User:Jenhawk777/Violence and Christianity

Violence and Christianity is both a complex and a controversial subject because of conflicting claims that Christianity causes violence, that violence is only tangentially connected to Christianity, and that Christianity prevents violence.


 * Since the sixteenth century and the writings of Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, the widely accepted position has been that 'intolerance within Christianity' has caused much of the violence in western history. It can be traced from them on through Edward Gibbon and the tremendous influence of his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" written in 1776–1781, and on still into the modern works of Ramsay MacMullen, James J. O’Donnell, T.D.Barnes, and many more. This belief has dominated the discussion of this subject for over two hundred years.

Rodney Stark, professor of social sciences, and Kathryn Corcoran agree with this view. In Religious Hostility: A Global Assessment of Hatred and Terror they conclude intolerance is a primary cause of violence and much of that is contributed by the world's religions. Many eminent scholars of Christian antiquity have created a large body of work connecting intolerance and violence in Christianity's past. Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan identify some of these as, the Inquisitions, the Crusades, Wars of Religion, and antisemitism. Mennonite theologian J. Denny Weaver holds traditional Christian theology responsible for a host of more contemporary issues such as capital punishment, corporal punishment, slavery, colonialism, and the subjection of women.


 * William Cavanaugh calls into question this traditional view of intolerance and religion. Quoting evidence from sixteenth and seventeenth century historians, he demonstrates the "religious wars" of the Late Middle Ages were not solely religious by showing that participants and motives for those wars crossed religious boundaries. Cavenaugh offers numerous examples of those belonging to the same church fighting and killing each other, and those from different churches, collaborating. Cavenaugh sees Christianity as a contributing factor, but sees the root cause of those wars as the rise of the secular state. Cavenaugh casts doubt on the rigid division between religion and the other factors, such as economics, social upheaval and politics, contributing to these wars.



Ancient historian H.A. Drake indicates that, while intolerance is part of the picture of Christianity and violence, it is insufficient as an explanation by itself. The additional economic, political, and social analysis Drake advocates indicate the upheaval that results from cultural-ideological change is what causes violence in most cases and not religion by itself.




 * Claiming that Christianity causes violence implies human nature would be less violent without Christianity's influence. Yet removing Christianity and replacing it with no religion at all—exemplified by atheism—has not decreased violence in some cases but has instead increased it. Examples include: ""some of the more violent exponents of the French Revolution, the ... militancy of Marxist-Leninist atheism, and the prominence of atheism in totalitarian states formed in the 20th century. ...In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke railed against 'atheistical fanaticism.' The 1937 papal encyclical Divini Redemptoris denounced the atheism of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, which was later influential in the establishment of state atheism across Eastern Europe and elsewhere, including Mao Zedong's (aka Mao Tse-tung) China, Communist North Korea and Pol Pot's Cambodia."" These non-religious societies killed more of their own people than any other societies in history.



Cavenaugh underlines this with examples from sixteenth century historians that show the replacement of the authority of the church with the authority of the state did nothing to end violence. It only replaced violence in defense of the church with violence in defense of politics and nationalism. Rudy Rummel's comparative chart shows conflict related deaths have risen every century since the sixteenth century, culminating in the twentieth century as the bloodiest in history. This is no doubt partly because of modern weapons and warfare.


 * Yale Divinity Professor Miroslav Volf argues that Christianity "should be seen as a contributor to more peaceful social environments." Ira Chernus, Professor Of Religious Studies agrees. He says, "Most of the great 'nonviolence' leaders in the U.S., both men and women, were people of deep religious and moral faith. Most of them came to nonviolence first through their faith, not cerebral analysis. They were preachers more than philosophers..." A survey of 20th century theology shows many examples.

Intolerance Causes Violence; Religion is Intolerant; Christianity is a Religion; Therefore Christianity is Violent

 * Mark Juergensmeyer’s work,Terror in the Mind of God, rests on just such a reading of religion, and there are many who agree, such as popular author Christopher Hitchins. Juergensmeyer argues, it is ""religious imagination, which always has had the propensity to absolutize and to project images of cosmic war” that causes the violence we see associated with it." A large body of scholars take the position intolerance produced violence from Christianity throughout its history, yet, despite the large number of people supporting this view, there have been few global analyses conducted to empirically determine what the link between religion and violence might actually be. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) says that lack of data is why the relation between religion and violence is more often presumed rather than studied. That's why IEP conducted A Global Statistical Analysis on the Empirical Link Between Peace and Religion in 2013.

IEP looked at how many conflicts included religion as an aspect and how many were driven by religion as the main or sole motivator for conflict. Eighty-six percent of the conflicts in this study had multiple background causes. In nearly two-thirds, the main cause was political or ideological including clashes of national identity. "When analyzing the motivation for these conflicts, the desire for identity and self-government was a part of 60 percent of them. ...Of the 21 conflicts involving religion, seven involved one other cause, four involved two other causes and ten involved three or more other causes. 14 per cent had religion, specifically the establishment of an Islamic state, as driving causes. Notably, religion was not the sole cause of conflict in any of the armed conflicts in 2013."


 * There are statistically significant drivers of peace that are more significant than religion. For example, regardless of the presence of religion or atheism, democracies are more peaceful.


 * "There are aspects of religion and religiously motivated activity which have a positive impact on peace."


 * "Multivariate regression analysis demonstrates that there are many factors... which are more important than either religion or atheism when peace is absent. These include corruption, political instability, political terror, gender and economic inequality, and style of governance."


 * "Religious restrictions are closely correlated to... religious hostilities." "The presence of multiple religions in a country appears to have a pacifying effect if they are free of restrictions." "Religious restrictions and religious hostilities fall on a bell-curve with the mid-levels of religious diversity having the worst performance. Europe is the only region against trend."

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research has come to similar conclusions. According to their data, the causes of conflict in the world today occur when ""a conflict actor aspires a change of the ideological (such as national or ethnic identity), religious, socioeconomic or judicial orientation of the political system or changing the regime type itself;"" they did not find religion as a sole motivator for any conflicts, but did find it as an adjunct to a similar degree as IEP. Notably, both research agencies found, as Rodney Stark did, that intolerance is a cause of violence, while religious tolerance, including tolerance of religious pluralism, is a significant factor in the absence of violence and the positive presence of peace.

When culture is going through the upheaval of ideological change, that change creates some amount of chaos. Sweeping cultural-social-ideological change such as occurred in the Roman empire of late antiquity, and in the centuries after the Reformation, and the French Revolution, and the Enlightenment, were all accompanied by violent events. According to the 2014 Spanish reports on conflicts, religion is rarely a sole root cause for that violence. Juergensmeyer acknowledges religion “does not ordinarily lead to violence”, but he does acknowledge religion gets used to support other driving factors like political change and that is when violence often results."

That leads to an interesting point raised by David Rosen: "Religion is widely blamed for much of the violence in our world, both today and in the past. Its defenders say that most so-called conflicts in the name of religion are in fact ethnic, nationalist and territorial, and they exploit religion for their own purposes. But, even if this is so, it still leaves the question of why religion is so easily exploited for violent ends."

Constantine and the Pagans



 * Christian violence toward paganism took place in the Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries. How much violence?  When?  What kind of violence?  By whom exactly?  And most of all—why?

Edward Gibbon, in his history, eloquently lays responsibility solely at the feet of the intolerance he sees as innate within monotheism, and his view has been dominant for over two centuries. As ancient historian Herbert Drake puts it, "It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Gibbon's interpretation on subsequent scholarship." However, Drake argues this view is incomplete: the root cause of violence in Late Antiquity cannot be properly understood without looking at political, social, and other factors as well as religion. The Ancient Roman Empire had no such concept as separation of church and state; the state was a religious institution. So much so, Drake doesn't think there was even any provision for such a concept anywhere in the Roman mindset. Changing the religion the entire system was built around impacted everything and everyone—and all their power and influence and money.


