Religion matters in society, both in times of peace and in times of conflict. Some form of religion or spirituality exists in all civilizations and cultures because it serves to answer primordial questions of human existence, creation, who we are and our place in the universe. It is inherent to human nature. In addition, religious beliefs provide moral and ethical norms for both individual and collective life. It has been said that religion, sadly, has killed more people in war than for any other reason. While that statement is a miscalculation, I outline the many ways how religion indeed mobilizes some of the forces leading to armed conflict and war in this article. Although there certainly have been wars with religious ideology and conflict as the driving motivation, sometimes religious faith is an excuse to motivate people to fight for other actual reasons.
I include a history about the Crusades because that’s the first thing I thought of when contemplating religious wars. It’s also a good example of behavior existing in modern warfare. Other subtopics include the definition of religion, religion and culture in society, religious sanctioned violence, religion used to justify and motivate war, fundamentalism and proselytism, and how religion influences the conduct of war. I write from the perspectives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but not from more Eastern religions for the sake of limiting the topics. Doing justice to this topic requires one of my longest articles and it still is only the tip of the iceberg. Read it in two sessions if necessary since there is a lot of material; it will be worth your time.
What is religion?
The definition of the term “religion” is perhaps often ignored, unacknowledged or misunderstood. There still is no scholarly consensus on its meaning. The word religion originated from a Latin word “religio” meaning individual worship. Because it did not include a doctrine, practice or source of knowledge, it was not equivalent to the modern use of the religion term, which generally refers to organized belief systems about God or other supernatural, divine beings.
A biblical definition of religion is a devotion to God, demonstrated by love and compassion for fellowmen, coupled with unworldliness. The Cambridge Dictionary definition is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship. The Oxford Dictionary defines religion as the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being—human or otherwise—i.e., belief in a cosmos, the meaning of which both includes and transcends man. Others conclude the term is a modern Western concept only, derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition that does not apply to non-Western cultures nor have an equivalent in many languages and past cultures.
The concept of the soul dates back to ancient writings or earlier across cultures although there is a lot of diversity regarding souls in the organized religions. I certainly was not taught about reincarnation in my Catholic education, but it’s basic in Hinduism, for example. In the Hindu religion, upon the death of our physical body, the spiritual being aspect of ourselves will search out and reincarnate into a new body. Some people are able to recall past lives using meditation or hypnosis. Reincarnation is also an aspect of astrology, numerology, studies of the afterlife via hypnosis age and past life regressions, the occult and consciousness. In near death experiences, there are countless stories of people meeting with a spiritual being of some sort for a life review and making a decision to leave or return to the physical body and life. A branch of spiritual metaphysics in which God is referred to as “Source” of the universe and that we are all One as part of Source has replaced organized religion for many people. Quantum physics has taught us that tiny subatomic particles and light waves have consciousness.
These concepts of the soul translate into understanding that we come to earth for a learning experience and evolution. That means that who you are in this lifetime with family, location, occupation, and personality is NOT all that you are because the soul is metaphysical and lives on with consciousness beyond physical death of the body. With the advancement of AI controlled robots and machines that can learn, questions of sentience and the possibility of souls in non-biological entities has risen as well. And the quest for intelligent alien life on other planets changes the understanding of who created us and who we are. All of these modern ideas certainly challenge ancient religious assumptions and doctrines, and are not recognized by most Western religions.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of brutal military campaigns between Christians and Muslims from the 11th to the 13th centuries. Jews did not escape the carnage either. The exact dates vary, depending on which conflict you begin and end with, or officially from 1095 to 1291 CE. The medieval wars were initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Pope and Latin Catholic Church in Rome. The passions of the conflicts resemble that of Islamic jihad and have been compared to Viking raids as well. The violence left a wake of bloodshed, turmoil, destruction and ethnic hatred that extended to all Europeans and can still be felt today.
There were seven major Crusades, so I will describe the first one which is best known and generalize on the rest. Some Roman Empire history regarding Christianity sets the stage for understanding the causes and background of the Crusades.
From its humble beginnings in 753 BCE, Rome was a pagan kingdom. Large temples dedicated to pagan gods were found in most towns. Following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Christianity spread quickly among the lower classes who were attracted to its more social equality doctrines. The Christians put loyalty to God ahead of loyalty to the emperor and the state. That created tensions with the upper classes, particularly the Jews, who feared weakening of the hierarchal social order. The Christians were persecuted until Constatine the Great designated Christianity as the official empire religion in 313 CE.
The Roman Empire became so large that governance and protection from invasive tribes made maintaining political stability difficult. Between 286 – 395 CE, Rome was divided into Western and Eastern states, along with the split of Christianity into two branches during the 1050’s. Each division was governed independently with its own emperors, language and culture. Western Rome was dominated by Roman Catholics, its capital was in Rome and the people spoke Latin. The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, was dominated by the Eastern Orthodox religion, had its capital in Constantinople, and the people spoke Greek. The Byzantine Empire thrived with a diverse culture and population. As time went on, the differences between the two Roman Empire states grew and there was little communication or cooperation for defensive purposes.
The Western Roman Empire was not well protected and suffered from multiple invasions from outside tribes, eventually collapsing in 476 CE. The eastern Byzantine Empire survived another 1,000 years before being overtaken by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing, dating from the 7th century to the 13th century. The Islamic world became centers of wealth, culture, and military power. There was relative peace and prosperity by the end of the 11th century when the Crusades began. The only remaining conflicts between Muslims and Western Europeans were on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).
