Chapter III. Religion and Violence
3.2. Religious origin of violence
3.2.3. Holy war and violence
Holy war is a common word used by many people including politicians and religious leaders in daily life because of different violent and religious tensions in the world. This can be illustrated by a statement of “the head of the Russian Orthodox Church at the 75th anniversary of the Moscow battle. For him fighting against terrorism is a holy war.”507 Classically, holy war can be defined as “a war or violent campaign waged by religious partisans to propagate or defend their faith.”508
In the three monotheist religions, the concept of holy war is a culture represented by “a patriarchal warrior-god.”509
In Judaism, much of the history of Israel relates to the central theme of Jehovah‟s release of his people from bondage in Egypt and of his leading them to a Promised Land. Since this land happened to be occupied by seven Canaanite nations, the Hebrew Scriptures provide instructions on clearing the land for settlement through destruction of the previous inhabitants. The many different instructions were brought together in the code of Maimonides. Treatise five, Laws Concerning Kings and wars, gives specific commandments concerning the destruction of the seven Canaanite nations. No life is to be spared, and the seed of Amalek is to be blotted out.510
In Islam like in Israel,
Islam has an early history of fighting tribal wars for the survival of its religious faith. Islamic warriors fought for Allah, under his prophet Muhammad. Therefore, the Qur‟an, like the Book of Judges, lays down specific commandments about the conduct of war. Both codes, incidentally, prohibit the destruction of fruit trees and fields where crops have been planted. They also command the protection of women and children. Jihad or Holy war, Is to be conducted in a literal sense in the defense of dar-al-Islam, the Islamic world, from intrusion by non-Islamic races.
507 < https://www.rt.com/politics/342097-russian-orthodox-patriarch-declares-international/>, 06th August 2016.
508 Definition of holy war, <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holy%20war>, 6th August 2016.
509 Elise Boulding, Ibid, p.17.
510 Ibid, p.18.
Islam is struggling to use its more evolved system of governance in the face of a fundamentalist revival that has declared Jihad not only on Christians and Jew but on non-fundamentalist Muslims as well.511
In Christianity: Unlike Judaism and Islam,
Christianity started out as a pacifist sect. Only when the persecuted minority attained a protected position within the Roman Empire did it begin to see war as a legitimate instrument to protect its lands against intrusion by heretics and infidels.
The just war doctrine, developed from the days of Augustine of Hippo onward, contained provisions similar to those of the Code of Maimonides and the Qur‟an, particularly for the protection of the innocent and for proportionality, which can be translated as protect those fruit trees for the future. 512
The root of holy war is found in “the Old Testament where it allows violence to defend the interests of the country, the religion and the culture, and it encourages a certain will to ritualize the violence through war.”513 The war becomes holy, the experienced violence is raised to the superior rank of activity intrinsically good and laudable activity ( I Sam11:7).514 In these three monotheistic religions, war and believes “have gone hand in hand for a long time. Armies go into battle believing that God is with them, often after prayers and sacrifices to keep God on their side.”515 In 240 CE, the Alexandrian theologian Origen wrote that, “you cannot demand military service of Christians any more than you can of priests. We do not go forth as soldiers.”516 Origen‟s idea shows that the early Church before the fourth century was nonviolent. “Christians rejected not only emperor-worship and idolatry but also participation in the military.”517 In the opposite, “Origen wrote his exhortation to Martyrdom around 235, in the midst of the persecution under emperor Maximian. His text glorifies martyrdom, for him martyrs were
511 Ibid, pp.19-20.
512 Ibid, p.20.
513 Anand Nayak, Ibid, p.187.
514 Ibid, p.188.
515 BBC, Holy wars, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml>, 21st October 2012.
516 Don Murphy, Can a Christian be a pacifist? <http://www.neve-family.com/books/misc/Murphy- Pacifism.html>, 21st October 2012.