 * It is customary to count ten major Roman persecutions of Christians in Christianity's first three centuries. After 313, as the empire slowly, and often reluctantly, made the shift to Christianity, pagans experienced one persecution comparable to that experienced previously by Christians (where people were killed with official sanction), and three, (or four depending upon how a scholar defines "major" persecution), where buildings and tombs or other pagan symbols were destroyed. Neither number reflects the sporadic, gang style violence by disgruntled neighbors that occurred throughout antiquity from both pagans and Christians. These mobs were quite dangerous, destroyed property, and killed people on occasion; one famous example is the death of Hypatia of Alexandria. That number also does not reflect years of legislation against either one as the law would be expected to shift to protect the state religion and oppress opponents—as it always had.


 * From Constantine in 313 to Gratian in 382, paganism was relatively tolerated.

Constantine the Great

 * Constantine became Emperor of Rome and gave Christianity legal status under the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313. Edict of Milan  He did not immediately begin persecuting pagans. Christians probably composed about a fifth part of the population in the West and half of the population in the East at that time, and most of the upper class, whose support Constantine needed, remained pagan, so even if he had wanted to—which there is no indication of—oppressing pagans would not have been a practical move.  Christianity in the 4th century  Indications are Constantine was, at least somewhat, tolerant. He never outlawed paganism. He did prohibit the construction of new pagan temples, yet the pagan historian Zosimus, records Constantine erected more than one statue of Apollo and other pagan gods.  He did remove many pagans from office, replacing them with Christians, as well as removing the requirement of sacrifice for imperial officers,  Constantine the Great  but he also changed his earlier edict, the Edict of Milan, to the Edict of the Provincials which the historian H. A. Drake points out called for peace and tolerance. Constantine never reversed this edict, and several historians  suggest Constantine may have been trying to create a society where the two religions lived peacefully along side one another.

How much anti-pagan violence was there under Constantine? Late in his reign he ordered the pillaging and the tearing down of some pagan temples.

What kind of violence? Constantine would sporadically prohibit public sacrifice and close pagan temples but there was little pressure put on individual pagans, and there were no pagan martyrs.

Why? H.A. Drake asserts it was politically expedient for Constantine to be nominally anti-pagan. This seems likely as the root cause. Belief in the need for one national religion was Roman; it existed before Rome became Christian, and remained extant after the shift in religions began. Roman citizens had always been required to accept and support the national religion. Failure to worship the gods of the State was equivalent to treason, and treason was punishable by death. That's why Romans had seen Christians as treasonous atheists before Constantine, and that's why it was considered legal and ethical to persecute them. The Roman expectations surrounding the role of religion continued after Christianity was declared legal. Yet Constantine never had anyone killed for not accepting Christianity.

It is possible religious fervency was a causal factor, but it seems unlikely in view of the fact he was not fervent enough to get baptized before he was on his deathbed.



337 to 361 A.D. Constantius II
The first real anti-pagan laws by the Christian state started under Constantine's son Constantius II. He ordered the closing of all pagan temples, forbade pagan sacrifices under pain of death, removed the traditional Altar of Victory from the Senate, and ended pagan subsidies from public taxes. However, the emperor's policies were passively resisted by many governors and magistrates since many of them remained pagan. Constantius' actions toward paganism were relatively moderate: Constantius never attempted to disband Roman priestly colleges or the Vestal Virgins. He never acted against pagan schools. It was not until over 20 years after Constantius' death, during the reign of Gratian, that any pagan senators protested their religion's treatment.

How much anti-pagan violence was there under Constantius II? During his reign ordinary Christians began to vandalise pagan temples, tombs and monuments. What kind of violence? Mob violence that Sozomen contends Constantius did not attempt to stop. However, in the Theodosian Code there is a law for the preservation of the temples that were situated outside of city walls, as well as one that exacted a fine from those who were guilty of vandalizing those sites holy to pagans. He also placed the care of these monuments and tombs under the pagan priests—whom he did not disband. There were no pagan martyrs created by the Christian Roman Empire at this time.

Why? According to Drake, the Constantinian Dynasty was driven by political factors as much as by the power of social upheaval.

The church did not officially support or condone these mobs. There were church restrictions opposing the pillaging of pagan temples by Christians in place before Constantine. Spanish bishops in AD 305 decreed that anyone who broke idols and was killed while doing so was not to be counted as a martyr. This would likely have been a significant deterrent in the martyr-venerating early church.



361-363 A.D. and 363-378A.D. Julian, Jovian, Valens and Valentinian I
Julian (361-363) not only did not oppose paganism, he attempted to revive it during his brief rule. Julian (emperor) How much anti-pagan violence was there? Under the equally brief reigns of Julian's successors – Jovian, Valens and Valentinian I (363-378) – persecution of pagans was minimal. The Jewish historian and theologian Jacob Neusner writes: "It was only after the near catastrophe of Julian's reversion to paganism that the Christian emperors systematically legislated against paganism so as to destroy it." Drake agrees: social factors like ""deep seated Christian anxieties about a return to persecution, ...allowed militants to seize control of a discourse that had previously been deployed in support of freedom of worship and passive suffering."

After the death of Julian, Jovian seems to have instituted a policy of religious toleration which avoided extremes. How much anti-pagan violence was there? Under Valentinian and Valens, religious toleration continued. Pagan writers praise both of these emperors for their liberal religious policies. Valentinian I also confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples.

367 – 383 A.D. Gratian


"In 382, Gratian declared that all Pagan temples and shrines were to be confiscated by the government, and instead of being closed or torn down, their revenues were to be joined to the property of the royal treasury." He confiscated the personal possessions of the colleges of Pagan priests, which also lost all their privileges and immunities, forbade legacies of real property to pagans, and abolished other privileges belonging to the Vestals and to the pontiffs.

How much anti-pagan violence was there? This was accomplished without direct violence. ""He ordered another removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate House at Rome, despite protests of the pagan members of the Senate, and confiscated its revenues. Pagan Senators responded by sending an appeal to Gratian, reminding him that he was still the Pontifex Maximus and that it was his duty to see that the ancestral Pagan rites were properly performed. They appealed to Gratian to restore the Altar of Victory and the rights and privileges of the Vestal Virgins and priestly colleges. Gratian, at the urging of Ambrose, did not grant an audience to the Pagan Senators. Moreover, he further renounced the title, office, and insignia of the Pontifex Maximus."

What kind of violence? Economic. The loss of income would have been substantial. There was no official temple destruction nor any pagan martyrs.

Why? It seems likely his primary motive was economic. Annalisa Merelli explains real economic need may have been the result of a refugee crisis created when nearly a quarter million Goths were driven from their homes by the Huns and came to Rome for aid. If religious fervency had been the primary drive, he likely would have torn the Temples down, or at least closed them, rather than leaving them operating in order to take their money.

375 – 392 A.D. Valentinian II
Gratian had shared the imperial title with his father since 367, but when his father, the elder Valentinian I, died on campaign in Pannonia in 375, the generals took the Emperor's four year old son, Gratian's half-brother, and acclaimed him augustus. ... "Valentinian himself seems to have exercised no real authority, and was a figurehead for various powerful interests: his mother, his co-emperors, and powerful generals."

