and secular cultures” (Wojcik 1999, p. 1).
The novels cited here, by mirroring the widespread fears about an unavoidable apoca-
lypse, provide another perspective on the postwar religious flourish to reassure Ameri-
cans that their lives had meaning and that their faith—or “atomic faith,” a term often used
during these years—in an uncharted future would be rewarded (see Figure 1). Addressing
the significance of “atomic faith,” newspaper columnist H. I. Phillips wrote that scientists
might control the power of the atom, but their achievements did not compare to the “fu-
sion of the gospels and the Psalms.” Rather than fear the deadly effects of radioactive
poisoning, Phillips urged people to place their faith in the “radioactivity” of the church.
“I believe in the atomic rosary beads, the atomic prayer book and the atomic thumb-worn
family Bible,” he wrote. “It is my belief that it is not through the blinding glow of hydro-
gen bombs that man will end his harassments and worries, but through a blinding glow
of atomic faith, and through a white cloud, not of desolation and death, but of Faith, Hope
and Charity” (Phillips 1954, p. 20).
Figure 1. “Atomic faith” became the theme of many religious sermons, such as these in Owensboro,
Kentucky (top) and Detroit, Michigan.
Many Americans, worried about the threat of the “blinding glow” of an atomic bomb,
turned to religion as the best means of revitalizing their faith in the future. The view that
Figure 1.
“Atomic faith” became the theme of many religious sermons, such as these in Owensboro,
Kentucky (top) and Detroit, Michigan.
Many Americans, worried about the threat of the “blinding glow” of an atomic bomb,
turned to religion as the best means of revitalizing their faith in the future. The view that
the atomic bomb had sealed the fate of humankind with an impending and unavoidable
apocalypse, in fact, served to spark a resurgence in the postwar religious movement. Robert
Ellwood, author of The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace, points out that church membership

Religions 2021,12, 520 3 of 11
grew from 57 percent of the population in 1950 to 63.3 percent by 1960. This boom in
religion, Ellwood argues, can be attributed largely to three major elements: the dramatic
increase in population during the decade, the expansion of suburbia and the middle class,
and the proliferation of churches to attend. He emphasizes, however, that even with this
religious renaissance, fundamental differences remained between Protestants, Catholics,
and Jews; among the various Protestant denominations; traditional religious faiths and
evangelicals; and liberal thinkers and fundamentalists (Ellwood 1997). Yet, in terms of
their approach to the threat of atomic warfare, the various religious faiths shared the same
general vision of a biblical apocalypse that offered a continuation of civilization. “By
asserting that history and worldly renewal are predetermined,” writes Wojcik, “religious
apocalyptic belief systems affirm that the cosmos is ordered,
. . .
and that a millennial realm
of peace and justice ultimately will be created” (Wojcik 1999, p. 4).
2. Discussion
The probability that the next war would be an atomic war, and that there would not be
any guarantee of survival, represented one of the most critical issues in the early postwar
era. Paul Boyer, in his seminal work, By the Bomb’s Early Light, contends that by 1950, the
United States had become engulfed by fear of another, more horrific, atomic war with the
Soviet Union. Americans, according to Boyer, had “a dull sense of grim inevitability as
humankind stumbled toward the nothingness that almost surely lay somewhere down the
road—no one knew how far” (Boyer 1985, p. 350). Shippey agrees, writing that after 1945,
“society as a whole was adjusting gingerly to the possibility of nuclear extinction” (Shippey
2016, p. 211). Surveys in the late 1940s reinforced these conclusions by finding 64 percent
of respondents believing atomic bombs would be used against the United States in the near
future (Boyer 1985, p. 23).
