# History - When did Wars Fought in the Name of Christianity End? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580 "2015-05-22T12:04:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/21 "2015-05-22T16:26:41Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Pretty much _every war_ has had an economic reason for starting. But since 1648 or so they pretty much stopped advertising the religious trappings as a motivation. True…good point. I don’t think the primary or even secondary or tertiary reasons for the US involvement in the ME is evangelical Christians, however. I do concede that at some basic level religion comes into play on our side as well, however…but I don’t think it’s a valid argument wrt what the OP is asking. I’m not even sure the converse is true (i.e. this is a ‘war’ fought in the name of Islam against Christianity), since I think that there are other more primary factors involved, though of course the trappings are there and they HAVE gone out of their way to advertise it as a primary motivation. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/22 "2015-05-22T16:32:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Weren’t there cultural differences that were also separate from the religious ones? I mean, there had to be a way to tell that a group were Bosniaks vs. Bosnian Serbs vs. Bosnian Croats without pestering them with religious questions. But then you run into the problem that just about all conflicts between groups have more than one issue at stake. The Thirty Years War wasn’t only about religion, though that was the main cause. If it had been entirely Protestant versus Catholic, why would Catholic France come in on the anti-Habsburg side in 1635? Religion and culture aren’t entirely separable, either. Religious beliefs can influence food, dress, names, language, and other things that culture also influences. People of different religions living in the same place may be reluctant to intermarry, so they might look different. There are cues that can give you a pretty good guess as to someone’s religion, even without asking religious questions. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/23 "2015-05-22T16:36:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Do you understand that there’s a difference between “A Catholic group” and “A group of Catholics”? Not really. I mean, yes, obviously, but back during the bona fide wars of religion (in France, Germany, England etc… in the 15th/16th century) the conflicts were already very often about petty local socio-economic shit masqued by religion. An example of this would be the “massacre of the Italians” in Lyon. In the 15th century the French kings, embroiled in the Italian wars but impressed by what they encountered there, wanted to bring the advances of the Renaissance back in France, so amongst other things they set up economic incentives for that to happen. In Lyon, that translated into Italian silk factories being built up and Italian workers given incentives to move there in the form of tax exemptions, specific legal privileges and the like (the Italians didn’t want to just _teach_ people how to do it as they did, they weren’t idiots). The Italian workers were, naturally, very very Catholic. The financial incentives gave them a competitive edge, which brought over Italian bankers interested in investments, and soon enough they had cornered silk production & trade in Lyon and from there gained an intractable socio-economic primacy over the locals. As a result, the trade guilds and burghers of Lyon, who felt like they were getting the shitty end of the stick despite there being a whole lot more of them, were a lot more receptive to Protestantism and converted _en masse_ (in part because the act of conversion opened new preferential markets & networks, and in another part because FUCK THEM 'TALIANS). Let it simmer for a few decades, add a dollop of “religious massacres are justifiable” by dint of the King’s sort-of-forced endorsement of the St Bartholomew, and you’ve got a bloody massacre. And so, in 1572, the Italian slash Catholic community of Lyon got purged, hard. Now, you can look upon this event as “Protestants killing Catholics” of course, but that’d be a criminally narrow reading of what happened or the social dynamics involved. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/24 "2015-05-22T16:59:51Z")
There’s also the question of what constitutes a war. Would the pogroms in Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries count as wars fought in the name of Christianity? They were probably sponsored or at least tolerated by the state to some degree, and they did feature Christians targeting supposed enemies of Christianity. Of course, there were other cultural differences between Russian Jews and Russian Christians, and religious animosity was not the sole cause of the pogroms. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/25 "2015-05-22T17:08:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Weren’t there cultural differences that were also separate from the religious ones? I mean, there had to be a way to tell that a group were Bosniaks vs. Bosnian Serbs vs. Bosnian Croats without pestering them with religious questions. Actually, there were many cultural similarities between them. It was said on this board by someone else that the main differences were as follows: 1.) The Bosnia Croatians were the ones that didn’t go to the Roman Catholic Church for Mass on Sunday. 2.) The Bosnia Serbs were the ones that didn’t go to the Eastern Orthodox Church for liturgy on Sunday. 3.) The Bosnia Muslims were the ones that didn’t go to the mosque to pray on Friday. How well many of these people abided by their respective religious tenets is a matter for great debate, but the issue they used to classify and divide themselves was ultimately what faith an individual wished to claim (practice was largely irrelevant). ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/26 "2015-05-22T17:13:02Z")