Empress Justina, Valentinian's mother, was a Christian who followed the teachings of Arius. Ambrose the Bishop of Milan was Nicean and opposed Arianism. "In 385 Ambrose, backed by Milan's populace, refused an imperial request to hand over the Portian basilica for the use of Arian troops. In 386 Justina and Valentinian received the Arian bishop Auxentius, and Ambrose was again ordered to hand over a church in Milan for Arian usage. Ambrose and his congregation barricaded themselves inside the church, and the imperial order was rescinded. Magnus Maximus used the emperor’s heterodoxy against him, and even his eventual protector, Theodosius, cast aspersions on his Arianism. Valentinian also tried to restrain the despoiling of pagan temples in Rome.  Buoyed by this instruction, the pagan senators, led by Aurelius Symmachus, the Prefect of Rome, petitioned in 384 for the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the Senate House, which had been removed by Gratian in 382. Valentinian, at the insistence of Ambrose, refused the request.  ...   He also refused to overturn the policies of his predecessor by restoring the income of the temple priests and Vestal Virgins. In the year 391, Valentinian II issued a law that prohibited sacrifices and that forbade anyone from visiting the temples. A later law of Valentinian declared that pagan temples were to be closed; this was viewed as practically outlawing paganism."

How much anti-pagan violence was there? The only real violence perpetrated appears to have been toward Valentinian himself. In 392 Valentinian II was found hanged; whether it was suicide or murder has never been clear. He was 21 years old. What kind of violence? Economic and ideological mostly. There were no pagan martyrs created by the government during his reign. But temples did continue to be vandalized and demolished by mobs and other fervent anti-pagan individuals.

379 – 393 in the East and 392 – 395 A.D. in the united Empire
Theodosius I and Official Persecution

Theodosius I was fairly tolerant of the pagans in the beginning of his rule. It may have been expediency: he needed the support of the still influential, mostly pagan, ruling class. He was a military man who learned his skills by campaigning with his father's staff in Britain and elsewhere. ""After being crowned emperor in the East (379), he continued to battle German tribes in the north, but finally worked out a unique arrangement with them: for exchange of land and provisions, their soldiers would serve under the Roman banner when needed. It was a novel idea for the time, an arrangement that later emperors would depend on more and more. To pay for this expanded army, however, Theodosius raised taxes brutally. "No man shall possess any property that is exempt from taxation," he decreed. City magistrates, who were responsible for collecting taxes, were flogged if they failed to levy taxes efficiently. Yet it wasn't just tax dodgers that caught his attention, but heretics and pagans as well.""

Early in his reign, during a serious illness, Theodosius accepted Christian baptism, and in 380 he proclaimed himself a Christian of the Nicene Creed. On February 27, 380, he declared "Catholic Christianity" the only legitimate imperial religion. He started to inhibit paganism in 381 when he reiterated Constantine's ban on sacrifice. In 386, he received complaints concerning the behavior of Christian mobs and did little to stop them. In a "Letter of Libanius to Emperor Theodosius I, 386 C.E.", Libanius says, "[Christian monks}... hasten to attack the temples with sticks and stones and bars of iron, and in some cases, disdaining these, with hands and feet. Then utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs, demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars, and the priests must either keep quiet or die. After demolishing one, they scurry to another, and to a third, and trophy is piled on trophy, in contravention of the law.  Such outrages occur even in the cities, but they are most common in the countryside ..." This apparent change of policy on his part has often been credited to the influence of bishop Ambrose of Milan and the events of 390, as though Theodosius piety was a result of Ambrose's influence. It seems more likely Ambrose's influence was a result of Theodosius' piety instead.

Theodosius was a man of action, a military leader. He dealt with the tax situation without hesitancy. So when his "general" Butherichus was murdered in Thessalonica in 390, Massacre of Thessalonica Theodosius sent the army and massacred about 7,000 of the city's inhabitants. Ambrose was deeply distressed at these murders, and according to Theodoret, when the emperor came home and tried to enter a church where Ambrose was about to celebrate a mass, the bishop stopped him and rebuked him for what he had done. Ambrose excommunicated him. The emperor “had been brought up according to divine words”, and he could do nothing but return "weeping and sighing" to the palace.

Eight months later Theodosius was still excommunicated and grieving from it. In an attempt to lift this ban, he appealed to Ambrose directly. Ambrose answered, ""What repentance have you shown since your tremendous crime?..." "... said the emperor "It is for me to receive what is given me." Then said the divine Ambrosius "You let your passion minister justice, your passion not your reason ... Put forth therefore an edict which shall make the sentence of your passion null and void; let the sentences which have been published inflicting death or confiscation be suspended for thirty days awaiting the judgment of reason. When the days shall have elapsed let them that wrote the sentences exhibit their orders, and then, and not till then, when passion has calmed down, reason acting as sole judge shall examine the sentences and will see whether they be right or wrong..." This suggestion the emperor accepted and thought it admirable. He ordered the edict to be put out forthwith... On this the divine Ambrosius loosed the bond." Theodosius was restored.

How much anti-pagan violence was there? In 392 Theodosius I became emperor of the East and the western empire combined. For the next three years, till the end of his reign in 395, Theodosius was effectively at war with paganism. Between 389-391 he issued the infamous "Theodosian decrees," which established a practical ban on paganism: visits to the temples were forbidden, remaining pagan holidays were abolished, the Sacred fire of Vesta in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished, the Vestal Virgins disbanded, auspices and witchcraft punished. Theodosius refused to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House when asked to do so by pagan Senators. However, David Woods claims the importance of many of these specific laws is exaggerated since they were only responses to complaints and petitions that he received.

What kind of violence? Theodosius authorized and/or participated in the killing of pagan priests, the destruction of temples, holy sites, images and objects of pagan reverence throughout the empire. He participated in actions by Christians against major Pagan sites such as the Serapeum at Alexandria one of the most famous of the temples in the East. He pioneered the criminalisation of Magistrates who did not enforce the anti-pagan laws. It was a death sentence for anyone caught violating these laws as well as an automatic confiscation of property. He also, possibly, suppressed the Ancient Olympic Games; the last record of the Olympics being celebrated in ancient Rome is from 393.

Laws declared that buildings belonging to known pagans and heretics were to be appropriated by the churches. Saint Augustine of Hippo exhorted his congregation in Carthage to smash all tangible symbols of paganism they could lay their hands on. Pagans openly voiced their resentment in historical works, such as the writings of Eunapius and Olympiodorus;

Why? Excommunication no doubt had a profound effect on Theodosius, but since that happened in 390-391, and the Theodosian decrees began in 389 and continued until 391, it is impossible to conclude—as some have—that this is what gave Ambrose such influence and turned Theodosius anti-pagan. There is no doubt Theodosius was heavily influenced by Ambrose. Not because religion had come to play more of a role in government than it had before Christianity, but because Bishops of the new religion had now displaced the Senate as the 'legitimators of the Pricipate.'  The emperor now shared with the Bishops that important role of maintaining the crucial relationship with divinity. ""Since that jurisdiction was now shared with Christian Bishops, instead of the pagan Senate, the approval of those Bishops became central to the emperor's legitimacy."

Theodosius' actions are motivated at their root by his religious faith, but it cannot be separated from the social and political factors. His decrees effectively outlawed all other religions and ended state support for other faiths. This linked church and state at a time when the empire needed uniformity, since by 394 he was fighting yet another civil war, and it had always been a Roman belief that religious uniformity helped to knit the Empire together and make it strong.

In 394, Theodosius I stood as the last sole emperor of the united Western and Eastern Roman Empire. He died only 5 months later—and once again the Empire divided.

395 – 476 Romulus Augustulus


Following the death of Jovian in 364 AD, the empire is once again divided east and west.