The nation’s use of the atomic bomb raised an outburst of opposition within the
religious community. A week following the end of the war, thirty-four clergymen sent a
letter to President Harry S. Truman condemning the use of the atomic bomb and appealing
to the president to stop its production. The letter read, in part, “We may have to reap
not only the whirlwind of revenge and retaliation at so colossal a crime as we have
committed against other human beings by its indiscriminate use. This very missile may be
the instrument of our own destruction as a nation” (Clergymen Condemn Atomic Bomb
1945, p. 3). The following month, Father James Gillis, editor of Catholic World, in an article
titled “Nothing but Nihilism,” called the atomic bombings “the most powerful blow ever
delivered against Christian civilization and the moral law” (Alstin 2015). Herbert Benton
of the Christian Leader echoed this view, writing in the 15 September 1945 issue that despite
hopes for peaceful applications of the atom, “at the moment we can visualize only the
unutterably shattering effect upon civilization and the wholesale destruction of millions of
human beings” (Boyer 1985, pp. 13–14).
The secular press expressed the same opinions. On 14 August, V-J Day celebrating
victory over Japan, newspaper columnist Lowell Mellett warned that people had to choose
between one of two paths to the future. They could take the way of peace, which required
international cooperation, or they could take the way of war, “to which science will be
prepared in due time to contribute weapons more hellish even than the new atomic bomb”
(Mellett 1945, p. 4). Many Americans had difficulty reconciling this dichotomy between
life or death, peace or apocalypse. Time magazine, for example, reported in its December
1945 issue that recent polls had found “awe, fear, cynicism, confusion, hope—but mostly
confused fear and hopeful confusion” among people surveyed (Boyer 1985, p. 24). Science
fiction author Theodore Sturgeon also addressed the new atomic bomb in a letter to the
editor published the same month in Astounding magazine. “[Man] learned on 6 August
1945,” Sturgeon wrote, “that he alone is big enough to kill himself, or to live forever”
(Brians 1984, p. 253).
Writing in One World or None, a compilation of articles addressing the new atomic age
published in 1946, Philip Morrison, a physics professor at Cornell University, expanded on

Religions 2021,12, 520 4 of 11
the views of Mellett, Sturgeon, and many others concerning the next war—an atomic war
that might result in the end of civilization:
The bombs will never again, as in Japan, come in ones or twos. They will come in
hundreds, even in thousands. Even if, by means as yet unknown, we are able to
stop as many as 90 per cent [sic] of these missiles, their number will still be large.
If the bomb gets out of hand, if we do not learn to live together so that science
will be our help and not our hurt, there is only one sure future. The cities of men
on earth will perish. (Morrison 1946, p. 22)
Even President Truman weighed in on this daunting issue. Addressing the Conference
of the Federal Council of Churches in 1946, he told the gathering, “We have just come
through a decade in which forces of evil in various parts of the world have been lined
up in a bitter fight to banish from the face of the earth both of these ideals—religion
and democracy.” He emphasized that humankind now stood either “in the doorway to
destruction” or “upon the threshold of the greatest age in history.” He then called upon
Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to unite in order “to accomplish this moral and spiritual
awakening.” If they failed in this effort, said Truman, “we are headed for the disaster we
would deserve” (Truman 1946). Truman’s warning was taken quite seriously by religious
leaders, who worked diligently throughout the early postwar years to counter the belief
that civilization faced either a future of totalitarianism or an inevitable apocalypse: the end
of the world.
One of the grimmest of science fiction novels in the postwar era, one that foresees
the continuation of a repressive, totalitarian world, is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-
Four, published in 1949. In his review of Nineteen Eighty-Four, August Derleth called the
book “compelling” but also “profoundly alarming” because of its similarities to the real
world, such as the beginning of the Red Scare and introduction of loyalty oaths. “The
most disturbing aspect of Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Derleth wrote, “is manifestly that the
beginnings of most of the governmental gambits of 35 years hence are plainly visible all
around us today” (Derleth 1949, p. 3). Gerald Roscoe, in a review published in The Boston
Globe, agreed with Derleth, writing that the novel gave “a picture of the world of the future,
a world of insane totalitarianism” (Roscoe 1949, p. 109); and Dick Magat, another reviewer
in 1949, wrote that the book was “a grim nightmare of the hell we can expect if we fail to
win [peace and plenty]” (Magat 1949, p. 31).
Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place in the post-apocalyptic nation of Oceania, where
Winston Smith, the protagonist, works in the Ministry of Truth. His job, however, is not
preserving historical documents; it is rewriting history to ensure nothing threatens Big
Brother and the Party that controls society. The reader learns quickly, though, that Winston
is tired of his job and becoming more opposed to Big Brother’s all-powerful hold on society.
“[Winston] was alone. The past was dead, the future unimaginable,” writes Orwell (Orwell
1949, p. 27).
The novel follows the progression of Winston’s opposition, along with his romantic
interest, Julia, as they move cautiously toward the Brotherhood, the rebel group dedicated
to bringing down Big Brother and the Party. Winston and Julia’s efforts are soon thwarted
by O’Brien, an entrenched member of the Party, who eventually subjects Winston to torture
over several months until he finally succumbs. The book ends with Winston sitting alone
in the Chestnut Tree Cafédrinking gin. As the telescreen announces Oceania’s victory
over its archenemy Eurasia and projects the face of Big Brother, Winston tries to convince
himself that everything is all right, even as he quietly cries:
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind
of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunder-
standing! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented
tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all
right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved
Big Brother. (Orwell 1949, p. 300)

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Winston’s victory, as the reader knows, is actually his defeat in terms of maintaining
his personal freedom. Although Oceania has apparently won another war, Winston has
given up. He has lost all faith in the future—his personal future.
Orwell’s dystopia novel, which lacks any religious concepts related to the renewal of
civilization, offers little hope going forward, which is in stark contrast to Ray Bradbury’s
1953 science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. Montag, the protagonist, is someone who does not
want to believe the world is coming to an end. A fugitive “fireman” who finally rebelled
against burning books rather than extinguishing fires, Montag escapes from the city and
joins the Book People, a group of intellectual dissidents living on the outskirts of society.
The Book People are dedicated to preserving the written word by memorizing entire books,
with the hope of one day seeing their words once again in print. Shortly after Montag
and the Book People meet, another war erupts and Montag witnesses the destruction of
the city he just fled. The atomic bombs dropped on the city, and many others unleashed
across the novel’s post-apocalyptic nation, reinforced the fact that humankind is seemingly
compelled to use scientific discoveries for mass destruction. “As quick as the whisper of a
scythe,” Bradbury writes, “the war was finished. Once the bomb release was yanked, it
was over” (Bradbury 1953, p. 183). Montag, however, believes he and the Book People
have an opportunity to rebuild civilization, reflecting the biblical view of an apocalypse as
an opportunity for a new beginning.
Rodney Smolla, writing for the Michigan Law Review, described Fahrenheit 451, which
appeared eight years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in
August 1945 and four years after the Soviet Union successfully tested its own atomic bomb,
as a “cultural time marker, helping us to locate the past, evaluate the present, and imagine
the future” (Smolla 2009, p. 895). Although atomic energy could be applied in a positive
way, Smolla writes, the novel implies that it is more likely that atomic energy will be
“impressed into the service of weapons of mass destruction, unleashing Armageddon”
(Smolla 2009, p. 911).
