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The pagan people in Europe were in constant warfare. As in the the times of the Biblical Judges where “everyone did as he saw fit”, battles and blood feuds raged. Germanic tribes had sealed the end for the Roman Empire. Yet, in this despite this chaos, the Roman Catholic Church continued winning converts throughout Europe - and not a moment too late. The violent advance of Islam across northern Africa, up through Spain was finally checked in 732 in France. By 800 AD, Charlemagne was the first king to be crowned by the Pope and in the process cause his entire region to accept Catholic doctrines. From the time Charlemagne had been sanctioned by the pope to the strong papal servants of Ferdinand and Isabella, royalty had used its resources to take back the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims. The longest religious war in history had a major reprieve in 1492 when Christians finally took back Granada from Muslims.
In the midst of that reconquest, Vikings had raided everywhere their boats and swords could reach. But they too accepted Christianity. When the Normans landed in France, they settled down and took the religion of the land as their own. Yet feudalistic battles were often the norm rather than the exception. The Pope outlawed fighting during certain days of the week in what he called God’s Truce and God’s Peace.1 The culture of knights trained for battle had no just cause to exercise their deadly skills. Slowly the stage was set for a broader defensive war against the Muslims who had taken control of the Holy Land from Christian settlers and pilgrims.
Perhaps the pope was truly grieved at the Muslims who had invaded the Holy Land. Or perhaps the Pope saw his political solution to stop the in-fighting of Europeans, and simultaneously expand Christendom, and thus his power.2 He called for a Crusade. Monarchs and people from everyone nation and place in Europe answered this call to a holy war for the Holy Land. His priests preached of the great rewards in heaven for those who would defend the place of Christ’s birth.3 Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and veneration of relics was a strong force in Roman Catholicism.
When the Crusades got out of control, with the sacking of Constantinople, the massacring of Jews and Muslims, and eventually being driven from the Middle East in disgrace, the wars of Europe took a different twist. Although wars were mostly political struggles, but they almost all took on religious overtones. Then when the Reformation took place, and Protestantism began to grow, the Catholic rulers and the Pope began to wage war on those who were Protestants. For the next two hundred or so years there was a constant warfare and struggle in Europe between Protestants and Catholics.
When America became independent, and the French Revolution rebelled against all forms of religion as a result of more than one hundred years4 of Protestant-Catholic warfare in France, and Napoleon ravaged Europe, the west lost interest in religion as a reason to do things. America held onto it for longer than Europe, but it began to fade there too. This is witnessed by the American Civil War where the north felt it was worth fighting for the moral reasons of freeing slaves and reuniting the Republic.
The Imperial wars of Britain were all motivated by profit. Although many Christians in Britain felt that they had a moral right, even obligation, to rule the world, they didn’t claim their wars to be primarily religious ones. In fact, it was pressure from Christians in parliament that brought an end to the greed driven Opium Wars against China. Within the twentieth century the west fought two huge and deadly wars, neither of which was justified as a religious duty. WWII was propagandized as a moral duty, but not as a religious war.
The schools of the west have denounced the atrocities committed in the Crusades, and taught that reason is above religion. This has become so indoctrinated into the western culture that now religion is the only reason which is completely unjustifiable for going to war.
In 2003, a United States General, General Boykin, was clobbered by the U.S. media and the world at large for saying that Islamic militants hate “America because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan.”5 This demonstrates the huge change in mindset which has occurred in the west from Charlemagne’s coronation by the Pope, through the Crusades, to recent wars.
Religious war is as old as Cain killing Able out of jealousy of an acceptable sacrifice. The Hebrews had gained their homeland through following God’s orders to invade a country and kill the sinful inhabitants. Muslims have used religion as a means for expansion since the 7th century, fighting jihads as they entered new lands. Muslim expansion continues under the flag of their religion. Religious war has moved from the point that the only acceptable war was one with a Pope’s blessing, to become the most despicable type of war - as far as the west is concerned. This has gone to such an extreme that when attacked by Islamic terrorists (9/11), the response in America was the promotion of Isalm in public education and more tolerance curriculum. President Bush proclaimed that Christians are "not at war with Islam" even through nearly 100% of global terrorism is implemented by Muslims.
Quick Quiz:
1. Which king was the first to be crowned by the Pope?
a) Charlemagne
b) Henry VIII
c) Louis XIV
d) Elvis or B.B.
2. Knights readily answered the call to a Crusade, because they were frustrated
by
a) Vikings becoming Christians
b) The "Let Them Eat Cake" Act
c) days of "God’s Peace" or "God’s Truce"
d) America's liberal left blaming American intolerance for the 9/11 attacks
3. Which two religious groups warred in Europe following the Crusades?
a) British Christians and Irish Muslims
b) Protestants and Catholics
c) Roman Catholics and French Catholics
d) Environmental Lutherans and Gaia Methodists
4. What is a good example of the modern detestation of religious support for
a war?
a) The French refusal to help the Iraqis become a viable democracy.
b) The way John Kerry claimed Bush went to war for the wrong reasons.
c) The way the media and public jumped all over General Boykin and his statements.
d) The Iman's plea for more children to put on bomb belts against Israeli citizens.
1.a 2.c 3.b 4.c
1 Dr. Michel Calvo. “Sovereignty to G-d? Legal Analysis and Implications” October 17, 2000, <http://www.ldolphin.org/psalm2.html>(September 23, 2004)
2John Sloan, “Crusades” <http://www.xenophongi.org/milhist/medieval/crusade.htm> (September 23, 2004)
3Gerhard Rempel, “The Crusades” <http://historymedren.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=historymedren&zu=http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc1/lectures/21crusades.html> September 27, 2004
4 C.T. Iannuzzo, “The Wars of Religion” <http://www.lepg.org/wars.htm> September 27, 2004.
5 “Rumsfeld Defends General Who Commented on War and Satan” Friday, October 17, 2003 <http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/16/rumsfeld.boykin.ap/> September 27, 2004.
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