Right. Wars have always been fought primarily for economic reasons, not religious. It’s just that “We’re fighting the good fight for Jesus!” has given way to “We’re fighting for truth, freedom and justice!” as the palatable lie we tell everyone to obscure the economic reasons for fighting and to blow smoke up the “heroes’” asses. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/27 "2015-05-22T17:13:14Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The IRA _wasn’t/isn’t_ primarily a Catholic group committing terrorism against Protestants? Yes, there was a lot of Irish nationalism involved, but it was on the basis of religious identification, right? Well, sort of; religious identification in Ireland has long since transmogrified into a kind of tribal identification. The Prots are The Other and remain so no matter how, or whether, they worship. What really identifies them is their English or Scotch-Irish names and heritage. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/28 "2015-05-22T17:16:58Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Wait…you think that the US military involvement in the ME is primarily because of Christian evangelism?? Where do you get “primarily” from? :dubious: I only said there was an element of it present. Do you disagree? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/29 "2015-05-22T17:33:11Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Where do you get “primarily” from? :dubious: I only said there was an element of it present. Do you disagree? Because that’s what the OP is asking, and you seemed to be trying to use this as an argument in favor of the recent clashes in the ME by the US as ‘Wars Fought in the Name of Christianity’. No? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/30 "2015-05-22T17:34:30Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Of course. But isn’t sectarianism behind the nationalism they have always stood for? I think it’s nationalism first, with sect as easy identifier. The IRA had never touted itself as an exclusively Catholic (as in - the religion) organization - nationalism was always its primary feature. Of course, any actual factual cites to the contrary would be welcome. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/31 "2015-05-22T17:42:47Z")
The last crusades to the Holy Land inspired by Papal authority was the 9th crusade in 1272. The deal was there was recover the Holy Land for Christianity and the Pope will ensure a Christian spent the minimum time in Purgutory for all the vile sins you committed during life (an attractive proposition for a Norman knight.) Looking at the list of Papal Bulls, the last one encouraging a Crusade seems to have been after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. > **[List of papal bulls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_papal_bulls)** > > This is an incomplete list of papal bulls, listed by the year in which each was issued. > The decrees of some papal bulls were often tied to the circumstances of time and place, and may have been adjusted, attenuated, or abrogated by subsequent popes as situations changed. > ("Great jubilee") > Also note In Coena Domini ("At the Lord's dinner"), a recurrent papal bull issued annually between 1363 and 1770, at first on Holy Thursday, later on Easter Monday. Papal authority waned considerably as a result of the Reformation and Christian states were more likely to be fighting each other in the name of their particular version of Christianity. Maybe Battle of Vienna in 1683 Holy Roman Empire v Ottomans? > **[Battle of Vienna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna)** > > Christian Coalition victory > Ottoman Empire > Holy League: >  Poland-Lithuania >  Habsburg Monarchy Some of the later colonial wars were fought in the name of Christianity, however the primary motivation was not a front seat in Heaven, but power, influence and plunder. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/32 "2015-05-22T17:44:26Z")
> [@XT](#): > > you seemed to be trying to use this as an argument in favor of the recent clashes in the ME by the US …No? \*Hell \*no. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/33 "2015-05-22T18:11:16Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > The last crusades to the Holy Land inspired by Papal authority was the 9th crusade in 1272. The deal was there was recover the Holy Land for Christianity and the Pope will ensure a Christian spent the minimum time in Purgutory for all the vile sins you committed during life (an attractive proposition for a Norman knight.) But even the Crusades were not \*\*primarily \*\*motivated by religion. The First was motivated by Latin feudal lords bickering amongst each other a whole lot in spite of the Church telling them to please quit it because of the hardship those wars inflicted on the peasants, and Urban eventually getting fed up and telling them (in so many words), “If you cunts just can’t stop fighting, at least fight over _there_”. Later crusades were increasingly motivated by the heaps