Is religion REALLY the number one cause of war?

Jon Sorensen. 9-18-2012

Link to the original article 

I have had two different people on Facebook tell me that they believe religion is the cause of most wars. One friend of mine said “Wars start because of religion and land correct? Tell me a war that didn’t have religion involved?” while another commented, “Which has killed more people, Jon? The Bible or guns?” These types of questions often stump many Christians because the assumption that religion is at the root of most of the major conflicts throughout human history is one that is ingrained in our society. It’s easy to understand why this assumption gains so much traction, especially in light of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the current unrest in the Middle East. But is this assumption correct? How can a Christian respond?

Just the Facts

According to the Encyclopedia of Wars (Phillips and Axelrod, Facts on File, December 2004) of the 1,763 major conflicts in recorded history, only 123 of them were classified as having been fought over religious differences. That’s just under 7 percent. The encyclopedia also explains that the number of people killed in these conflicts amounts to only 2 percent.

What are most wars fought over?

My good friend and co-worker, Jimmy Akin, explains this best:

Religion is a powerful motivator, and thus is often invoked in wartime, but the real reasons most wars have been fought have nothing to do with it. Instead, they have to do with political control–either allowing certain political leaders to gain or remain in power (e.g., who is the rightful heir to the throne) or they have to do with gaining political control of resources (e.g., land, money, food supplies, transportation and trade routes) or they have to do with a particular leader’s ambitions (i.e., being remembered as a great man, or not being remembered as a weak man). When leaders aren’t being totally naked about those things, they dress them up with national pride or religion, but ultimately they are not at the root.

Think of the most modern wars you learned about in school. The American Revolution, The French Revolution, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea; None of these wars were fought for religious reasons. In fact, the death toll of World War II is estimated to be somewhere between 50 and 70 million, making it the deadliest conflict in all of human history.

Some articles I have seen on the internet try to explain this by saying that, as the West has become more secular, religion as a reason for war has decreased. This is also false. As Rabbi Alan Lurie explains:

History simply does not support the hypothesis that religion is the major cause of conflict. The wars of the ancient world were rarely, if ever, based on religion. These wars were for territorial conquest, to control borders, secure trade routes, or respond to an internal challenge to political authority. In fact, the ancient conquerors, whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, or Roman, openly welcomed the religious beliefs of those they conquered, and often added the new gods to their own pantheon.

Medieval and Renaissance wars were also typically about control and wealth as city-states vied for power, often with the support, but rarely instigation, of the Church. And the Mongol Asian rampage, which is thought to have killed nearly 30 million people, had no religious component whatsoever. (Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?, Huffington Post)

What about the Crusades?

The Christian Crusades of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries is often a handy stick that non-religious folks like to use to beat the Church. The truth is that, while there were some regrettable incidents that occurred during these wars, this conflict was in essence a response to hundreds of years of Muslim aggression.

Think of it this way: If foreigners came to our land and took over the state of Iowa, how do you think the rest of the nation would respond? Would we be patient for 100 years, or would we take swift and decisive action to purge the state of intruders? The answer is pretty obvious (unless of course you have some major problem with Iowa).

Listen to “How to explain the Crusades” by History Professor Thomas F. Madden here.

What about the Inquisition?

Thanks to the Protestant Reformation, we have what is know today as “The Black Legend.” This legend was an attempt by surrounding Protestant countries to discredit the Spanish, and in particular the Inquisition, by exaggerating it’s extent and activities. As a result, we have overblown numbers of victims (some Black Legend accounts put this number in the millions) and famous stories like “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Alan Poe.

There are several thing to note about the Inquisition. The first is that it only had power over professed Catholics and no one else. It was never active throughout all of Europe at any given time. While the Church was responsible for the line of questioning, it was the state who doled out punishment. And according to modern scholarship, the number of people who were actually put to death over a period of more than 300 years was somewhere around 3,000. This is verified in the BBC produced program “The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition.”

The thought of the Inquisition may seem repugnant to modern sensibilities, but it is helpful to point out that Catholicism was the ideology that shaped the policy in those days. In our own day when someone tries to subvert our Democratic Republic, we try them for treason. If they are found guilty of treason, the penalty is death. This really is not much different than the Inquisition, and it’s quite possible that hundreds of years from now someone living with a different set of beliefs may look back on us in judgment. Rightly or wrongly, the fact of the matter is that societies have a vested interest in protecting themselves.

Did Jesus hate religion?

Many Evangelical Christians often explain that “Christianity is not a religion. It’s a relationship!” in order to distance themselves from the Church and its past. I don’t mean to be overly-critical of my Protestant brothers and sisters, but this is  hogwash.

First of all, Christianity is a religion no matter how you slice it. Religion is most often defined as the “service and worship of God or the supernatural.” That’s Christianity! Secondly, Jesus himself explains that he had no intention of abolishing religion (cf Matt 5:17), rather he intended to include non-Jews in the plan of salvation (cf Eph 2:14-15).

There are bad people in the Church. There are also those who will use religion as an excuse to commit acts of violence and leaders who would use it as an excuse to declare war. As Christians we need to denounce these things when they occur, but we don’t need to let ourselves be beaten with the “religion is the cause of most wars” argument, especially when it has no basis in historical fact.
http://www.jonsorensen.net/2012/09/18/is-religion-really-the-number-one-cause-of-war/