Over a period of a few hundred years, Islam had spread from its origins in the Arabian Peninsula throughout the Middle East, all the way to modern Spain, and east as far as present-day India. Arab Muslim armies were able to quickly take over vast territories that once belonged to the Byzantines.
Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. These kinds of exchanges affected native populations slowly and led to more conversions to Islam. As Islamic ideas traveled along various trade and pilgrimage routes, they mingled with local cultures and transformed into new versions and interpretations of the religion. Non-Muslim subjects under Arab Muslim rule were not especially opposed to their new rulers following a long period of instability and dissatisfaction that had left them ambivalent toward their previous rulers.
The political situation in Western Asia began to shift in the 10th century with waves of Turk migration, particularly the Seljuk Turks. Over a period of about 20 years in the 11th century they conquered Iran, Iraq and the Near East, with Baghdad as their capital city. They converted en masse to Islam in the Sunni tradition, which put them into conflict with the Shiites in Palestine and Syria. In 1071, Jerusalem was captured by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine as part of the expansion of the Seljuks throughout the Middle East.
The causes leading to the military raids actually started long before the First Crusade outside of Europe.
The spark that set off the Crusades was in the East, when the Byzantines confronted the Seljuk Turks who had been conducting raids at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Byzantines were badly defeated and risked losing all of Asia to the Turks. This motivated their emperor to seek help from the West, in spite of long-standing poor relations with Western Europeans.
A few Christian pilgrims had traveled to Jerusalem and the Holy Lands and were tolerated there until the Byzantine-Turkish antagonism developed in the late 11th century. In his appeal to the Christians for aid, Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus (Komnenos) spread stories that the pilgrims were being mistreated. Emperor Comnenus wrote to Pope Urban II proposing to reunify the Eastern and Western Churches. Pope Urban II warmly embraced the idea of helping Europe's "beleaguered allies" and fellow Christians in the East, so he proposed a holy war, which was a radical shift in Christian doctrine. The pope explained away this shift, not as any substantive change of direction, but as an extension of a policy already in place entitled the Truce of God.
The Truce of God was reframed into a declaration ending all wars fought between Christians. Instead, the real enemies were now the Muslim infidels from the East. Thus, in the ideological sense, the Crusades were justified as a “peace movement.” Spanning more than two centuries, the Crusades were military campaigns initiated by the papacy for supposed Christians to take back the Holy Lands from Muslim control.
In 1095, Pope Urban proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clairmont. He encouraged military support for Byzantine Emperor Comnenus and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There was an enthusiastic response across all social strata in western Europe.
Almost immediately, the French priest Peter the Hermit gathered thousands of mostly poor men in the Peoples Crusade. And traveling through Germany, German Christian bands massacred Jewish communities in the Rhineland Massacres during wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities. Jews were perceived to be as much an enemy as Muslims. They were held responsible for the crucifixion, and were more immediately visible. People wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were many closer to home.
Pope Urban granted anyone who joined his crusade an automatic indulgence, meaning forgiveness of all prior sins and salvation. This gave knights a holy vocation as vassals of Christ. In a speech before French knights, Pope Urban exhorted them to win back the “land of milk and honey” by avenging Turkish atrocities against their fellow Christians. They entertained fantasies of liberating Jerusalem and the Holy Lands from Muslim oppression. Later expeditions were conducted by generally more organized armies, sometimes led by a king. All were granted papal indulgences.
Hundreds of thousands of Christian men from all social classes enlisted in the Crusades after being promised religious blessings of salvation, fiefdoms, and spoils of conquest. Many of the crusaders were poor and unarmed men. They gathered together in Constantinople from all over Europe with a variety of motivations including salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for fame and economic opportunities. In 1095, Christian factions began raiding and murdering Jews in Europe in order finance arming of the crusaders. A genocidal wave in the German Rhineland spot was sparked by unsubstantiated rumors that Rhineland Jews were using Christian children in their religious sacrifices. Obliterating the Jews became an important element of the Crusades.
The First Crusade began in 1096 with the force size range anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 men. The Byzantines saw them as an uncivilized, ill-equipped throng driven by fanaticism. The emperor quickly escorted them eastward beyond the Byzantine boundaries and blocked them from returning. This betrayal of promised military and financial support earned them Europe’s distrust thereafter.
Against all odds, the crusaders survived and made it all the way to Syria, capturing the capital city of Antioch in June of 1098. The victory gave new life to the cause and they pushed south into the Holy Lands where they besieged and took Jerusalem the next year in 1099 CE. More than 10,000 non-Christians were slaughtered. Instrumental to their success was an astonishing level of barbarity and ruthlessness. Treating the defeated as no better than animals, the crusaders ravaged whole populations. They boasted of their own savagery, claiming they “rode in the blood of the infidels up to the knees of our horses.”
Pope Urban II died on 29 July 1099, fourteen days after the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, but before news of the event had reached Rome. He was succeeded by Pope Paschal II, who continued the policies of his predecessors in regard to the Holy Land. Paschal promoted the large-scale Crusade of 1101 in support of the remaining Franks. This new crusade was a similar size to the First Crusade but the command was fragmented into three divisions. The crusaders were defeated, proving to the Muslim world that the crusaders were not invincible, as they appeared to be during the First Crusade.