Anti-paganism polices continued from Theodosius I until the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. Anti-paganism laws were instated throughout this period. Honorius (emperor)   Marcian

""In 476, the last emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, who became the first "barbarian" king of Italy. Pagans used the occasion to attempt to revive the old rites. In 484, the Magister militum per Orientem, Illus, revolted against Eastern Emperor Zeno and raised his own candidate, Leontius, to the throne. Leontius hoped to reopen the temples and restore the ancient ceremonies; as such, many Pagans joined in his revolt against Zeno. Illus and Leontius were compelled, however, to flee to a remote Isaurian fortress, where Zeno besieged them for four years. Zeno finally captured them in 488 and promptly had them executed. Following the revolt, Zeno instituted harsh anti-paganism policies. With the failure of the revolt of Leontius, some pagans became disillusioned and became Christian, or pretended to do so, in order to avoid persecution. The subjugation of the Roman Empire to Christianity became complete when the emperor Anastasius I, who came to the throne in 491, was required to sign a written declaration of orthodoxy before his coronation."

Why? Drake says, ""Constantine's Vision of the Cross changed the deity, but it did not change the landscape." In the ancient world there was no separation of church and state; they were so deeply intertwined that the state was also a religious institution. Rulers assumed regular divine intervention in human affairs would happen, for good or ill, and they assumed it was their job to placate divinity and ensure that intervention was good.  Roman Imperial ideology stressed the emperor's piety as a major factor in ensuring divine goodwill. Therefore emperors being devoted to the state religion was a great virtue; it could even be seen, as Drake says, as an issue of national security.  Christianity did not create this ideology.  Christianity was influenced by it.  Rome didn't become intolerant because it became Christian; Christianity became less tolerant because it became Roman. This mindset was Roman long before Christianity, but displacing one religion with another created upheaval in the entire system. It was not simply a change of personal opinion. It altered how the government worked, changed the power and influence of the senate, it shifted wealth and positions of influence. Every aspect of society was affected. Historically speaking, cultural-ideological upheaval of this type is often accompanied by violence. 

The Donatists, Augustine and Coercion

 * The Donatists, were an early Christian sect in the first part of the fourth century whose conflict with the traditional Christianity of Catholicism is considered by many as one of the first examples of Christian intolerance leading to violence. It was this conflict with the Donatists that led Augustine to write Letter #185 in support of coercion as a legitimate instrument of conversion. Augustine's writings formed the foundation of the justification for forced conversions and much of the violence of later eras.


 * The Donatists were part of the North African church, and it is fair to say their conflict with the traditionalists came about as a direct result of the Diocletian persecution. "The first edict of [Diocletian] against Christians (24 Feb., 303) commanded their churches to be destroyed, their Sacred Books to be delivered up and burnt, while they themselves were outlawed. More severe measures followed in 304, ..." Some gave in and surrendered the sacred texts, and thereafter were termed traditores: one who gives over. Maureen A. Tilley explains the Donatists were "physicalists" who believed the Scriptures were actual physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, so they saw giving them over to the soldiers as equivalent to giving over a brother to martyrdom.

When the persecution ended, the church attempted to heal its wounds by forgiving and reuniting, but the Donatists refused. They did not want to allow clergy who were traditors to return; they might come back to the Church as laymen — after an appropriate penance — but not as clergy ever again. They saw this as having ramifications for the future of Christianity. The traditionalists could not support a refusal to forgive. They saw that as having ramifications for the future of Christianity. Augustine debated with them for many years over the implications of both these positions, but this turned into much more than a theological disagreement.



In AD 312 a Catholic cleric named Caecilian—a traditore—was appointed Bishop of Carthage; this incensed the Donatists, and they refused to accept his appointment—then elected their own Bishop. Shortly after the two Bishops of Carthage were established, Constantine became Emperor (AD 313). He called a Council and attempted to resolve the issue. The Council made resolutions; the Donatists protested. Constantine, and the Pope, two more councils, and Augustine made several attempts to listen and reason and negotiate solutions with the Donatists; the Donatists remained immovable.

Each side in the conflict denounced the other and opposition boiled over into frequent violence. People took sides. Mobs throughout North Africa sprang up that were very much like modern gangs; they robbed, beat, mutilated, and killed travelers and anyone they thought might be associated with the Catholics. New Advent says these 'Circumcillions' "had no regular occupation, but ...did continual acts of violence with clubs, which they called Israelites. ... In St. Augustine's time... they took to swords and all sorts of weapons; they rushed about accompanied by unmarried women, played, and drank. Their battle-cry was Deo laudes, (God Praise) and no bandits were more terrible to meet. They frequently sought death, counting suicide as martyrdom. They were especially fond of flinging themselves from precipices; more rarely they sprang into the water or fire. ...Sometimes they sought death at the hands of others, either by paying men to kill them, by threatening to kill a passer-by if he would not kill them, or by their violence inducing magistrates to have them executed."

Frederick H. Russel, in "Persuading the Donatists," sympathizes with Augustine's predicament: as Bishop, it was his responsibility to fix this problem, yet over years of trying, no appeal had worked. Russel asserts Augustine's response favoring force was a pragmatic one to a concrete specific situation. He explains "The realities of the controversy that Augustine faced are in the recently discovered Letter #28 .... Augustine was unsure whether to pay a visit to  the Count of Africa who wanted to pursue the matter of Bishop Rogatus who'd had his tongue cut out and his hand cut off by Donatists.  The Count had evidently dispatched an agent with Rogatus and he had also been attacked. ...at one point Augustine candidly confesses he does not know what to do... Out of such experiences the Bishop of Hippo fashioned his attitudes toward coercion."



Mar Marcos in his article The Debate on Religious Coercion in Ancient Christianity says ""Augustine confesses that what made him change his mind about the use of coercion was the ineffectiveness of dialogue and the proven efficacy of laws. Many Donatists had converted out of fear of punishment..."" from the state. Russel says Augustine ""took the only way open to him, a middle way between argument alone, which was ineffective, and systematic imperial coercion..."

This may have been a choice of lesser evils as Russel claims, but Augustine's solution contrasts sharply with an earlier view of religious freedom from Tertullian (c.A.D. 160-c.225) in a letter of protest written in A.D. 212 to Scapula, proconsul (governor) of Africa and a persecutor of Christians. Tertullian laments the injustice of forcing religious practices: “"... it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to which freewill and not force should lead us...  But as it was easily seen to be unjust to compel freemen against their will to offer sacrifice  (for even in other acts of religious service a willing mind is required), it should be counted quite absurd for one man to compel another to do honour to the gods, ..." It can be argued that, even taking context into consideration, a little over 100 years later Augustine writes in defense of exactly that.

= Religion, especially Christianity, Has Caused Most Wars =


 * The Encyclopedia of War, edited by Gordon Martel, using the criteria that the armed conflict must involve some overt religious action, concludes that 6% of the wars listed in their encyclopedia can be labeled religious wars. In their Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document 1763 notable wars in world history; 123 wars (7%) out of those 1763 were originated by religious motivations. A little over half of that 7% is attributable to Islam, leaving approximately three percent a direct result of Christianity.

Four Christian Views of War
One of the difficulties involved in using an argument base on something as broad as "religion" is that it is difficult to define with any precision. In The Myth of Religious Violence William T. Cavanaugh effectively shows there is no usable inclusive definition. Definitions that cover the monotheisms exclude many Eastern traditions. Definitions based on ultimate meaning would include ideologies traditionally considered secular such as "nationalism, patriotism, capitalism, Marxism and liberalism." While, as Cavanaugh asserts, "these are not less prone to be absolutist, divisive, and irrational than belief in, for example, the biblical God," they do not generally fall into the category of religion. If religion is defined as something humans will die or kill for, the result is like saying "religion leads to violence because things we will kill for lead to killing..." This definition of religion "dissolves into nothing, and nothing that has dissolved can help us understand why men act with violence."