of cash generated by controlling the Silk & Spice Road, as well as a kind of “American Dream” - you might be a third son down here, but in the Levant you might become a big lord if you fight hard 'nuff. Similarly, the Albigensian Crusade was, on paper, a move by the Catholic church to stamp out heresy in southern France… but in practice it was thoroughly mired in political and cultural divides there, and a great many combatants were drawn to it with prospects of confiscating the lands and properties of “arrogant” southerners. > [@](#): > > Papal authority waned considerably as a result of the Reformation and Christian states were more likely to be fighting each other in the name of their particular version of Christianity. Quite the **opposite**. The Catholic church grew more and more hardline following the Reformation. For example, you know how Christians burned witches and shit back in them Dark Ages ? Yeah, that didn’t actually happen in the Middle Ages (much). Most witch burnings took place in the modern era - 15th to 18th century, with a strong geographical emphasis on where Catholicism was “under attack”. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/34 "2015-05-22T18:49:24Z")
On the other side, the Protestants were no slouches in the Witchfinding department either when they were not persecuting each other and keeping an eye out for Papist plots. > **[BBC - Legacies - Myths and Legends - England - Essex - Witch-finder witch? -...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/essex/article_1.shtml)** > > How the infamous, self-styled "Witch-finder General" – Matthew Hopkins took to his notorious business throughout East Anglia in the 1640's. The wars between Catholic and Protestant states and the civil wars were religious as well as political. How much was motivated by faith and how much by power? They were deeply religious times, to an extent I think few people appreciate today. I guess the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century marked a turning away from Religion towards Reason to inform politics and thus conflict in the Christian world. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/35 "2015-05-22T19:14:04Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > They were deeply religious times, to an extent I think few people appreciate today. Yes, that much is true, and my teachers repeatedly emphasized this point. People were convinced that the end times were very near for one thing (due to biblical computations in the 15th century that boiled down to “1600 is IT”), and the absolutely real, factual, rational and material conviction in the reality of an afterlife, of the need for salvation and so on. It was as solid a fact to base reasonings on than, I dunno, the fact that a stone once thrown up will come down. And the Reformation (along with humanistic thought in general), beyond power & political struggles, posited that Man was wholly responsible for his (or her) eventual salvation in both thoughts and deeds. You had to earn your way Up There. Whereas previously people had assumed that, as long as you do the right rituals and say the right magic words, you’re fine. So there was an additional incentive to do right by God, and _prove_ you were a righteous person (both to god… and your neighbours). And what better way to prove that than willingly carving the wrong’uns into itty bitty pieces ? It wasn’t just a question of fighting to save yourself, either : both sides eventually imagined for themselves a moral duty to save as many people as possible by bringing them to the “true” faith, which would in turn ensure they’d all get into Heaven. The age of Enlightenment dawned, not so much because these ideas waned, but because both sides eventually realized that they just could not plain exterminate the other for good and both the economic/territorial devastation and the transgressive acts of violence were getting way out of hand. So, might as well learn to ignore each other. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/36 "2015-05-22T21:28:32Z")
The Enlightenment was mainly a by product of Protestantism. Instead having a world view and your position in it informed by religious doctrine interpreted by the Catholic hierarchy, Protestants were obliged to make their own mind up by reading what the Bible really said in their own language. Instead of accepting your role as a cog in a divinely inspired system of belief. People were released from this and given the opportunity to find answers to the big questions for themselves. Printing, books and the exchange ideas certainly helped in many areas beside religion. Christianity had schisms before the Reformation (Eastern church), but it did not give rise to such a change. Islam also had schisms, but it did not lead to an Islamic Enlightenment. But then, again, that may not have been a bad thing. The politics that came from reason gave us extremes that produced not only democracies and republics, but also totalitarian regimes, total war and genocide. Religion does not seem quite so bad, give or take a few crusades or jihads from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/37 "2015-05-22T22:23:37Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Snark aside - 1648. The Peace of Westphalia pretty much put an end to the religious wars in Europe, at least on any large scale. The Thirty Years War was the last major war where religion was the pretext. > > _ **Porthos:** Why are we shooting these poor devils of Protestants? Is it because they sing psalms in French while we sing them in Latin? > **Aramis:** Porthos, have you no education? What do you think religious wars are all about?