The question implies that when a society is plunged into the chaos and evil of war, faith becomes especially difficult to hold on to. This is undoubtedly true, but many religious writers would say that it is far easier to maintain faith in wartime than in peace.

C.S. Lewis devotes at least one chapter of The Screwtape Letters to this point, and his Mere Christianity, perhaps the best-selling religious book after the Bible, first appeared as radio broadcasts on BBC during the Battle of Britain.

In war human securities and consolations are blown to smithereens and people are moved to seek a more lasting foundation and a more permanent city. After 9/11 there were those whose faith was left in shambles, but there seem to have been many more who were moved by the catastrophe to turn back to God.

In Hemingway's novel of Spain during the civil war, For Whom the Bell Tolls, one of the most vivid scenes depicts a nominally atheist soldier praying the Hail Mary over and over in his foxhole as he is being strafed by enemy planes. The more challenging question may be: How do you keep your faith in times of peace and prosperity?

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I would imagine that for most people being saved is paramount. That is assuming, of course, that they think they need to be saved, because they think they are sinners who are lost and unable to save themselves. If they don't see the need to be saved "from outside," then Christ the Savior is irrelevant, as is faith in him. They can do it without him. At most, Jesus Christ is just a good example. We earn our salvation through our good works.

So if I think that God is not involved in my salvation, that I do it myself by my good works, then I have really done away with the faith perspective. I may keep a deist God, perhaps, who may be needed to get the chain of being started, but he does not save me.

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