War Is Holy...Or Is It?

      I found this article on the Luminarium website entitled "Holy War in Henry Fifth," which discusses the connection between religion and politics.  This connection between the law of God and the laws of the world has several times led to the start of what we call "holy wars."  What was interesting about this article is how the author compared the holy war narratives contained in the Bible to Shakespeare's descriptions of holy wars (specifically Henry V) in his plays.  He points out that in his prays, Henry refers to the Lord as "God of Battles," suggesting that there is a built-in connection between religion and war.
      Now in my opinion, people today, especially Mormons, do not see the relationship between religion and war in the same way as Christians during Shakespeare's time.  In the past, wars could be and were fought in the name of God and religion.  Think of the Crusades.  One of the reasons that leaders of the cause (including the Pople himself) were able to persuade people to become soldiers and fight to reclaim the Holy Land was because it gave Christians a way to receive a remission of their sins.  The war in Henry V was similarly a kind of holy war because he claimed that his authority came from God, who supported the war.
     Of course, starting a war for religious reasons would never fly today, at least in America.  Our country very clearly separates church from state, and war fits neatly into issues of state, not religion.  If, for example, our very capable and intelligent President Obama (WARNING: sarcasm detected) decided that he wanted to start a war against people belonging to a certain religion, he would get laughed right out of office.  We just don't have that idea of religion being connected to actual, physical war anymore.  Christians tend to think of this connection in a metaphorical sense:  the battle between good and evil.  We don't actually fight people we think are evil with guns and tanks (because we would probably get arrested).  Instead, we try to remove evil from our own and others' lives by replacing it with the goodness of religion.
      It is interesting to think about how differently we view the the world today compared to how people viewed it four hundred years ago.  In modern times, King Henry would not have been able to use God as an excuse to start a war.  This puts this play into a very specific time period.  It would be hard to make a believable modern adaptation of this play if you still wanted to retain all of the religious motivations behind the war.  But, it is still worthwhile to think how much things have changed in the world since Shakespeare's time.