The Encyclopedia of World Religions

472 S war and religion

surprising that British Christians used military symbols. Examples well known to most Protes tants include the hymns “Onward, Christian Sol diers” and “Stand Up, Stand Up, for Jesus, Ye Sol diers of the Cross.” An earlier example from the time of the Reformation is the famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” An important hymn from the American Civil War is the Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Although these hymns use military imagery, Christians who sing them may distinguish between spiritual battle and physical combat. In J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM the tradi tion of using military symbolism reaches back into antiquity. Some scholars think that the G OD YHWH (“the Lord”) was originally the war god of the twelve tribes of Israel. Ancient Z OROASTRIANISM saw the universe as a cosmic struggle between the forces of good, headed by Ahura Mazda, and the forces of evil. A POCALYPTIC LITERATURE took up the theme of cosmic warfare. It appears prominently, for example, in the N EW T ESTAMENT book of R EVELA TION . Islam does not see God as engaged in combat with any rival, but among human beings on earth it does distinguish between “the house of Islam” and “the house of conflict,” that is, non-Muslim regions. Military symbols have played a prominent role in H INDUISM , too. Perhaps they are nowhere more prominent than in the B HAGAVAD -G ITA . In this clas sic text the god K RISHNA urges the reluctant war rior Arjuna to fight. As a warrior, Arjuna should fulfill his DHARMA —do his duty—and let God worry about the consequences. It is possible to interpret this text in a nonviolent, spiritual manner, but not everyone has read it that way. B UDDHISM celebrates the path discovered by the B UDDHA , who abandoned the possibility of world conquest to pursue NIRVANA or ultimate release. Nevertheless, militaristic styles have inspired some forms of Buddhist practice, such as Z EN B UDDHISM in Japan. In the case of the Aztecs of ancient Mexico, religion seems to have done more than drawn symbols from warfare ( see A ZTEC RELIGION ). Aztec

SACRIFICES were part of a military complex, and vice versa. The Aztecs needed to sacrifice human victims to nurture the forces of the universe, and these victims were people whom they had cap tured in war. RELIGIOUS LEGITIMATION FOR WAR Religion is a powerful force for uniting a group of people. In fact, social science research has consis tently shown that religion sharpens the boundaries between people who belong to a group and those who do not. In doing this, religion helps create conditions in which warfare can erupt. Religion does more than help create condi tions for warfare, however. Because warfare has such a prominent role in religious symbolism, reli gious people can see their own wars in terms of what the religion teaches. In this way, religion can legitimate or justify war. It makes war seem desir able and necessary. For example, it allows a war ring party to imagine that it is participating in the cosmic struggle between God and evil. One prominent Christian example is the C RU SADES . Pope Urban II (1042–1099; pope, 1088– 1099) called the first Crusade in 1096 to “free” the “Holy Land”—the land of ancient Israel and Judah, where J ESUS and his disciples lived—from Muslim rulers. This and other Crusades were ter ribly brutal. Christians justified them, however, by referring to the struggle of God against the forces of evil. They similarly justified the wars to reconquer Spain. Muslims use the notion of JIHAD in much the same way. Technically, jihad refers to the strug gle against evil. Muslims can and do take jihad to refer to the struggle of individual Muslims against temptation. Some organizations, however, like AL Q AEDA , H AMAS , and Islamic Jihad claim that armed acts of terrorism, as well as full-scale wars, are acts of jihad. One scholar of religions, Mark Juergensmeyer (b. 1940), has suggested that the identification of human war with the grander warfare celebrated in a religion’s symbols has several consequences. Among others, it promises religious rewards to those who fight. For example, Pope Urban prom