In my previous essay about Christian nationalism, I mentioned, in passing, that Christians and other religions have done identical things over the millennia. For example, Pope Urban II blessed the First Crusade by saying, “Deus vult!” That is Latin for “God wills it!” Essentially, God wills that a great army was to be formed to rid the Holy Lands of the infidels, who were the Muslims that lived in what the Europeans viewed as their Holy Land.

This is Urban II blessing his holy war. Pope Leo XIII beatified Urban II, whose feast day is July 29^th.

Urban II added this reinsurance to his blessing the army: "All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.” If they lived, some of the warriors claimed land in the Holy Lands, in which to live.

There were a total of eight crusades. While the 1^st Crusade was unquestionably horrific, the Children’s Crusade in 1212 was far more inane. Nicholas received a voice from God telling him to amass a hodgepodge of warriors, which included young children, the elderly, women, and the poor. Talk about having a motley crew go off to war. Tens of thousands of Muslims and Jews were killed in the Holy Land due to Urban II’s version of what we call ethnic cleansing today.

That was a millennium ago. Three decades ago, with the end of the USSR, Eastern Europe rebelled against Russian rule. Tragically, the demise of former Yugoslavia resulted in the Bosnian War from 1992-1995. Various ethnic groups started fighting with each other, and they also fought internally. Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to remove the Bosniaks from the country. Bosniaks were local citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina who were Muslim. Many Bosniaks fled to other countries as refugees. Over two million were a part of that diaspora. Those who couldn’t flee or wished to stay were moved to the city of Srebrenica, which the UN called a safe zone.

Tragically, the Dutch soldiers, who were a part of the United Nations Protection Force, didn’t stop General Ratko Mladic from torturing and then killing over 8,000 Muslim boys and men. It is called the Srebrenica massacre.

The graves of 8,000 boys and men killed at Srebrenica

Most wars in human history have been affected in some manner by religion. The American Revolution wanted to separate religious beliefs from the government, thus creating the separation of church and state.