Following the First Crusade, four Crusader States were established along the eastern Mediterranean Sea under Christian governance. However, the Christian overlords did not integrate themselves into Middle Eastern society and were cruel and abusive despots. By 1144, one of the states fell back into Muslim hands. Both the Second Crusade (1147-1148) and the Third Crusade (1189-1193) failed, returning Syria, and much of the Holy Lands, including Jerusalem, to the Muslims. The losses occurred despite the joined forces of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the French king Philip Agustus, and the King of England, Richard the Lion-Hearted.
The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) was spearheaded and directed by a new young pope, Innocent III. He was intelligent and had studied law and diplomacy, becoming a skilled statesman. He planned to send the next wave of crusaders by sea, thereby avoiding the Byzantine Empire. Innocent contracted for ships and supplies to meet the crusaders in the port city of Venice, by then a great sea-power center. When no one showed up to pay for the ship’s “rental”, the Venetians contracted with the crusaders to stop in at the state of Zara, and take it back into control for Venice, instead of the Church. Innocent withdrew all support and funding of the crusaders and excommunicated them. The crusaders were then paid by a Byzantine exile to attack Constantinople, like a floating band of pirates. The Sack of Constantinople in 1204 lasted 3 days. The great library there was destroyed. The crusaders saw no need to continue on to the Holy Lands, and returned to Europe with the spoils of their conquest. Innocent was forced to forgive and “re-communicate” the crusaders. The Turks retook Constantinople in 1453.
Approximately two-thirds of the ancient Christian world had been conquered by Muslims by the end of the 11th century, including the important regions of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia. The Crusades, attempting to check this advance, initially enjoyed success, founding a Christian state in Palestine and Syria, but the continued growth of Islamic states ultimately reversed those gains. The Latin Christians were finally expelled from their kingdom in Syria and Jerusalem in 1291. By the 14th century, the Ottoman Turks had established themselves in the Balkans and would penetrate deeper into Europe despite repeated efforts to repulse them. Crusading declined rapidly during the 16th century with the advent of the Protestant Reformation and the decline of papal authority.
One outcome of the crusades was the widely hated Catholic inquisition. Known for its tortures and zealous excesses, the Inquisition is considered one of the most oppressive human institutions ever developed. It arose out of Pope Innocent’s attempt to stamp out a large heretical group in southern France known as the Albigensians. Innocent called for a special crusade in 1208 to wipe them out, which devastated the region in a five-year war. Ten years later, the new Pope, Gregory IX, continued the actions against the Albigensians, which grew into the Inquisitions goal to eliminate heresy of every type. The Inquisition generated a fearful climate of intellectual and spiritual oppression in Europe for the next 600 years. The fear of expressing non-conforming ideas still exists in today’s world.
What drove hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims to kill each other? Both sides believed that they were fighting for spiritual salvation and freedom. Just by fighting and perhaps dying gloriously for their faith, they were guaranteed eternal salvation. The drive for spiritual freedom is so strong, it overrides other drives such as physical self-preservation. But unfortunately, it can be used to lead a great many people into wars and killing for false purposes.
The Crusader Knights
Two Christian Knight organizations came into prominence and strength during the Crusades: The Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar.
The Hospitallers Started as a charitable order in 1048 and operated a hospital in Jerusalem that treated pilgrims. When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem, the Hospitallers received generous financial support from wealthy crusaders. In the year 1118 they underwent a change in leadership and purpose, becoming a military order dedicated to fighting the Muslims. They went by several names, including Knights of St John. They were a major military force in the Holy Lands, known for the white cross worn on their garments.
The Templar Knights came into existence around 1119. They were housed near the site where Solomon’s temple had once stood. They became bitter rivals of the Hospitallers. Like the Hospitallers, they received large sums of money during the Crusades, enough to start an international banking house during the 12th and 13th centuries. The Templars made large loans to European kings, princes, merchants, and at least one Muslim leader. Their riches were stored in Paris and London temples.
After the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims in 1291, the fortunes of both Knight organizations changed. The Hospitallers were forced to flee the holy lands, eventually taking up residence on the islands of Rhodes and Malta. The Templars fled to the island of Cyprus where they split up and then returned to their many houses in Europe. In 1312 the pope dissolved the Templar order by Papal decree. Many were publicly burned at the stake in 1314 in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Most of their properties were confiscated and given to the Hospitallers. Despite their downfall, the Templar organization managed to survive and were given a new home in Portugal by King Denis following their banishment from the rest of Catholic Europe.
Culture and Social Norms
Religious beliefs are principal definers of a culture, playing a significant role in individual as well as collective norms of behavior. Religious teachings include morals, ethics, and resisting things that cause conflicts such as greed, anger, hate, pride, revenge, and disrespect for others. Religious faiths vary in their tolerance for other religions, fundamentalism, proselytism, and behavioral expectations for worship and social relationships.
A dominant fundamentalist religion of a culture divides people into believers and non-believers, in contrast to more open societies allowing religious freedom to choose their form of worship. Some religious doctrines assign divine authority to the ruling state to fully control all military, political, social and individual aspects of life. Individuals and families are not allowed to change or criticize their faith nor its rules and decisions in fundamental religious regimes.