Even if the statement is limited to "Christianity is violent" the problem of definition remains, since Christianity is not monolithic. There are, historically, at least four views and practices within Christianity toward violence such as war: nonresistance, Christian Pacifism, Just War Theory, and the Crusade (or Preventive war).

Non-resistance says Christians may participate in violence such as war but only as non-combatants; Pacifism says, no, never, have nothing to do with any aspect of war or violence of any kind. Just War theory says Christians may fight in a defensive war, and Crusade theory says Christians may engage in war in order to correct outrageous injustice and protect those unable to protect themselves or to stop a dangerous situation from worsening. There are mutually contradictory aspects and overlaps in these; they have all been evidenced in historical Christianity; they all begin from the position war is evil; and they all raise the same disputed question: what is the Christian’s relationship to the state?

Nonresistance

 * The view that Christians may support war as non-combatants only.

By Herman A. Hoyt

This model can be summed up in one phrase: “follow Jesus as he followed non-resistance.” It rests on the concept of the separation of church and state, the individual believer’s command to be separate from the world, Jesus’ example, and New Testament theology.

Hoyt’s view of nonresistance is a New Testament or “dispensationalist” view in that he believes we are now living in a time of the ‘dispensation’ of grace whereas before Jesus was a time of the ‘dispensation’ of Law. The Old Testament is neither an example nor an objection to this model of Christian response, then.

The emphasis in this view is on the individual, not groups or nations or even the church as a whole; Hoyt says the message of the New Testament is never directed to worldly governments. These are spiritual ideals and they are for believers only.

In Antiquity, nonresistance was possible under the Roman Empire because there was no universal draft. Napoleon changed everything for the non-combatant when he introduced conscription. A military draft did not move into colonial America right away because it was possible for citizens to pay someone to fight in one’s place, however, non-combatant citizens were also required to pay a special war tax, to contribute to the support of the army, which generally meant goods and services, and to alleviate the army’s suffering in any way they could. This basically made them unpaid support personnel. This has traditionally been what nonresistance practices: don’t fight but help those who do. One historical example of this is the support provided by the Quakers through such practices as the ambulance units and other support units they formed during WWI and WWII.



Ira Chernus says this tradition has been an intricate part of American history and lists the Abolitionist movement, the struggle for women’s rights, the debates about imperialism and about entering the two world wars, the rise of unions and the struggles for workers’ rights, the civil rights movements of African-Americans and other minority groups, the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era, the anti-nuclear movement, the environmental movement, and other historical episodes, saying nonresistance played a significant role in each. The non-violent movements that have produced change in the U.S. have also spawned similar movements around the world.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s faith-based nonresistance changed more than one issue for black Americans, rather, it gradually changed their entire reality. His emphasis on human rights spread to the world and changed societies-—and continues to change societies-—around the globe.

Christian Pacifism

 * The view that Christians must have nothing to do with war at all.

By Myron S. Augsburger

It is believed the early Christians were pacifists. They refused service in the Roman army until the end of the second century when the first records of soldiers being Christian are found.

As Christianity became more popular, there were those who attempted to work out how to be both a good Roman citizen and a follower of Christ. This difficulty led many to refrain, not only from soldiering, but also from participation in government at any level; civil service required participation in pagan sacrifices, oath taking, and the torture used by the Roman government—and war. There is no record of believers in positions of authority in the Roman Empire until after about AD 250. This level of non-participation is a tenet of pacifism.

Early Christians regarded themselves as separate. This led to complaints against them which in turn caused some of the persecution they sporadically experienced. They were accused of benefitting from the Roman State without contributing to its defense. However, in this view, a willingness to suffer for others and a commitment to pray and care for them is the Christian's sole responsibility to the State. It is a commitment to allow the government to be the government and do what it does, and the church to be the church and do what it does, and for the two to remain separate and distinct. In Roman empire, that probably was not possible since there was no such thing as separation of church and state, but there is now, and that separation is what makes pacifism possible.

Pacifism is rooted in New Testament theology and Jesus’ example, the belief that war does not actually solve problems, and the belief that true Christianity is a minority movement in a hostile world. Christ told His disciples not to use violence to further His ministry (Matthew 26:52–54). He lived in peace and taught others to do the same (Matthew 5:9–10). When arrested and facing death, Jesus clearly said that His kingdom was not earthly, so His disciples must not fight to protect Him (John 18:36). Christians expect personal suffering, since that was Christ’s experience (John 15:18–21). The example of the earliest believers was that of civil disobedience (Acts 5:25–29) and submission (Romans 13:4–5). The voice of pacifism chooses to suffer rather than inflict suffering. Pacifism is based in belief in the infinite value of human life and choosing to protect that even at personal cost.



Pacifism is Just War theory's most viable opponent within Christianity. The history of warfare leaves little room for the optimistic view that war is a rational way to peace and justice, first because, in battle, it is so easy to lose a sense of self and moral restrictions. Virtue is fragile in the chaos of war. And secondly because, many modern conflicts are fought at a “no-holds-barred” level (Howard 1979, p.6), and so there is reason to doubt whether any war ever has conformed, or ever could conform, to just war criteria. If war cannot be justified, pacifism is the only justifiable Christian response.

In the sixteenth century, Anabaptists revived the ancient Christian tradition of pacifism and began advocating for non-participation in any aspect of war or support for war, as did the Mennonites.

Just War

 * The view that Christians may justly engage in a defensive war.



Just war theory begins from the foundational belief that war is always an evil, but that sometimes it is not the greatest evil and therefore is not always avoidable. Just war theory assumes it is an ethic for all people, Christian or not. This model says Christians are not a spiritual aristocracy with the right to be excused from the responsibilities of ordinary citizens, and that having others doing for them what Christians will not do for themselves gives Christians a double standard. However, it is also true just war theory is primarily about the behavior of governments and not individuals. Just War Theory functions on two levels: the right to wage war, and how that war is conducted.

First, just war theory limits who has the right to conduct war. However, this creates some issues of its own. "By limiting the right to make war, the just war paradigm not only disparages all sorts of violent conflicts that are, in fact, subsumable under the rubric of holy war, but also strips many of the political struggles in non-Western societies of moral merit." Wars such as the American Revolution would fail being just by this standard of "competent authority." Just war insists the State is the only authority with the right to wage war, and the only justifiable war is a defensive one. If all parties adhered to this, there would be no more war, but when war does occur, just war theory limits it. By these definitions, it is possible to have war with a just cause conducted in an unjust manner or have an unjust war conducted fairly.

The biblical position supporting just war does not separate the New and Old Testaments but believes instead in one continuous progressive revelation. Therefore, biblical materials by themselves are not conclusive. Just war says written revelation is not the Christian’s only source of revelation, but that other sources, such as nature, also reveal God. On the basis of both scripture and natural law, then, just war concludes governments have the right to use force, Christians are citizens of earthly nations as well as the heavenly one, and they have the full responsibilities non-Christian citizens have.

The writings of the early church fathers do not assert that killing under any and all circumstances is wrong. They lament war, believe that love rather than reason alone is the only real hope for overcoming violence in the world, and uphold a belief in a natural law of love rooted in our common humanity. Natural law assumes a certain basic ethical quality exists in all human beings: that “God’s law is written on all men’s hearts.” It assumes man is basically rational. This natural law requires from all people the practice of brotherly compassion toward all people.

