Thursday, December 17, 2009
Separating just wars from holy wars
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Matthew Gabriele
Gabriele is a professor in medieval studies in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech.
On Dec. 10, President Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, he acknowledged the apparent irony of receiving this award while the U.S. is involved in two wars. In doing so, he invoked the idea of a "just war" -- the idea that war can be waged morally, and ultimately for peace -- but a peace meaning "not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting."
Then, Obama talked about how the world, even as globalization should bring us together, still divides us by race, tribe and religion. Obama continued, "Most dangerously, we see [this division] in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents. ... These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint."
It's a fascinating speech and, agree or disagree on its merits, it's a learned speech -- one that understands its subject and its history. It's a speech that's positively medieval. And as a professor of medieval studies, I don't throw that term around lightly.
The idea of just war, and how it's understood here, comes from Augustine of Hippo. In "City of God," Augustine wrote that wars are miserable but sometimes necessary. A war, however, is only just (or, better, justified) if it's waged defensively and ends in lasting peace. Augustine was writing in the early fifth century, at the height of the Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire.
For Augustine, these tribes were the aggressors and their actions necessitated a military response. Similarly, around 1000 AD, the Peace of God movement sought to restrain violence by waging war, sometimes pre-emptively. At great councils, nobles, commoners, monks, priests and bishops gathered and swore oaths to God and the saints that they would respect the peace and engage those who violated it -- this movement ultimately attempted to mimic the peace of Heaven here on Earth.
None of this, however, was the Crusades. Obama's point that "if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint" is important. When he called the First Crusade in 1095, Pope Urban II portrayed the expedition to Jerusalem as both an Augustinian just war and a holy war.
He invoked Muslim attacks on Christians in the East and the need for those of the West to respond defensively to that threat. The conquest of Jerusalem and the restoration of Christianity there, Urban continued, would lead to a (perhaps apocalyptic) vision of peace. But God, not necessarily justice, was said to have been on the crusaders' side. Both crusaders and God (so they thought) reveled in violence because they thought it righteous, because they likely well knew (as Obama seems to, and now denounces) the consequences of marrying just and holy war.
Obama wants to thread two needles. First, he wants to separate out a thoroughly Christian (and it is a specifically Christian) idea of justified warfare from a more general understanding of holy warfare -- one in which, because God is on your side, the ends always justify the means. Second, Obama then wants to secularize and universalize "just war," offering a more humane alternative to dogmatic realpolitik (which it is -- even as oxymoronic as that sounds).
That's probably why Obama closed his speech by saying, "We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace."
This last part is something that Augustine seemed to understand, even if his European medieval interpreters fundamentally didn't. For them, there was good and evil. You were on one side or the other. Obama, however, is saying that there are shades of gray and that no place on this Earth can become paradise, for, to paraphrase Augustine, we may all be pilgrims in this world, but our constant wandering needn't dim our hopes that we'll someday reach our destination.