In contemporary American society, religious faith is mostly a personal matter, so perhaps less of a motivating factor for warfare compared to other regions. There is an official separation of church and state in the US. Although Marxism condemned religion as “the opium of the masses” it failed to eradicate the inherent need for belief in guiding principles, instead leading to a philosophy when millions in the West practiced secular materialism and reductionism, characterized by its own dogmas. However, the emphasis on consumption and accumulation of riches in capitalism and socialism, while ideological, has not been a satisfactory replacement for spiritual faith and morals. A conflict between religiously-based world views and science in terms of evolution persists, although quantum physics and consciousness studies are narrowing the gap.
Each of the three great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – have adopted particular world views based on interpretation of scriptures, importance of belief, government authority to wage war, the role of religion in society, and religious control over individuals. Missionary religions demonstrate a desire to convert unenlightened others to their true faith for their own good. When non-believer others cannot be converted, they are dismissed, rejected or killed. The degree of fundamentalism in dominant religions of the state is a strong indicator of how authoritarian a government may be, its social norms, and willingness to wage armed conflict against other states.
Fundamentalism is based on a literal interpretation of ancient scripture, imposing rigid, inflexible norms and rules of behavior and worship from the past onto the present time. Religious fundamentalism refers to the belief in the absolute authority of a sacred religious text or teachings of a particular religious leader, prophet, or God. Religion dictates every sphere of daily lives for fundamentalists, who also advocate for political and social control of society by their religious system, even by the use of force if necessary. There is little to no separation between the state and church in fundamental regimes. Advocates of fundamentalism deny the possibility of salvation to those who do not accept their interpretation of their faith. Religious beliefs are not open to any form of criticism. Modern logical explanations and scientific evidences have no place in society if they work against the religious scriptures from the past. Religious leaders play key roles in justifying armed conflicts.
Proselytism seeks to convert, or change, non-believer others from one religion, belief, opinion or course of action to another. This would include the secular, active promotion of human rights and democracy, which is viewed in many Muslim societies as an alien ideology that competes directly against Islamic moral and religious values. Both forces of fundamentalism and proselytism have caused conflicts between the religious worlds for centuries.
· Three main groups in Israeli Judaism have been characterized as fundamentalist: militant Zionism (movement to establish Israel in Palestine), the ultra-Orthodoxy of the Ashkenazim (Eastern European origin), and the ultra-Orthodoxy of the Sephardim (Middle Eastern origin). About 80% of Jews are Ashkenazim. Their tribe emerged during the Roman Empire and spoke Yiddish. They later migrated to northern and eastern Europe during the Middle Ages to avoid persecution. The Sephardim Jews originated in the Iberian Peninsula region (Spain and Portugal), later migrating to north Africa and other parts of Europe. Most now reside in Israel.
Modern Orthodox Jews strictly observe Jewish religious law but have nevertheless devised ways to participate in modern society. The ultra-Orthodox, in contrast, insist on separating themselves from Gentile society, as well as from Jews who do not follow the religious law as strictly as they do. All these groups stress the need for strict conformity to the religious laws and moral precepts contained in the sacred Jewish texts, the Torah and the Talmud. (Britannica)
· Early Christianity was a missionary, proselytist religion. In modern times, fundamentalists represent about 4 % of all Christians and 12% of Protestants. Christian fundamentalism is a Protestant subset of Evangelical Christianity in the US with a 1960’s resurgence and has its own churches, denominations and schools. It is based on five core teachings: literal errancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus, the sacrificial death of Jesus, the physical resurrection of Jesus, and the second coming of Jesus. It does not adhere to the Islamic militant oppositions to the modern world of science and freedoms in daily life.
Christian Conservatives may be politically active and concerned with moral issues, such as abortion, school prayer, and homosexuality, but not with the goal of transforming the United States into a Christian theocracy, as are the fundamentalists. Christian Evangelicals, who represented roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population at the start of the 21st century, do not uniformly share all the views of fundamentalists or the Christian Right and tend to be more liberal on some issues. Unlike fundamentalists, for example, many Evangelicals accept the idea of women ministers.
· Islam is a fundamental and proselytist religion that offers religion as a total way of life and as a viable alternative to Western secular ideologies. It aims at bringing all of contemporary society under God's sovereignty, rule and law as revealed in scripture. Islam is divided into Shiite and Sunni branches, with Sunnis representing 87 to 90 percent of Moslems. Then it is further divided into smaller branches with regional variations in application of Islamic Law. The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest fundamentalist group. Around 40 to 45 percent of Europeans are Moslem according to a Pew Research study. Most Muslims (60-75%) believe that their faith should rule society politically with Islamic Law (Sharia), although not all agree with severe punishments for infractions and crimes, terrorism, or jihad armed conflict.
While fundamentalists are in the minority in most Moslem states, they have had a profound effect in the Muslim world. The main difference between movements is how best to achieve their goals of a world-wide Islamic state. The state is seen by fundamentalists as the key instrument for implementing Sharia, so they focus their efforts on capturing centers of power either legally or violently by revolution or coup. The concept of the world as a battlefield where the forces of good and evil are fighting against each other at all times is characteristic of fundamental groups. Fundamentalists view history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil.
Religious Sanctioned Violence
Historically, has religion been the dominant theme causing armed conflicts or has it been used as a tool for associated purposes? Both. Wars are multifactorial and complex, as is religion. Religion encompasses a wide range of meanings, beyond spiritual concepts. It provides moral and cultural norms for personal and collective conduct. It can mold the thoughts and actions of key players in the political, economic and cultural spheres. Religious identity may be a more powerful motivator than other identities. Leaders of all types recognize the power of religion and how to leverage it for their own purposes.