517 Ibid.
watched by audience and were expected to be champions for Christ, Origen saw the blood of martyrs as the seed of the Church.”518
In the fourth century, “St. Ambrose (340-397) and St. Augustine (354-430) moved from the evangelical ideal of non-violence, because they were responsible in leading the state affairs. St.
Ambrose openly supported wars against the enemies. However, he had an extreme aversion to the civil war. He was convinced that a man who fights for personal gains must be condemned, while a man who risks his life for the well-being of his country deserves to be honored." 519 St.
Augustine in his book; The city of God condemned war but violence had to be met by violence in order to keep the peace.520 Later, St. Thomas (1225 - 1275) declares that if a man is dangerous and ominous for a community; it is honorable and advantageous to kill him in order to keep the common good.521
Christian history since its origin was bathed in violence, often as victim of the violence but sometimes as the cause. This ambiguity is an inheritance of its own sources with the violent attitudes in the Old Testament. More than 600 passages say explicitly that peoples, kings or individuals attacked others, annihilated and killed them.522
In the twentieth century, “the Amsterdam assembly of the WCC in 1948 formulated unambiguously proposition: war as a method of settling disputes is incompatible with the teachings and example of our Lord Jesus. The part which war plays in our present international life is a sign against God and a degradation of man.”523 In effect the dual attitude regarding the use of violence in conflict situations was confirmed. War, especially modern warfare with its means of mass destruction, was for all delegates incompatible with the example of Jesus.524
518 Andrew R. Murphy, Ibid, p.152.
519 Anand Nayak, Ibid, p.198.
520 Helen J.Nichloson, Serious violence: Church justification of violence in middle ages, quoted , the City of God, 1.21 and 26, <http://freespace.virgin.net/nigel.nicholson/SSCLE/holywar.html>, 21st October 2012.
521 Anand Nayak, Ibid, p.198.
522 Ibid, p.185.
523 Gerrie ter Haar (ed), Bridge or Bar r, Brill, Leiden, Boston, (sans date), p. 140.
523 Ibid, p. 141.
524 Ibid.
In 1960‟s, Anank Nayak asserts that some Christians arrived at a consensus concerning the Christian involvement in violence. First, the Christian can participate in a revolutionary violence which is an answer to an intolerable social repression. Second, Christian involvement in the violence may be an ultimate strategy if the other ways proved to be useless. Then the aim of Christian involvement must be to put a just social order, and not to destroy the adversary only.
Finally, Christian involvement to violence, as an involvement in war, must always be done in despair of all other ways, with the hope of restoring justice and peace.525
“The WCC Assembly in Canberra, 1991, maintained its original position: no to violence and war. There is just an impossible possibility that Christians may justify (limited) violence if the state authorities had to decide to make use of it.”526
Elise Boulding emphasizes that religious violence dishonored Christ‟s name and some Christians today are ashamed of all sorts of violence done by their fellow Christians in different parts of the world throughout history of anti-Semitism, crusades, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and xenophobia.527
In concluding this section, it is visible that “most religions have sacred texts which can encourage and promote violence, and most have plenty of examples of people who have sincerely believed that their violence acts were justified by their faith and it is not good enough just to say that they were wrong.”528
His Holiness Aram I (Armenian) Catholicos of Cilicia wrote in 2003 that “violence is destruction, it constitutes evil and death. Violence has no place in God‟s economy.”529
525 Anank Nayak, Ibid, p.215, quoted N. Brockman and N. Piediscalzi, eds, Contemporary Religion and social responsibility, Newyork, 1973, p.232.
526 Gerrie ter Haar (ed), Ibid, p. 141.
527 Chawkat Moucarry, Christian perspective on Islam, <http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/A-CHRISTIAN-PERSPECTIVE-ON-ISLAM.pdf>, 30th March 2016.
528 Mark Woods, Does religion cause violence?
<http://www.christiantoday.com/article/does.religion.cause.violence/53428.htm>, 31st October 2015 529 Ibid, p. 145.