Montag realizes his past life has been obliterated. After recovering with the others
from the destructive winds and radiating dust, he must accept a new, more personal,
challenge: how to maintain his faith in the future. Although Bradbury’s protagonist does
not openly express any religious beliefs, he does find inspiration in a copy of The Bible,
which he saved from the library of an old woman, who commits suicide by lighting herself
on fire. Not only does he read The Bible, including sharing it with his friend, Faber, Montag
decides to memorize the book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Revelations in the hopes
of having The Bible reprinted one day in a new, free society. As Peter Sisario points out,
Bradbury views the nature of life as being cyclical; and that even though it may reach a low
point, people “must have faith and blindly hope for an upward swing of the cycle” (Sisario
1970, p. 202). This is evident with the comment made by Granger, a member of the Book
People, about the Phoenix. As he cooks his meal on a fire, he tells Montag and the others
about “this damn bird called a Phoenix.” Every time the bird burns up, Granger says, it
springs from the ashes and is born again (Bradbury 1953, p. 188). Then, at the novel’s
conclusion, as the Book People begin a morning walk, Montag contemplates what he will
say when the conversation comes to him. Finally, after thinking it through, he grasps onto
a saying from the Book of Revelation: “And on either side of the river was there a tree of
life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves
of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Bradbury 1953, p. 190). These lines, argues
Sisario, “give us a key to Bradbury’s hope that ‘the healing of nations’ can best come about
through a rebirth of man’s intellect” (Sisario 1970, p. 205).
Judith Merril’s Shadow on the Hearth, called by one reviewer “an odd post-apocalyptic
novel because it is so domestic,” focuses on the impact of an atomic attack on the Mitchells,
a suburban family living near New York City (Nicoll 2021). The husband, Jon, works
in the city but fortunately has a meeting on its outskirts and thus survives the blast,
although this is not known by his wife, Gladys. Gladys and her two daughters, Barbie and
Ginny, must deal at home with the aftermath of the blast, including radiation poisoning

Religions 2021,12, 520 6 of 11
as well as an assortment of neighbors and strangers in their home. Although Gladys’
family and the families in her suburban neighborhood survive the worst of the attack, the
radio announces that the country has suffered severe damage as a result of atomic bombs
destroying numerous cities. After dealing with myriad concerns about the health of her
daughters and the safe return of her husband, Gladys finally hears on the radio that the
war has ended in victory.
Shadow on the Hearth, published in 1950, received mixed reviews at the time. Charles
Poole of The New York Times wrote that the novel’s emphasis on the domestic woes of the
Mitchell family made it difficult to imagine an actual war was transpiring. “Nevertheless,”
Poole wrote, “Shadow on the Hearth is generally entertaining reading, even if, understand-
ably enough, not always for the reasons intended by the author” (Poole 1950, p. 29). Anna
King, reviewing the book for the King Features Syndicate, found the book to be much
more relevant to the nation’s situation, however. “This title is most appropriate, more so
than the author ever dreamed when she was writing the book,” King wrote. “There is a
shadow over practically every hearth in this country at the present time, the shadow of fear
of the unknown, a feeling in inadequacy in the face of mysteries too deep for the average
mind to fathom” (King 1950, p. 30). More recently, Lisa Yaszek, in her book, Galactic
Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction, argues that the goal of Merril’s novel was to
alert readers to the horrific effects of nuclear war, as well as “to investigate what models of
social order are most likely to address women’s concerns about the nuclear war” (Yaszek
2008, p. 132). Although the novel lacks any religious references, it most definitely sees life
after the apocalypse. As the novel nears its conclusion, Gladys opens the door only to have
a neighbor carry a man into the house. The doctor, who happens to be checking on Barbie
upstairs, examines the man and declares that he is wounded but should fully recover.
Merril, in stark contrast to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, provides a positive conclusion.
Gladys’ faith that her husband would make it home and they would have a future proved
to be right. As the novel ends, Gladys turns to the doctor and says, quite assuredly, “It’s
Jon, you know. He’s come home” (Merril 1950, p. 276).