Religious wars are often viewed as a sacred duty aimed at the conversion of infidels and the heathen. And they can be motivated by the defense or recapture of sacred places and political control of society. For example, Jerusalem has been fought over and exchanged hands many times.
The supreme being of the Islam faith is named Allah, who is said by Mohammed to be the same god as the Jewish and Christian Jehovah. Two key themes of the Koran are its Day of Judgment prophecy and its “fire and brimstone” depiction of Hell. Mohammed honored Moses and Jesus as Allah’s two previous messengers and proclaimed Islam to be the third and final revelation from God. It was therefore the duty of all Jews and Christians to convert to Islam. Hebrews and Christians tended to be less than cooperative with Mohammed’s demand. They had been warned in their own apocalyptic writings about the dangers of “false prophets.” The result has been some of the bloodiest fighting in world history. To most infidel Christians, Moslems were nothing more than savage heathens and nonbelievers. This set up an inevitable conflict into which millions of people would be dragged five hundred years after the death of Mohammed (632 CE) in the wars known as the Crusades. (William Bramley, Gods of Eden, p 153)
Review of past religious theologians’ writings by Saint Augustine, Saint Aquinas and Martin Luther were major influencers on the shaping of Western civilization and attitudes about armed conflict, religion and control over the lives of all people. The Just War Theory, described in Part 2 of this series was developed by them and still forms the foundation for international law today regarding what is legally permitted and what is considered a war crime against humanity.
There is a common belief that religious wars have killed more people than for any other reason. This is not accurate. It has been estimated that anywhere from one to three million people were killed in the Crusades, understanding that it is difficult to precisely count the deaths of participants from so long ago over a span of 200 years and that history records are often manipulated by the victors. In their recently published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare. Ethnic genocides not connected to declared wars or based on religion have killed over 160 million civilians in the 20th century alone. Genocide is often used as a tool for promoting rapid and political or social change by quickly replacing one group of people with another. Leaving any survivors with the “wrong, heretic” beliefs just leads to resistance to the new governance and social order.
A few big non-religious wars:
· Nearly 10 million soldiers died in the First World War, with over 30 million civilian casualties.
· World War II was even more devastating with the dead of 17 million soldiers along with 34 million civilian casualties.
· Total deaths in the Vietnam War were 2.45 million.
· 1.5 million combatants officially died in The Chinese Civil War, establishing the People’s Republic of China from 1945-1949 and another 5 million civilians from combat, starvation and disease. Other records indicate up to 10 million killed between 1927-1949.
· The Taiping Rebellion in China from 1850-1864 was a civil war killing 3.5 million combatants, 30 million civilians and as many as 70 million more dying from famine and disease.
· The Second Congo War (Great War of Africa) from 1998 to 2003 killed 5.4 million people, including ethnic cleansing and genocides.
The reality is that most wars are politically motivated. Religion is used as a motivator and a morally convenient cloak for nationalism, ideology, or human greed.
Historical Philosophy of Warfare in Christianity
Saint Augustine (354-430) was the Catholic bishop of Hippo in northern Africa before the fall of the Roman Empire. His philosophies helped shape Western civilization along themes of the nature of man, justice, the relationships between church and state, and war and peace. He stood at the intersection of Christianity, philosophy and politics. As a prominent Roman citizen, he considered the empire to be a divinely-ordained medium through which the truths of Christianity were to be spread and safeguarded. His work was later expanded upon by philosophers such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin and Hobbes.
Saint Augustine guided the early church with prolific writing in reviewing Christian attitudes toward violence and war and in permitting Christians to fight for the empire. He developed criteria for distinguishing between justifiable and unjustifiable wars, described in his AD 410 book, City of God. Augustine responded to wide criticism that the refusal of Christians to fight for the Roman Empire in armed conflict was helping to undermine the security of the empire and values of civilization. Augustine came up with strong arguments to defend the legitimacy of Christian participation in just wars. He defined just war as the attempt to avenge injuries inflicted where the enemy has refused to correct himself. The purpose of war was to punish acts of injustice and restoration of the peaceful status quo. In so doing, he embraced Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Augustine integrated Old Testament views with the ideas of Aristotle, Plato and Cicero, insisting that war must be sanctioned by the authority of a legitimate ruler, and conducted in a just manner which avoided looting, massacre, burning and protection of non-combatants from injury or death. Augustine wrote: “When war is undertaken in obedience to God, who would rebuke or humble or crush the pride of man (sic), it must be allowed to be a righteous war”.
According to Augustine, damnation is the just punishment of all men because of the Fall of Adam, who having been created with free will, chose to disrupt the perfectly good order established by God. As the result of Adam’s Fall, all human beings are heirs to the effects of Adam’s original sin and all our vessels of pride, avarice, greed and self-interest. God predestined some fixed number of men for salvation and others for damnation as a just consequence of the Fall. Predestination fixes the ultimate destination of every human being, as well as the political state to which they belong.
Augustine distinguished between two classes of people who he allegorically referred to as cities - the City of God and the City of the World (earthly city). Citizens of the earthly city are persons who are aliens to God’s love because they refuse to love God as evidence by their rebellious disposition and lust for material goods and for domination over others. Each person belongs only to one or the other city, not both. Citizens of the City of God (City of Heaven) deeply love God and are predestined to salvation.