Just war in the Christian tradition was first advocated by Augustine who recognized natural law as well as a biblical mandate to governments to defend peace and order and to individuals to love their enemies. He writes that war is not a choice but is sometimes a necessity. Thomas Aquinas later refined the teaching on the same basis.

The sixteenth century Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria condemns the war with the American Indians in 1675 as unjust based largely on natural law saying that, as human beings, they had rights equal to those of all other persons.

In the absence of theological agreement, Hugo Grotius in his massive study, The Law of War and Peace, attempted to bring international conflict under the rule of law by applying natural law and the power of reason in the context of the religious wars of the seventeenth century.

The emergence of nationalism and modern weapons and tactics have altered the realities of war: now there are weapons of mass destruction, changing technology, dehumanizing the enemy, the nature of modern tyranny and the tactics of Total War. These all pose special difficulties for "just war" practitioners and there are many heinous examples of its violation. Is it possible for such a thing as "just war" to be practiced in reality?

Grady Scott Davis explains that Just war theory elevates justice as the primary value over peace. However, Simeon O. Ilesanmi explains that: "in societies beleaguered by ... large-scale banditry and warlordism—compounded by a deterioration in their economic and social health, crushing debt, collapsing infrastructure, and the [government's] grave inability to accumulate and valorize capital—-peace and justice are not competing moral options... As a result, this distinction may have little real value outside the west."

Courtney Campbell takes this a step further claiming Just War Theory can no longer afford to be simply about justice or peace. For it to be globally relevant, and not simply a Christian or a western idea, it must become about human rights.

Ilesanmi agrees adding that, "Surprisingly, many of the traditional concerns of the just war tradition... are also reflected in the Islamic approach." That shared view could make concerns over human rights a common meeting place. David Rosen suggests, perhaps, this indicates the hope for reducing modern global violence lies in a greater acceptance by the west of those with religious views, and an increased ability to speak religion's language, while at the same time liberating Just War Theory from its Christian, western, limitations.



The Reformed tradition, the Presbyterians, and the Thomist tradition in Catholicism have traditionally supported the just war view.



Crusade and Preventive War

 * The view that Christians may engage in war to correct outrageous injustice or prevent harm to those the nation protects.

Romans 13:1–4 tells Christians to submit to government authority, and says nations have the right to bear the sword against evildoers. The basis of extending support for Christian participation in this last category is based on the belief that many wars in history do not fit neatly into Just War Theory’s defense-only category, yet they remain justifiable ethically.

For Americans, WWII against Germany was not-—by the traditional just war definition—-a defensive war. Hitler did not attack the U.S. Yet, at the time, most believed Hitler would not stop at taking Europe and that preventing him from accomplishing his goal, consolidating his position, and then turning toward the U.S.—-who would have been alone and without allies at that point-—was both necessary and justifiable.

Preventive war is not fought as a defensive response to acts of aggression but is instead fought in the belief that, not only is war sometimes inevitable, but also that waiting will only make the resulting war worse. Anything that shortens war is a good, since even this model begins from the premise: war is evil. Therefore, what qualifies as sufficient danger and evil to warrant action is one of this view’s major sticking points.

A crusade can be defined as a war begun in an attempt to set right a past act. It is not conquest but is reconquest—a correction of whatever atrocity should not have occurred in the first place.

The American Civil War fails the just war justification but meets the criteria of a crusade in that nineteenth century slavery was perceived as an unjust violation of human rights, the slaves did not have the ability to defend or free themselves, and negotiation did not produce their freedom. If the war had not been fought, how much longer would African-Americans have had to suffer as slaves?

The term “crusade” has emotional connotations associated with the Christian crusades of the Middle Ages, but the term is not exclusively religious. It is generally associated with Christian ideals, but it could also be applied to a “revolution” against genuine tyranny or any “war of liberation.” These are fought to undo past injustices, to establish freedom, equality, or self-government and are not—generally—motivated by a desire for territory or economic profit or even personal power.

Historians agree the Christian crusaders of the eleventh century were fighting, at least partly, for an ideal—for their religion—and that is anathema in our modern day. But if we declare all fighting for ideals wrong, pacifism becomes the only option. The nature of oppression and tyranny in our world, and the real suffering it causes, means the absence of action against tyranny can result in an increase in evil. If self-defense is just cause for war, the defense of others might ethically be just as allowable. Singling out the Christian crusades for special condemnation is inconsistent if other examples of ideologically motivated wars are not equally condemned. If other ideals are legitimate motives for war, excluding only religious ones falls into the fallacy of special pleading.

For the Christian, the biblical basis of this view leans on the Old Testament more than the New; it includes natural law, but it is also rooted in a deep sense of responsibility to protect those unable to protect themselves. In reviewing the entire Bible, and not just the New Testament, it becomes apparent it is an error to say the biblical God never supports war. Many religious critics use the Old Testament as evidence that “holy war” is encouraged in the Bible. Religious defenders point out the nation of Israel was only told to conquer the land of Canaan (Numbers 34:2) and this was not blanket permission to wage war indiscriminately. The war against Canaan was largely over territory, however, it does partially meet Crusade criteria in that the practices of the Canaanites were evil and tyrannical.

It is extremely difficult for modern day people who have always lived with a separation of church and state to fully comprehend the concept of crusade. Historically, “Holy War” began at a time when there was no such separation between the church and the government: the church was a government. This blurring of function led to church involvement in areas normally reserved for the nation states of our modern day. The church of the eleventh century was a “state” and functioned as one: going to war, policing, enforcing law, taxing, and so forth, until the sixteenth century when our modern version of nation states emerged.

Because of that, the ‘lesser evil’ of the Middle Ages' crusade can be argued, but the temptations innate in this approach to war, its failings and fallibilities, are also heavily underlined by their real world experiences. As time passed, the nature of crusade altered. From the fourth crusade on, the crusaders never won again, and war went on and on; there was no longer mass support, and the ordinary response was to try harder in an effort to win and find an end; fighting became less and less ‘just’ and more and more brutal. Christian leaders merged violence and holiness in ways they never had before. The liturgy was expanded to include the blessing of weapons and standards. Knights were consecrated by ceremonies whose roots were often pagan. New religious orders were established whose primary purpose was fighting. Violence became sacred and the enemy was demonized; it became wrong to show Muslims mercy. The church became fully militant for a period of four to five centuries. The code of the Just War was set aside in pursuit of what Clausewitz would later term “total war.” It's probable that, along with other social and political factors, this contributed to the church's decline that culminated in its eventual breaking apart in the 1500's.

Throughout the era of crusade, there was a near culture wide acceptance of the practice of war and little serious dispute about the necessity of fighting the Turks. The chivalric ideal emerges in culture as the ideal of the ‘hero.’ In Christian thinking, as in most of cultural thinking of the militant Middle Ages, it is the fighter, the knights, and not the peaceful monk or the servant priest, who is viewed as the embodiment of all that is noble and filled with grace. This is a marked shift in values from early Christianity.



The question remains, however, if Christianity is removed as a causal factor in these wars, would there still have been war? It seems inarguable that yes, individual states and people's would have attempted, and did attempt, to defend themselves from Islam's advances and wars would have occurred anyway. If Christianity had not united, it is also questionable whether Christianity would have survived at all, and the question then becomes, does a religion have the right to defend its existence against aggressors? This, is a serious question that must be considered in our modern day.



The Eastern Crusades


The Eastern Crusades beg the question of self-defense: does religion have the same right to defend itself that nation-states claim for themselves? Traditionally, under Just War Theory, it is only the nation state that has legitimate ground for and the right to conduct war." There is an inseparable link between competent authority and just cause for war. In 1095, the Medieval church was the equivalent of a feudal state without actually being one.  If, as a "non-state" actor, the church did not have Competent authority, the Eastern Crusades cannot be viewed as a just war.