Having a future is also central to Richard Matheson’s 1956 science fiction novel,
The Shrinking Man, which balances the search for spirituality and place in society with
the dangers of the atomic bomb—in this instance, radiation poisoning. Scott Carey, the
protagonist, is exposed to a radiation cloud while enjoying an outing on his boat. Due to
an earlier exposure to insecticides, which results in a rare reaction to the radiation, Scott
begins to shrink. The science fiction novel does not revolve around an atomic war or
apocalypse; rather, it focuses on man’s place in the world. Some critics have seen this as a
story about the demise of masculinity during the 1950s. Cyndy Hendershot, for instance,
has written, “If the 1950s American man is supposed to epitomize human civilization
in order to set a good example in Cold War society, Scott’s character reveals the stresses
involved in embodying masculine identity” (Hendershot 1966, p. 328). Matheson’s story,
however, is arguably more about the threats to humankind in a world that has unleashed
the dangers of the atom. As Scott continues shrinking to no bigger than a spider, which he
must fight for survival, Matheson says of Scott:
He still lived, but was his living considered, or only an instinctive survival? Yes,
he still struggled for food and water, but wasn’t that inevitable if he chose to go
on living? What he wanted to know was this: Was he a separate, meaningful
person; was he an individual? Did he matter? Was it enough just to survive?
(Matheson 1956, p. 47)
These questions were the same ones asked by many Americans during the postwar
era—and the motivation to find religious inspiration and faith in the future, as does Scott.
Although he had always thought life would end when he no longer existed, he has a
spiritual epiphany that gives him renewed hope. “To a man,” he thinks to himself, “zero
inches mean nothing. Zero meant nothing. But to nature there was no zero. Existence went
on in endless cycles” (Matheson 1956, p. 182). He finds a new faith in the future—a future
where there is “no point of non-existence” and where there also might be intelligence.

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In the end, Scott runs toward the light, his new world. Writes Barry Keith Grant in his
review, “This ending was strikingly unusual, not only for its lack of conventional narrative
closure but also because it evokes the Transcendental philosophy of Emerson, Thoreau,
and Whitman
. . .
in its astonishing openness toward nature and the natural world, in stark
contrast to the paranoia characteristic of the genre at the time” (Grant 2019). Maria Manual
Lisboa, in her book, The End of the World: Apocalypse and Its Aftermath in Western Culture,
calls The Shrinking Man “a metaphor for human disappearance by reason of science gone
wrong” (Lisboa 2011, p. 50).
Science going wrong formed the theme of President Truman’s last State of the Union
address, given two weeks before Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in January of 1953.
Truman served to amplify the dangers ahead by warning that “the war of the future would
be one in which man could extinguish millions of lives at one blow, demolish the great
cities of the world, wipe out the cultural achievements of the past, and destroy the very
structure of a civilization that has been slowly and painfully built up through hundreds
of generations” (Truman 1953). Truman seemed to pull science fiction’s post-apocalyptic
scenarios into a very real scenario. Two years earlier, the Rev. Rudolph Ressmeyer, pastor
of Baltimore’s Emmanuel Lutheran Church, told attendees at the National Conference of
Religious Leaders that pastors should be prepared to “help people die” (Spiritual Aid Plan
Offered in Raid Event 1951, p. 3). The year following Truman’s warning an editorial in The
Salt Lake City Tribune titled “Can We Avoid a Suicidal Atomic War?” declared, “We may
well have to depend on man’s fear of evil rather than on his love of good to save him from
a Frankenstein fate” (Can We Avoid a Suicidal Atomic War? 1954, p. 12).
Conservative evangelicals seized on this fear of apocalypse, as well as the fear of
communism, to enhance their appeal. In fact, argues Angela Lahr in her book, Millennial
Dreams and Apocalyptic Nightmares: The Cold War Origins of Political Evangelicalism (Lahr
2007), linking their religious message with their opposition to communism and promoting
Christian nationalism helped evangelicals become more accepted by mainstream culture.
“Conservative evangelicals employed their apocalyptic understanding of the world for
political and religious ends,” Lahr writes, “becoming staunch advocates of ‘Christian
America’ and opponents of ‘atheistic communism’” (Lahr 2007, p. 4). Billy Graham, for
example, a leading figure in the resurgence of evangelism during these years, addressed
contemporary Cold War issues while promoting Christian nationalism, encouraging people
to turn to God, and offering a more positive image of apocalypse. Yet, underlying people’s
motivation to add religion to their lives, and to believe in the Christian message, was the
constant fear of atomic annihilation—a fear that provided the foundation for many of the
era’s works of science fiction.
