“There are no atheists in fox holes”

“There are no atheists in fox holes” is a saying Isherwood Williams recalls inside an unfinished cathedral after the Great Disaster. Its familiar claim—that danger drives people toward faith—meets a world so devastated that the possibility of divine concern itself seems doubtful.

The Saying in the Cathedral

After passing Columbia University, Isherwood enters the cathedral, which had been unfinished before the disaster and would remain so. He imagines, with horror, that its nave might be piled with the bodies of people who had gathered there to pray at the last hour. Instead, he finds it empty and walks through the chapels, where people of many nationalities had once been invited to worship.

The sunlight still streams through the stained-glass windows, and the church remains as beautiful as he remembers it. In that setting, Isherwood feels a sudden desire to kneel before an altar and recalls “There are no atheists in fox holes.” The remembered phrase brings the urgency of mortal danger into a place made for worship.

Crisis and Doubt

Isherwood immediately enlarges the saying’s image: the whole world, as he sees it, has become a foxhole. But the disaster does not strengthen his faith. He reasons that what has happened offers no encouragement to think God is particularly interested in humanity or in individual people.

The expression therefore appears not as a settled statement of belief but as a proposition tested against catastrophe. Isherwood recognizes the impulse toward prayer under extreme threat, yet the devastation surrounding him leaves that impulse without reassurance. The empty cathedral sharpens the contrast: a space built for collective worship remains beautiful, but its beauty does not answer his doubt.

Significance

The recollection makes the saying’s conventional confidence unstable. If danger is supposed to turn people toward faith, a world-wide crisis might seem to confirm the phrase; for Isherwood, however, the scale of the disaster makes divine indifference appear just as plausible. The saying captures the pull of religious consolation while the scene refuses to make that consolation certain.