Quoting David Little, Ilasanmi explains: ""Because religion is not among the things that human beings hold in common by nature, ”the West has considered it "“utterly inappropriate to invoke [it] as a reason for using force against another.(Little 1991, 133). Western culture has also rejected war in the name of religion “for reasons embedded in theology, revulsion at the horrors of religious war, and an inversion in the relation of the state to religion."”. Islam has no provision for separation of church and state so our secular system is seen as an 'inversion' of power.




 * Because of this modern revulsion at the idea of ''religious war',' "[t]he Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics,""crusade historian Thomas F. Madden laments. They are seen as ""the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. [As a] breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins.""  Madden objects to this view asking: ""So what is the truth about the Crusades?  Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression – an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.  Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them."



Thomas Madden explains that Islam had captured two-thirds of the Christian world by the eleventh century. The First Crusade in 1095 might, therefore, be justly described as both a war of self-defense and as a war of liberation. That is how the Christians of the day saw it. In ‘Holy War’ Appeals and Western Christianity, David Little explains, ""Just War Theory limits the legitimate use of force to moral and political causes: 'as a counter measure against arbitrary force or injury, or against being arbitrarily ‘deprived of human subsistence’ and 'as a therapeutic measure against injury or disease.'”". These can be seen in analogy between the First Crusade and the First Gulf War of our modern day: in the first Gulf War the United States was asked for help from a small country that was up against a bigger, mightier opponent; the same is true of the First Crusade. In the First Gulf War, the United States responded by going to other world leaders and gaining a consensus of support for providing the requested aid; the same is true of the First Crusade. In the First Gulf War, the people were persuaded it was indeed "a counter measure against arbitrary force;" the same is true of the First Crusade. The essential difference in interpreting the justness of each cause is the ideology involved: one is political and the other is religious.


 * Matthew and Platt summarize: "In the century or so after Muhammad's death, from 632 to 750, the energies awakened by his mission were unleashed in a series of military campaigns. Motivated by the lure of plundered wealth, the pressures of overpopulation, and the command to make holy war, the Arabs built a world state whose extent rivaled the Roman Empire.  By 650 the Arabs ruled Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, and by 740 North Africa had been added along with most of Spain.  Only the militant kingdom of the Franks in the west and impregnable Constantinople in the east were able to withstand this Arab fury." Madden adds that Christianity believed it was fighting for its very existence. Whether or not the church constituted a competent authority—or ever could—and the right to self-defense are among the factors of continued debate in this area.

Holy War, Heresy and Genocide

 * ""In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II raised the level of war from bellum justum ("just war"), to bellum sacrum ("holy war"). ...According to historian Edward Peters, before the 11th century Christians had not developed a concept of "Holy War" (bellum sacrum), whereby fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually meritorious act.  During the 9th and 10th centuries, multiple invasions occurred which led some regions to make their own armies to defend themselves and this slowly led to the emergence of the Crusades, the concept of "holy war", and terminology such as 'enemies of God'.""

The Albigensian Crusade, the Northern Crusades, the Aragonese Crusade and the French Wars of Religion in 16th Century France, the Thirty Years War and the wars following the Reformation that affected much of Scandinavia and Poland in the first half of the 17th century, the Spanish Reconquista and its decisive Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, which was an important turning point in the medieval history of Spain, are all commonly referred to as "Wars of Religion" or Holy Wars.

What was at stake in these wars was the power of the state as well as the power of the church. Competent authority, and the power to police those under its authority, leads to much of the debate over these wars. Madden explains that "For medieval people, religion was not something one just did at church. It was their science, their philosophy, their politics, their identity, and their hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth. Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community. Medieval Europeans were not alone in this view. It was shared by numerous cultures around the world. The modern practice of universal religious toleration is itself quite new and uniquely Western." This definition would make the church's actions against heresy analogous to the FBI's actions against the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas in 1993, thereby, possibly, turning some of these into just wars. However, even if one accepts that analogy, evaluating these wars on Just War Theory's two levels still requires an assessment of whether or not they were conducted in a just manner.

The Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, in the south of France.

The Reconquista
The religious wars were a series of military conflicts in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. While the wars of religion often began as conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, there were political, economic, civil, and national reasons behind the wars as well. The European religious wars were brutal, with the combined death toll ranging from 5.5 million to 18.5 million. Some areas of Europe had more than 30 percent of their population wiped out. The wars of religion were a series of separate but related conflicts. The primary wars were the German Peasants’ War, the Eighty Years’ War, the French Wars of Religion, and the Thirty Years’ War. The German Peasants’ War (1524–1525) was primarily an uprising of German peasants of the Anabaptist (https://www.gotquestions.org/Anabaptists.html) persuasion. The peasants protested against the extreme abuses of Germany’s feudal system and sought to establish a theocracy in which Christian ideals and the commonwealth of goods would be the governing rules. The peasant rebellion was crushed by Germany’s rulers. Between 100,000 and 200,000 people were killed. The Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), also known as the Dutch War of Independence, was primarily a conflict between the Netherlands, which was largely Protestant, and Spain, which was largely Catholic. The Dutch had grown exceedingly frustrated with the political rule of the Spanish Habsburgs, and the enforcement of Roman Catholicism did not sit well with a populace with many Lutheran (https://www.gotquestions.org/Lutherans.html), Anabaptist, and Reformed (https://www.gotquestions.org/Reformed-church.html) elements. The Eighty Years’ War was ended by the Peace of Münster in 1648, but by then between 200,000 and 2 million people had been killed. The French Wars of Religion, also known as the Huguenot Wars, were a series of massacres and battles between Roman Catholics and Reformed Protestants (known as Huguenots) in France from 1562 to 1629. The French Wars of Religion were especially brutal, with both Catholics and Protestants committing horrible atrocities and betrayals with numerous broken treaties and assassinations. The conflicts were mostly ended at the Edict of Nantes in 1598 but not concluded until the Peace of Alais in 1629. Between 2 and 4 million people were killed in the French Wars of Religion. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was one of the deadliest conflicts in the history of Europe. It occurred almost entirely in Germany. It began due to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II attempting to force Roman Catholicism as the exclusive religion of the territory he controlled. The Protestants, who had been enjoying relative freedom of religion, revolted and took up arms against the Holy Roman Empire (https://www.gotquestions.org/Holy-Roman-Empire.html). Sweden, Spain, and France joined the conflict, supporting the side that best fit their political goals. The Thirty Years’ War ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but not before between 3 and 12 million people were killed in the warfare and its aftermath (disease and famine). Atheists often point to the religious wars as example of how religion is almost always the cause of war (https://www.gotquestions.org/religion-war.html). But the wars of religion in Europe were due to far more than religious differences. Cultural, ethnic, and political issues likely would have eventually caused these wars even if religion was not involved. With that said, it cannot be denied that both Catholics and Protestants did some truly atrocious things to each other in that time period.

> More than any other region, Africa illustrates this: ...as the decision making center ... the state is paralyzed and inoperative...  As a symbol of identity, it has lost its power of conferring a name on its people...as a territory, it is no longer assured security and provisionment by a central sovereign organization. As the authoritative political institution, it has lost its legitimacy, which is therefore up for grabs, and so has lost its right to command and conduct public affairs."

Have to discuss policing and totalitarianism both here-- ????move stuff on democide here.