With politicians, religious leaders, scientists, newspaper columnists, and others de-
scribing an apocalyptic future, it is not surprising to find this same vision of the future in
science fiction. Connor Pitetti, in his article titled “Uses of the End of the World: Apoca-
lypse and Postapocalypse as Narrative Modes,” argues that “at the core of postapocalyptic
narrative is the recognition that there is no entirely new world, and that history can never
be transcended or escaped” (Pitetti 2017, p. 447). Neville Shute’s 1957 classic novel, On
the Beach, exemplifies Pitetti’s point that one can never escape history. In Shute’s post-
apocalyptic story, a massive nuclear war involving the Soviet Union, the United States,
China, Israel, Egypt, and other nations results in the death of all humans and animal life
in the Northern Hemisphere, leaving survivors in the Southern Hemisphere, including
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to await their ultimate demise from the deadly
radiation drifting slowly southward. The book, whose characters appear devoid of any
religious beliefs, focuses on how people react when they know all of humankind will perish
in six to nine months. “Shute forces us to look at the possibility and horror of nuclear
war,” writes Bruce G. Smith in his review of On the Beach. “He makes the reader feel the
barrenness of a post-apocalyptic Earth” (Smith 2010).
The novel focuses on U.S. Navy Commander Dwight Towers, who has docked his
submarine, the USS Scorpion, in Australian waters in an effort to find an area safe for

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humankind. The story presents an assortment of characters, including Moira, a woman
who falls in love with Towers only to have Towers reject her advances. Although his family,
which lived in Connecticut, was unquestionably killed in the war, Towers refuses to accept
their deaths, blindly maintaining his faith that he will eventually reunite with them. In the
end, however, no one can escape the radiation poisoning blanketing Australia. Realizing
there is nothing to stop the inevitable, the Australian government even issues suicide pills
to everyone to use at their individual discretion.
Towers, in a final attempt to return to his family, takes the Scorpion into open waters,
while Moira looks on from afar, ready to end her life. As she gazes out to sea, she sees the
submarine submerge and vanish under the water. With only a painful death left for her,
Moira suddenly remembers her religious lessons as a child and quietly says the Lord’s
Prayer. Then, she swallows her suicide pills and, although no one will hear, says, “Dwight,
if you’re on your way already, wait for me,” referring to Dwight taking his own suicide
pills (Shute 1957, p. 320).
Unlike Fahrenheit 451 and The Shrinking Man,On the Beach has no tomorrow. No one in
the novel can maintain faith in the future because nations of the world chose to annihilate
one another and unleash radiation to all living creatures. The exception is Towers, who
keeps his faith until the very end when he finally accepts that there is no future.
“We have no assurance that tomorrow is going to come to us,” said Dr. Earle B. Jewell,
rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1951. “Do we live
today, therefore, in the sense that this day is futile? No, you and I are living this hour to the
full capacity of our potential because we do have hope in the future, we do have a secret
belief that tomorrow will be better” (Plea for Normal Life 1951, p. 3). The Rev. George
Davis, minister of the First Christian Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, also emphasized the
importance of looking forward to tomorrow. “Despite the dark and troubled times all over
the world,” he was quoted as saying, “there is deep and abiding reason for faith in the
future. A-bombs and H-bombs, the threat of war or even the outbreak of war cannot halt
for long man’s improving future” (Pastor Has Faith in Future Despite H-Bombs or War
1954, p. 15).
Walter Miller, Jr.’s science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, published in 1959,
does not describe an improving future; in fact, the novel ends as the planet’s very existence
is threatened by yet another nuclear war. The post-apocalyptic novel covers a span of
some 1800 years, beginning with a nuclear war called the Flame Deluge taking place in the
twentieth century, some 600 years before the story opens. The novel is divided into three
parts, opening with “Fiat Homo,” or “Let There Be Man.” A young and somewhat naïve
monk named Brother Francis Gerald uncovers a fallout shelter dating to the Flame Deluge.