Within this framework, the state is a divinely ordained punishment for fallen man with its armies and power to command, coerce, punish and kill along with its institutions, including slavery and property rights. God shapes the ultimate ends of man’s existence through it, serving the purpose of chastening the wicked and refining the righteous. However, political states are not perfect in terms of true justice (or equated with the City of God) even if righteously ruled. But at the very least states maintain order by keeping wicked men in check through the fear of punishment. Augustine saw Rome as the last bastion against the advances of the pagan barbarians.
Rulers, as God’s ministers, are justified in punishing sins against nature, against customs, and against laws. Rulers have the right to establish any law that does not conflict with the law of God. Citizens have the duty to obey their political leaders regardless of whether the leader is wicked or righteous. There is no right of civil disobedience. Citizens are always duty bound to obey God and when the imperatives of obedience to God and obedience to civil authority conflict, citizens must choose to obey God and willingly accept the punishment of disobedience.
Regarding war, the wicked are not particularly concerned about just wars. In contrast, the righteous vainly hope to avoid being affected by wars in their lifetime and the best they can hope for are just wars rather than unjust ones. This is by no means a perfect solution, but this is not a perfect world. The just war is a coping mechanism for use by the righteous who aspire to citizenship in the City of God. The just man who lives by his faith needs to understand how to cope with war as much as he needs to understand how to cope with all other aspect of life in the present world. In other words, war is simply a part of the human experience that God has ordained or permitted. War arises from and stands as a clear manifestation of the nature of the fallen man. Augustine reference
Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, expanded the definition of just-war by emphasizing that it was the subjective guilt of the wrongdoer that had to be punished rather than the objectively wrong activity. Aquinas concluded that war per se is not a sinful act. For a war to be justified, it must be declared by a legitimate authority, secondly, there must be a just cause and a good intention for the advancement of good and the elimination of evil. In the medieval world view, all of life was grounded in the mind of God and the church was understood as the connection between the secular and divine.
Later the Protestant reformers endorsed the doctrine of the just-war promoted by Aquinas. Nearly all Protestants trace their history back to Martin Luther (1483-1546). He was a German theologian, professor, pastor, and church reformer. Luther began the Protestant Reformation with the publication of his Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517.
Luther maintained that Scripture portrays human existence as being involved in two kingdoms, both established by God. The spiritual kingdom, called the kingdom of God, is a kingdom of grace and mercy. Its subjects display forgiveness and consideration for one another and their lives are characterized by love, service, the doing of good, peace, joy, and all the fruit of the Spirit. The other kingdom is temporal and called kingdom of the world. It is a kingdom of law and punishment. It is characterized by wrath, repression, judgment and condemnation to restrain the wicked and protect the good.
All human beings are, by birth, citizens of the kingdom of the world but only Christians are citizens of the kingdom of God. At baptism or conversion, a Christian renounces his citizenship in the kingdom of the world and is declared a citizen of the kingdom of God, although he must continue to live in the kingdom of the world. As a citizen of the kingdom of God and a resident in the kingdom of the world, the Christian comes under the jurisdiction of both kingdoms. Each has its own kind of jurisdiction. The kingdom of the world has laws which govern physical life and property, and the external affairs of this world. The kingdom of God is under the jurisdiction of divine grace and is concerned with the soul, spiritual life and salvation.
The kingdom of the world is governed by natural reason and coercive force. Members of this kingdom need laws to instruct, constrain, and compel them to do what even natural reason recognizes to be right. Consequently, this kingdom requires governing authorities who must be recognized as God’s instruments for establishing and preserving order, justice, and peace in the world. To these authorities, then, God has given the power of the sword for the punishment of evil, protection of the good, and the preservation of peace. When the governing authority engages in activities aimed at establishing or maintaining peace and obedience, such activities too are to be seen as being instituted by God.
With respect to war waged for such ends, Luther posited that “without armaments peace cannot be kept; wars are waged not only to repel injustice but also to establish a firm peace” and “What else is war but the punishment of wrong and evil.”
Luther did not formulate an explicit just war theory. The kingdom of God does not plan, justify, nor execute wars. Such matters are the proper function of the kingdom of the world. Because a Christian lives in both kingdoms of God and the world, he is simultaneously both a sinner and a saint. And since the kingdom of the world is God’s “order” through which God carries out His Will on earth, the Christian citizen is properly concerned that the functions of the kingdom of the world be carried out in harmony with the Will of God.
Luther answered further questions about a Christian’s participation in war in his treatise on “Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved.” In this treatise, Luther asserts that the occupation of a soldier is an honorable and godly office. A soldier may rightfully serve in his occupation and is justified, by the fact that war itself may rightfully be waged when the divinely-instituted governmental authority undertakes the war and secondly, it is undertaken for the sake of those divinely-instituted purposes for which the governing authority was established by God. But if a group of Christians were to question the actions of their government in a unified statement, those questions would be considered as spoken by subordinates of the kingdom of the world, not the kingdom of God.
