Religion’s Role in Past Wars
THE English philosopher John Locke once said: “All the talk of history is of nothing almost but fighting and killing.”34 And yet, says one authority: “Religion has been one of the most powerful forces in history.”35
Why has almost the entire existence of man been plagued with terrible wars when religion has exercised such a powerful influence? What has been religion’s role in past wars?
Aztecs and War
Aztec religion taught that the gods must be appeased by human offerings. Thus, historian Victor W. von Hagen explains:
“War and religion, at least to the Aztecs, were inseparable. They belonged to each other. . . . To obtain appropriate prisoner victims as sacrifice for the gods, there were ceaseless little wars.”36
In the year 1486, more than 20,000 prisoner victims were amassed for the dedication of the great pyramid of the god Huitzilopochtli. Then, one after another, the victims’ hearts were cut out and were offered to the god. Can you imagine the horror that those religion-inspired wars spread among early American peoples?
Ancient Empires and War
What role did religion play among the early empires and peoples in Asia, Africa and Europe? Those ancient nations were noted for their many wars, as well as their religiousness. Religion and war went hand in hand. One reference work, for example, notes:
“Egyptian religion never condemned war. The most ancient of Egyptian wars were among the gods themselves or between gods and men; and so Egyptian kings in making war claimed divine example. . . . In short, all war was moral, ideal, supernatural, and sanctioned by divine precedent.”37
At times religious leaders did more than merely condone or approve their nation’s wars; they actually urged the people to fight. The late clergyman W. B. Wright says of ancient Assyria:
“Fighting was the business of the nation, and the priests were incessant fomenters of war. They were supported largely from the spoils of conquest, of which a fixed percentage was invariably assigned them before others shared, for this race of plunderers was excessively religious.”38
It is an inescapable fact: The warring peoples of ancient times were deeply religious. Military leaders regularly sought help from their gods. Observes one authority: “We usually find that it is one of the chief functions of any god to help and protect his people in war.”39
It was customary for soldiers to carry standards of their gods into battle. These were apparently emblems or symbols made of wood or metal. One encyclopedia notes:
“The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples of Rome. It was not unusual for a general to order a standard to be cast into the ranks of the enemy, to add zeal to the onset of his soldiers by exciting them to recover what to them was perhaps the most sacred thing the earth possessed.”40
Of course, those ancient nations were not Christian. The teachings that Jesus Christ later introduced had a profound effect upon mankind, changing the lives of true believers for the better.
But in time big changes occurred in Christianity. In the fourth century, the corrupt Roman emperor Constantine, for political reasons, made Christianity the state religion. From then on, the Roman Catholic Church grew to great power. Was it different from other religions? Did it promote peace? Was it true Christianity?
The Crusades—Christendom’s “Holy Wars”
It was in the year 1095 that Pope Urban II convened the council of Clermont. By that time the land of ancient Palestine had fallen into the hands of people who did not profess Christianity. Therefore, the pope, in what is called “one of the most effective talks in history,” urged the vast congregation at Clermont to wage war upon the “infidels” who now held the “holy land.” Urban exhorted the crowd:
“Christian warriors . . . go and fight against the barbarians, go and fight for the deliverance of the holy places . . . bathe your hands in the blood of the infidels. . . . become soldiers of the living God! When Jesus Christ summons you to his defence, let no base affections detain you in your homes.”41
Thus the Crusades, or so-called “holy wars,” were inaugurated, and continued during the two succeeding centuries. “The pulpits of Europe resounded with exhortations to the Crusades,” a historian observes.42 Another writes: “Bishops went to their dioceses preaching this military Christianity. . . . Monks ordered swords to be made. . . . Europe was now an agitated sea, throwing wave after wave upon Syrian shores.”43
The terrible warfare that thus resulted almost defies description. “All the warlike lusts of the age were set at liberty under the sanction of religion and retributive justice,” one historian observed.44 The deeds of the crusaders include some of the worst massacres, senseless plunderings and wicked atrocities to be read in the pages of history—all perpetrated in the name of Christ! Professor Roland H. Bainton writes:
“Here was a war inaugurated by the Church. . . . Crucifixion, ripping open those who had swallowed coins, mutilation—Bohemond of Antioch sent to the Greek Emperor a whole cargo of noses and thumbs sliced from the Saracens—such exploits the chronicles of the crusades recount without qualm. . . . The mood was strangely compounded of barbarian lust for combat and Christian zeal for the faith.”45
What a responsibility religion must bear for linking the name of Christ to such horrible deeds—deeds that could not be more contrary to his teachings! What must God think of those who misrepresent him?
Christendom’s Past Internal Wars
In the Middle Ages professed Christians also fought among themselves, and often with the pope’s blessing! Regarding such internal wars of Christendom, the historian J. C. Ridpath said: “The papal sanction was an important factor in all the conflicts of the Middle Ages, and to obtain this the secular princes were wont to bid against each other as in a market.”46
Later, beginning about 1517, the religious revolt that produced Protestantism increased the fighting and killing among the peoples professing Christianity. G. M. Trevelyan, as professor of history at Cambridge, wrote:
“Religion was in that age almost the sole intellectual and moral influence, [yet] . . . humanity was no part of its special teaching. It must indeed be allowed that religion was then associated with the rack, the stake, the burning town, the massacre of women and children, the hate that never dies, the wrongs that can never be avenged. The greatest mass of mental suffering and physical pain that Europe has undergone since the barbaric ages was brought about by the partially successful struggle of the Catholic reaction to recover revolted Christendom.”47
The Roman Catholic Church fought savagely to bring protesters, or Protestants, back within the fold. Protestants strongly resisted. Antwerp, for example, was besieged in 1576, and one history says: “Those gentle messengers of Holy Mother Church, the Spanish soldiers, went into the fight with these cries upon their lips, ‘Saint James, Spain, blood, flesh, fire, sack!’ Eight thousand men, women and children were murdered.”48
The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) between Catholics and Protestants was especially terrible. During it Germany lost some three fourths of its population. Augsburg dropped from 80,000 to 18,000 inhabitants. And only about one quarter of the people of Bohemia remained. The fall of the Protestant city of Magdeburg illustrates the savagery of the fighting. German historian Frederick Schiller writes:
“Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language—poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their parents; and the defenseless sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life.”49
It is indeed true that the history of mankind “is of nothing almost but fighting and killing.” But it is also true that religion has been ‘a powerful force in history’ mainly responsible for the terrible bloodshed. Is this still true?
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Aztec priests hold victim while another priest cuts out his heart, to be offered to the god of war (scene based on an eyewitness account)
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The crusaders were responsible for some of the worst massacres and atrocities in history—all perpetrated in the name of Christ!