B.Gregory, 1999. p74-96

Zartman explains this concept best: "Most recent wars are intrastate, and in only a few of them, if any, can the state lay claim to any moral merit. In fact, what is at stake in many of these wars is the very meaning of the state—its status as a legitimate framework and the authoritative arena for conceptualizing identity.

http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/Shapiro%20Paper.pdf

Civil Religion
Combining religion, politics and nationalistic ideology. ????? Discuss impact of separation of church and state here???? this is modern america mostly

Slavery in America
"Books by G. Scott Davis, James T. Johnson, and John Kelsay, together with essays by Jeffrey Stout, Charles Butterworth, DavidLittle, Bruce Lawrence, Courtney Campbell, and Tamara Sonn, signal a remarkable shift in war studies as they enlarge the cultural lens through which the interests and forces at play in political violence are identified and evaluated. In his review of the contribution made by these texts, the author focuses on the cohesion of just war theory, the asymmetry between Christian and Islamic attitudes toward holy war, and the need to develop just war theory into a tool adequate to assist in the moral evaluation of violent conflicts within, not just between, nation-states. The use of moral vocabularies in the discussion of warfare has long been considered a legitimate aspect of the Western intellectual and cultural tradition, resulting in an array of literature on two distinctstances concerning the justifiability of war—namely, pacifism and justwar theory. Pacifists condemn war either because they hold that it is incompatible with essential humanity or because they hold that it violates a cardinal principle of religious faith. One such religious principle is agape, interpreted by Christian pacifists as rooted in Jesus’s way of life, in which the differentium specificum consists in its categorical rejection of violence in dealing with the contingencies of political life. (Yoder, 1977, 29)"

The reconfiguration of the international arena, following the demise of the Cold War and its ideological underpinnings, has necessitated an assessment of just war theory as an organizing framework for the moral analysis of war. In contrast to the erstwhile bipolar arrangement,the new world order (or disorder) is characterized by more diverse and competing visions of justice.

Lisa Sowle Cahill would agree. "While just war theory may have some usefulness in guiding wider society," concedes Cahill, "nonviolence is the natural outflowing of an alternative Christian society with communal practices of mercy, compassion, and empathy."

= Monotheisms are Violent by Nature; Christianity is a Monotheism; therefore Christianity is violent = Some scholars, like Regina Schwartz in her book "The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism," argue for the Christian faith’s complicity in violence by pointing to the fact that, along with Judaism and Islam, Christianity is a monotheistic religion and therefore, Schwartz argues, an exclusive and violent religion. “Whether as singleness (this God against the others) or totality (this is all the God there is), monotheism abhors, reviles, rejects, and ejects whatever it defines as outside its compass.”

Volf here

Democide and The Causes of War
Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod note: "Wars have always arisen, and arise today, from territorial disputes, military rivalries, conflicts of ethnicity, and strivings for commercial and economic advantage, and they have always depended on, and depend on today, pride, prejudice, coercion, envy, cupidity, competitiveness, and a sense of injustice.”

"It is true that democratic freedom is an engine of national and individual wealth and prosperity. Hardly known, however, is that freedom also saves millions of lives from famine, disease, war, collective violence, and democide (genocide and mass murder). That is, the more [democratic] freedom, the greater the human security and the less the violence. Conversely, the more [totalitarian] power governments have, the more human insecurity and violence. In short: to our realization that power impoverishes we must also add that power kills."

The IEP study found that countries with greater freedoms—including religious freedom—are generally more peaceful, whereas countries with less freedom—particularly religious freedom—are generally less peaceful.

"... as social scientists and social beings we have some freedom to select those perspectives which in some sense accord with what we want humanity to be. The framework...is thus the recognition of different perspectives on reality and our social behavior, and of the belief that we should select those perspectives that place humanity at the center of our reality, recognize our creative freedom and intentional, future directed nature, and emphasize the dynamic relationship between intuition, reason, and scientific knowledge in understanding ourselves and our behavior and creating a better world."

These studies only underline one of Cavanaugh's most valid objections: scholars in the west do not apply the same scrutiny to other causes of violence as is applied to “Christian” violence. "Both secularist liberalism and religious traditions should be placed within the same analytical framework when it comes to answering, without prejudice, a straightforwardly functionalist question: “Do certain ideologies and practices have more of a tendency to produce violence than others?” In this endeavor, “the distinction between secular and religious violence is unhelpful, misleading, and mystifying, and it should be avoided altogether.” Rummel's answer to the question would be, "Absolutely. Totalitarianism in any form—both secular and religious—leads to violence."

Christian Colonialism
the many imperial wars undertaken during the heyday of colonialism in which the expansionist adven-turism of the West was nearly indistinguishable from the culturalambition of Christianity to replace what Christians and other Western thinkers then regarded as primitive and backward religions.



= Christian Doctrine is innately Violent = Johnson ...[seeks] to challenge“the established conventions of Western thought,” which he believes“are inadequate for a comprehensive understanding of the political community and the nature of statecraft” (Johnson 1997, 2). One of the most important of these conventions is the marginalization of religious convictions in the articulation of political values, particularly the inattention to or outright dismissal of “propagation of religion or religiously defined behavior as a casus belli” (Johnson 1997, 44).

Christianity is Sexist; Sexism causes Violence; Therefore Christianity is violent
In Wounds of the Spirit, Traci C. West says: “We must measure Christian ethics by the extent to which its rhetoric on violence is applicable to the circumstances of women’s lives. This is the proper test of the viability and adequacy of its moral prescriptions.”

Witches
Zosimus 2.29.1-2.29.4, Theodosian Code 16.10.1. Laws against the private practice of divination had been enacted ever since the time of the emperor Tiberius. The fear of a rival had led many emperors to be severe against those who attempted to divine their successor.

Doctrines supporting/refuting violence
"It is not that the Christian faith has not been used to legitimize violence, or that there are no elements in the Christian faith on which such uses plausibly build. It was rather that neither the character of the Christian faith (it being a religion of a monotheist type) nor some of its most fundamental convictions (such as that God created the world and is engaged in redeeming it) are violence inducing. The Christian faith is misused when it is employed to underwrite violence.

How does such misuse happen and how should we prevent it? If we strip Christian convictions of their original and historic cognitive and moral content and reduce faith to a cultural resource endowed with a diffuse aura of the sacred, we are likely to get religiously legitimized and inspired violence in situations of conflict. If we nurture people in historic Christian convictions that are rooted in its sacred texts, we will likely get militants for peace, if anything. This, I think, is a result not only of a careful examination of the inner logic of Christian convictions; it is also borne by a careful look at actual Christian practice. As R. Scott Appleby has argued in his book The Ambivalence of the Sacred, on the basis of case studies, contrary to a widespread misconception, religious people play a positive role in the world of human conflicts and contribute to peace not when they “moderate their religion or marginalize their deeply held, vividly symbolized, and often highly particular beliefs,” but rather “when they remain religious actors.”

IEP also studied: Does the Proportion of Religious Belief Or Atheism in a Country Determine the Peace of the Country? And concluded "there is no clear statistical relationship between either the presence or the absence of religious belief and conflict. Even at the extremes, the least peaceful countries are not necessarily the most religious [or the most atheist]. For example, when looking at the ten most peaceful countries three would be described as highly religious, and when looking at the ten least peaceful nations two would be described as the least religious. Conversely, the absence of religious belief, as manifested by atheism, also sees no significant link to broader societal peacefulness." "Factors other than religious differences are more significant in determining levels of [violence]. These factors are corruption, political terror, gender and economic inequality as well as political instability."

Miroslav Volf in his Boardman Lecture on “Christianity and Violence,” addresses the claim that religion fosters violence ... [with] arguments organized around four general themes: religion, monotheism, creation [as an act of violence and sexism], and new creation [defined as absolute hospitality vs. the need for change]."