_ I think religion was (at the very least) a pretext for considerably longer than that. The Spanish Civil War wasn’t a religious war, per se, but religion (specifically, the ‘defence of Christian civilization against atheist communism’) was an important motivation for many of the participants on Franco’s side, and for many of their foreign supporters. And Franco himself appealed heavily to religious imagery and sentiments, and to fears of the atheist communists (I think one of his official titles was ‘Leader of Spain and the Crusade’). For that matter, so did the ultra-religious Croatian Fascists (who were truly one of the more horrific regimes of the last century). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/38 "2015-05-22T22:35:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think it’s nationalism first, with sect as easy identifier. The IRA had never touted itself as an exclusively Catholic (as in - the religion) organization - nationalism was always its primary feature. > > Of course, any actual factual cites to the contrary would be welcome. Right: [http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Articles/IRA-Islam.htm](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Articles/IRA-Islam.htm) \*Although it’s popular to think of this chapter in the conflict as Catholic versus Protestant, it is also simplistic and misleading. Historians and political scientists prefer to describe the two sides with words like Nationalist, Republican, Ulster, Loyalist and Unionist. Sectarian divisions often did not hold up. Protestants were found on both sides of the conflict, for example, and there were notable Catholics who remained loyal to England. The IRA did not have a Biblical charter. In fact, they were a Marxist-atheist organization. Neither did the British government have religious motives, nor any of the other major groups. There were some smaller, radical groups that used the language of religious purity, but they were relatively obscure. The issue for the “Catholic” factions was Irish nationalism, and for the “Protestants” it was self-preservation and an end to the violence. Only a very small minority of the citizens in Northern Ireland actually participated in the conflict, although the grief was spread among many. Some victims were killed around churches, but these were targeted assassinations that were incidental to the location. There appears to be no concerted campaign against rival churches or cathedrals, and few (if any) deadly bombings actually occurred in a house of worship (see [cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/](http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/)). Church leaders on both sides routinely condemned the violence - in fact, the Catholic church excommunicated members of the IRA. The claims of responsibility for the bombings and assassinations did not typically quote from the Bible or make reference to God. (Muslim terrorists quote liberally from the Qur’an in their statements, and are very explicit about their intentions to fight “holy war” for the cause of Islam). Neither was there any expressed interest on the part of either side in the Northern Ireland conflict to convert infidels or spread sectarian beliefs beyond the disputed area. Protestant clerics in Ireland weren’t targeted by Irish Catholics (for being clerics) and neither were priests in England by English Protestants. Religious affiliation was a loose marker of identity, but there were no glaring theological differences between Protestants and Catholics on which the conflict was specifically based. Rather it was political in nature. \* ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/39 "2015-05-23T01:35:16Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Quite the **opposite**. The Catholic church grew more and more hardline following the Reformation. For example, you know how Christians burned witches and shit back in them Dark Ages ? Yeah, that didn’t actually happen in the Middle Ages (much). Most witch burnings took place in the modern era - 15th to 18th century, with a strong geographical emphasis on where Catholicism was “under attack”. You You some of this right. In the Middle Ages, the church denied that witches were real and,while there might have been some town, somewhere, where some person was murdered for sorcery, (I have never read of one), the church, _per se_, was not promoting such behavior. As to the witch hunting of the Renaissance, it was much more of a secular phenomenon in which the Catholic church played a very minor part, opposing such hysteria more than it supported it. Witch hunts were also never widespread in either Catholic or Protestant domains, usually arising in one city or another, claiming a number of victims in a short while, then fading away (or being suppressed by the religious authorities). ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580/40 "2015-05-23T02:14:32Z")
Part of the rationale behind the Cold War was fear and hatred of godless Communism. I grew up in that era, and one of the things that was supposedly so bad about Communist governments was that they didn’t allow people to practice religion. The Catholic Church in Poland played a role in the revolution against the Communist government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-when-did-wars-fought-in-the-name-of-christianity-end/720580.md?page=3)