Inside, he discovers original documents of Edward Leibowitz, an electrical engineer who
survived the war and founded a monastic order. According to the order’s teachings, God
wanted to test humankind, which had become “swelled with pride” by having scientists,
including Leibowitz, develop “great engines of war such as had never before upon the
Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell” (Miller 1959, p. 62).
God believed that weapons of this magnitude would never be used, but those in power
wrongfully believed the one using the weapons first would be the victor. War pursued,
followed by the “Simplification,” an extended era during which technology was shunned.
The second part, “Fiat Lux”, or “Let There Be Light”, is set hundreds of years later in
the thirty-second century. Finally, the world is leaving the Simplification and accepting
technology as a means to a better life. As seen in other post-apocalyptic novels, the cycle of
war and devastation has reemerged. Three city-states (Denver, Texarkana, and Monterey),
which formed after the nation of America was destroyed, are vying for supremacy over one
another and the most powerful figure, a scientist named Thon Taddeo, seeks Leibowitz’s
scientific documents that he believes will give him the advantage needed to win the next
war. Fortunately, the monks prevent Taddeo from taking the documents.
In the final part, “Fiat Voluntas Tua”, or “Let Thy Will Be Done”, set 600 years later,
another nuclear war is on the cusp, this time threatening the very existence of the planet

Religions 2021,12, 520 9 of 11
itself. Now, however, space travel has become commonplace, which proves fortunate
because the nuclear arsenals in use are far more powerful than those in the twentieth
century. Miller’s story challenges the notion that faith can prevent humankind from
destroying itself. As they anticipate yet another apocalypse, the monks, along with others
chosen for the journey, board a spaceship. They hope to reach another planet, which they
pray will allow the rebirth of civilization. Suddenly, the horizon erupts in red flashes, with
“the visage of Lucifer” rising skyward “like some titan climbing to its feet after ages of
imprisonment on Earth.” The last monk, pausing briefly before entering the spaceship,
looks at the mushroom cloud “engulfing a third of the heavens,” then closes the hatch
behind him (Miller 1959, p. 337).
Paul Brians, writing in Science Fiction Studies, argues that A Canticle for Leibowitz
illustrates learning about the past, including the evils of nuclear destruction, does not
guarantee a better future; rather, “the revival of learning may lead only to another and
more apocalyptic war” (Brians 1984, p. 257). Such is the case in Miller’s novel. After
many centuries of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserving the scientific documents
describing the world before the Flame Deluge, the most significant advancement was the
development of more powerful nuclear weapons—weapons capable of destroying the
planet. Understanding this stark reality and having clearly lost faith in a future on Earth,
the monks finally prepare to find a new world.
3. Conclusions
In 1950, at the opening of the decade, a newspaper editorial urged people to have
“less concern about the atomic bomb and more concern about our atomic faith,” and to
accept the “plain fact, now clearly visible, that from this point on [they] either join the
Brotherhood of Man or the Society of Self-Destruction” (Just Visiting Around 1950, p. 1).
Additionally, speaking on the importance of faith in countering people’s trepidations about
the atomic bomb, the Rev. Alvin Rogness of Mason City, Iowa, expressed the belief that in
order to have faith in the future, one needed to have assurance that God had a purpose for
every life. “We may sometimes feel that the evil seems to triumph over the good,” Rogness
said, “but we must have confidence that in the end right will be the victor” (Rev. Rogness
Calls for Faith in the Future 1951, p. 1).
Unfortunately, as the 1950s progressed, many Americans began to lose this confidence.
Nat Finney, of the Minneapolis Tribune, summed it up by writing, “The America that
ultimately awaits atomic attack on its civilian vitals may well be an angry nation, frightened
at its inability to adequately defend its homes, and more bitter in hatred of its enemy
than ever before in its history” (Finney 1950, p. 4). A 1950 Gallup poll, for example,
found that 57 percent of Americans believed an atomic war would occur within five years
(Gallup 1955, p. 3).