People may condemn war as the greatest evil on this earth; and if sin had not corrupted human nature, or if everyone were a perfectly sanctified child of God, war would indeed be the greatest plague on earth. But unfortunately, sin motivates people to rob, steal, murder, rape women, abuse children, greedily grasp for international power and attempt to enlarge one’s international boundaries at the expense of weaker countries. Consequently, war is necessary when properly undertaken and conducted in order to restrain and limit the natural chaos which would result otherwise, which would destroy everyone. The soldier’s occupation then is as needful and useful as any other in the activities of the kingdom of the world. Luther reference
In the Old Testament, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, David, and all the kings of Israel engaged in war and were praised for what they did. Regarding the New Testament, Luther noted that the Apostles Peter and Paul exhort obedience to worldly rulers and ordinances. Jesus Himself clearly indicated that war in itself, in the kingdom of the world, is not evil when He told Pilate, “If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world.” (John 18:36) Luther concluded, “even under the New Testament the sword is established by God’s word and commandment, and those who use it properly and fight obediently serve The Just War God and are obedient to his word.” Luther reference
Warfare in Islam: Jihad
Jihad is derived from the Arabic word 'Jahada', which means "he strove or exerted himself against anything which is evil". Jihad is a holy war waged in self-defense against all forms of ungodliness, oppression, inhumanity, tyranny and dictatorship.
Prophet Muhammad divided jihad into two main categories; the major jihad, which is jihad against oneself, and the minor jihad, which is war against enemies of Islam. The major jihad, which is internal spiritual cleansing, self-denial, mortification, suppression and psychic annihilation of man's lower nature and sinful instinct is more relevant than the minor jihad. The declaration of minor jihad means collective armed violence against enemies of Islam.
The Islamic concept of society is interpreted in a fundamental doctrinal dualism. Human society is divided into two regions: Dar al-Islam, meaning, abode of Islam or abode of peace, and Dar al-harb, meaning, enemy territory, abode of war, or land of unbelief.
It is the religious duty of Muslim rulers to wage holy war (by all permissible and practical means), against the enemy territory. The goal of incessant combat is to compel conversion into Islam. Jihad is a condition of permanent warfare. Even when military hostilities are suspended for overriding strategic and logistic considerations, jihad must continue through psychological and political means. As a prelude to full scale armed confrontation, Muslim rulers are urged to apply persuasion as the first step to win-over the non-believers. It is obligatory for Dar aI-Islam to negotiate with Dar al-harb. Political negotiation and concessions should aim at peaceful co-existence. Even though jihad is a sacred obligation, Islam does not permit preemptive and unreasonable invasion of the enemy territory. There are acceptable conditions that should precede the waging of jihad.
An option given to the non-Muslim is the status of AI-dhimi (meaning tolerated non-Muslim). It entails unconditional loyalty and political submission to a Muslim government. The tolerated non-Moslems are disenfranchised, without citizenship rights and allowed only the freedoms to remain and to teach the faith only within their own family.
Islam does not accept change of religion. Muslims do not have any reason to abandon their religion. The punishment prescribed in the Islamic shariah for apostasy is the death penalty. This is clearly attested in the well-known tradition of Prophet Muhammad, “The blood of a Moslem may not be legally spilt other than in one of three instances: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his religion (of Islam) and abandons the community”.
How Religion is Used to Justify, Motivate and Conduct War
Religion deals with Absolutes. The fact that many religions affirm knowledge of absolute truth makes them intractable to interactions with other groups when conflicts or competition for territory and resources arise. Diplomacy requires that those who hold conflicting positions meet somewhere in a middle ground. This requires flexibility and a willingness to compromise that zealous religious leaders are often unwilling to make.
The Sunni fundamentalist sects of Salafists and Wahhabi schools of Koranic interpretation have been identified as ideological sources of the modern call for “external” jihad and the restoration of the Islamic theocracy, the Caliphate. Fundamentalist Judaism also calls for the restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem and of the territory of “Greater Israel” in the manner of a theocracy. These two positions are obviously irreconcilable, and if unchecked, would make any compromise needed for peacemaking in Palestine impossible. Unfortunately, advocates of these two positions are currently active and influential in the Middle East.
Islam has been a missionary, fundamental religion from its very beginning. The missionary aspect of these religions is important because it demonstrates a desire to convert the unenlightened “other” to the true faith. This means that there is a tendency not to accept “the other” as he is but to change him for his own good. If “the other” cannot be converted, followers of missionary religions have historically demonstrated a tendency to dismiss, reject, or even attempt to destroy this “other.”
Religion provides strong emotional identify and just cause. Courage, passion, and motivation to fight and perhaps die comes from the soldier’s belief in what he is doing is right. The soldier must feel that his actions are just. By pleasing the will of the gods, the sacrifice of the soldier is often praised by the survivors, that their family members sacrificed their lives for their benefits. During the Crusades, Christians were promised redemption for their sins and shortening of time in purgatory if they followed the bidding of the Pope and fought against the enemies of the church. Islamic fighters that are martyred in jihad believe they will have a better life in heaven.
Leaders must motivate soldiers with causes that the masses can believe in, such as justice, freedom, power, threat or religion. It can be political, social, economic, racial, religious, or even artificial. The point is that there has to be something that can strike passion in the soldiers, to make them follow and do the bidding of the leaders.
Religion has both Personal and Social aspects. Religion is a complex concept. It has both personal and social aspects. The personal aspects may be significant when they mold the thoughts and actions of key players in the political or cultural spheres since these individuals may exercise great influence over their followers. The social aspects are even more significant because they may be influential in motivating collective actions. Religious identity is either the most significant or one of the most significant sources of collective identity.
Religious scriptures, including the Old Testament, promote violence. The texts of the Jewish scripture, particularly the Torah and the Psalms, as well as the Koran contain many passages where God prescribes violence against the unfaithful. Many of the Psalms explicitly invoke God’s wrath upon the enemies.