A 1956 Gallup poll reported that 63 percent of respondents believed
an H-bomb would be used against the United States; and, even more alarming, only 38
percent expressed complete confidence that their family would survive (“Americans Fear
H-Bomb As Lurking Doom”, Gallup 1956, p. 11). This increase in Americans fearing a
nuclear war can be attributed, at least in part, to a statement in 1953 by the Federal Civil
Defense Administration. The FCDA acknowledged that the Soviet Union could send 400
planes equipped with atomic bombs and cause more than 100,000 casualties with each
bomb. Moreover, the Air Force admitted that only 30 percent of the enemy bombers could
be stopped (Defense Agency Warns of Soviet Attack 1953, p. 26).
As this paper has argued, Americans were caught between optimism and despair
about the new atomic age: wanting to see a future of promise and prosperity but constantly
reminded that the future promised only an apocalypse. As Daniel Wojcik writes, “Faith and
fatalism are thus interwoven into the fabric of apocalyptic thought: a profound fatalism for
a world believed to be irredeemably evil is entwined with the faith for a predetermined,
perfect age of harmony and human fulfillment” (Wojcik 1999, p. 4). Expanding on this,
Cyndy Hendershot writes, “The atomic age held out a double-edged sword to the American
public. Atomic energy was portrayed as a force which could lead postwar society to a

Religions 2021,12, 520 10 of 11
utopian existence, even as the atomic bomb threatened to plunge the world into a horrific”
(Hendershot 1966, p. 319). This threat, viewed as very real during the early postwar era,
was reinforced by the development of a hydrogen bomb, a thousand times more powerful
than the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima, as well as the introduction of intercontinental
ballistic missiles capable of delivering mass destruction in minutes rather than hours—two
advancements that formed the thematic core in post-apocalyptic science fiction novels,
and which also had an impact on America’s religious community. “As the outbreak of the
Cold War intensified,” writes Angela Lahr, “the evangelical focus on the end of the world,
promises of hope and signs of despair, became important to conservative Protestants who
used them to cope with changes beyond their control” (Lahr 2007, p. 21).
A Gallup poll in 1959 found that more than half of Americans surveyed believed Jesus
Christ would return to Earth, suggesting, according to Lahr, that “many Americans living
in the nuclear age found it easy to accept evangelicalism’s eschatological explanations of
world events” (Lahr 2007, p. 17). In contrast, Wojcik argues that despite the surge in church
membership during the early postwar era, the acceptance of the inevitable end-of-times
persisted. “Religious apocalypticism and its secular counterpart may differ in terms of
underlying premises and the details of doomsday,” Wojcik writes, “but the proponents of
such beliefs . . . agree that global catastrophe is imminent” (Wojcik 1999, p. 2).
Faith in a peaceful future became increasingly difficult to maintain because of the
escalation in tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. As the new decade
unfolded, this tension brought the two nations dangerously close to the tipping point for a
nuclear war. In June 1961, the Soviet Union demanded that the United States and its allies
withdraw their troops from West Berlin, an arrangement dating back to World War II. At the
height of the standoff, which finally ended in November 1961, newly elected President John
F. Kennedy issued yet another warning of a potential apocalypse. In words similar to those
used by President Truman in 1953, Kennedy addressed the Union Nations in September,
telling representatives from nations around the world, “Every inhabitant of this planet
must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable
. . .
The weapons of
war must be abolished before they abolish us” (Weart 1988, p. 215). In many respects, these
words reflect the underlying message in the post-apocalyptic novels discussed here. From
Montag, Winston Smith, and Scott Carey to Gladys Mitchell, Commander Dwight Towers,
and the monks in the Order of Leibowitz, all of these protagonists sought a future where
the weapons of war would no longer be a threat to their existence and to the existence of
the planet, as well as a threat to their faith in the future.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
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