The gospels and the books of the New Testament are remarkably free from violent pronouncements. Jesus advocated what seems to be an extreme form of pacifism and insisted that “my Kingdom is not of this world.” However, most Christians accept the Jewish scriptures which they call the “Old Testament” as a valid, although imperfect, revelation from God.
After leaving Egypt and trekking to the Holy Lands, the Hebrew armies, numbering in the tens of thousands, reached Canaan. Under the leadership of Joshua, Jehovah gave orders to them that equates to modern definitions of genocide. The first city to fall was Jericho. According to the Bible, they slaughtered everyone.
· And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. (Joshua 6: 21)
· … they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the Treasury of the House of the Lord. (Joshua 6:24)
The next city was Ai, with a population of 12,000.
· So Joshua killed all in the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the valleys, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. (Joshua 10:40)
Religion may be used as a Tool for other Purposes. As is true of all cultural constructs, religion may serve purposes other than its avowed spiritual role. Thus, it may take on political, cultural, social and other roles. Leaders of all types recognize the power of religion and leverage it to their own purposes. It can be an excuse to cover up secret or underlying purposes such as genocide of an entire population.
Man’s greed and lust for more power in some form or another has been the driving force for conflict all throughout history. But to make people grant a leader that power, he must provide enough incentive to direct the soldiers to the battlefield and risk their lives for a cause.
Religion exists in Context with other Religions and Non-Belief. In today’s world, a given religion does not normally exist in isolation from other religions or modes of thought. When a religion or a sect within the religion is in the minority, it may take a defensive and sometimes militant attitude toward the majority faith. Conversely, members of a majority religion may decide to squelch all opposition and persecute other minority faiths.
Just War Theory. The concept that collective violence in the form of war, may, in some instances, be morally justified. The classic proponents of the concept of the “Just War” were Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, who described what elements are necessary for starting and conducting acceptable warfare.
Certain conditions must exist if religion is to be used effectively as a weapon of war. First, there must be a community of believers who are willing to take collective action based on their common belief. Religious identity is only one among many identities that humans may possess. However, for religion to become a weapon of war, the religious identity of a group must be ranked very high among that group’s scale of values. For example, one of the commonly recognized virtues of Islam is that it very seldom discriminated on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Machiavelli on State verses Personal Morality
Niccolo Machiavelli, a famous 16th century Italian Renaissance philosopher, wrote how-to books for princes on methods to socially and politically maintain power over a population. One technique was to create conflict between groups, so that people fight among themselves in a divide and conquer mentality. Not only was civil discord not necessarily bad politically, it could also be essential to maintain liberty. The church is subservient to the state and religion can be used to as means to a desired end. Religious beliefs are one of the strongest values that people identify with so they can be leveraged as motivators for collective, organized conflict.
However, morality and goodness are completely different virtues from authority and power. A good leader is not necessarily a good person. Machiavelli distinguishes between personal virtues such as charity and piety, from political virtues such as liberality, clemency and good faith, in the maintenance of power. Morality is not always clear and uniform among different groups of people, which can lead to instability. The state is above the laws enforced on the citizens so there is a double standard in play.
Machiavelli criticized at length precisely this moralistic view of authority in his best-known treatise, The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure power and the ruler has no more authority on account of being good. Thus, in direct opposition to morally derived theories of politics, Machiavelli says that the only real concern in politics is the acquisition and maintenance of power (although he talks less about power per se than about “maintaining the state”). In this sense, Machiavelli presents a trenchant criticism of the concept of authority by arguing that the notion of legitimate rights of rulership adds nothing to the actual possession of power. Machiavelli reference
Conclusion
War is not a noble quest. Rather it is the institutionalization of criminality. In reality, war brings mental, spiritual and physical deterioration to humanity and society. The rules of violent force are completely different than the rules for doing right and wrong. (Bramley, Gods of Eden)
Spirituality is a part of human nature. Fundamental religions have exploited people’s need for faith that there is a supernatural intelligent being or forces responsible for our creation and everlasting life (salvation). The major monotheistic religions divide people into believer and non-believers, leading to global armed conflicts that destroy whole societies and populations.
Religious scholars and philosophers granted divine authority to the state, to control, punish, coerce, wage warfare and block religious freedom from ordinary peoples, even while acknowledging that states are often not perfectly just. States and their political leaders must be blindly obeyed because they are representatives of God, thereby meeting the criteria for Just Wars advocated by Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. In their view, church and state go hand in hand. In contrast, Machiavelli separated the aims of the church and state, with the state at the top of the hierarchy using a different set of virtues.
Humans also strongly value FREEDOM. Most people value freedom to worship, to work, to raise a family, to pursue interests and passions, and to select leaders. And yet they forfeit their freedom to religious leaders and its supposed divine state, going to war like puppets and sacrificing their lives and everything they have built. They believe they are freely doing so because they have failed to see the manipulation by the perpetrators’ greed and lust for power and riches. Or they fear punishment, which is more effective than affection for coercing behavior. The reality Is that someone can choose not to obey only if he possesses the power to resist the ruler or is prepared to risk the consequences of the state’s superiority of coercive force. Machiavelli was confident that people will fight for liberty, even if false. This is behind the false flags we see today that trigger wars.
Let's not make this too complicated. There is authoritarian religion which is chauvinistic, and their "God" is a jealous God. In True Religion, say that of Jesus Christ, we are all members of His Mystical Body such that whatever we do to the least of out brothers and sisters we do to Christ Consciousness. Then there will be no more war. However, will it ever get here in time?
Let the sun shine in.