Nations have been conquering other nations for millenia. Only in the last century has the conquest of land been frowned upon. It makes me wonder whether or not it’s actually evil. Did Jesus ever speak out against it? Is war even an evil thing? Up until modern history war was routine. Not just for defense, but for conquest and imperialism. Before that men were born with the purpose of fighting as soldiers. Christian rulers who are now saints were conquerers who took over other nations. Nobody ever saw a problem with this until modern times.
Explain this to me.
Well, your reading of history is not entirely true.
Preoccupation with war, and denunciation of war, has been common ever since the beginning of Christianity.
You mention Catholic saints who were conquerors. Can you give us some examples, so we can discuss their individual cases? The general Catholic position has always been one of suspicion towards war, meaning that each and every war must have a good moral justification for being waged.
Someone here mentioned the just war theory, and you said it is a recent preoccupation. That is untrue. Its first formal formulation was with St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century), but even way before him were Christians preoccupied with putting an end to war and denouncing wars made with unjust motives such as greed, territorial expansion, etc.
Furthermore, Christianity humanized warfare. The 20th century completey dehumanized it, but you have to keep in mind that, in centuries past, wars were not the complete carnage we have nowadays. Many battles were over without any casualty; both armies would maneuver in front of each other, one would be clearly superior and the battle would be over. Hey, until World War 1 armies had a marching band in front of them; this must give us some idea of how much war has changed!
That said, the total wars of the 20th century have made us more sensitive to the evil of each and every war, even ordered ones. Yes, power-hungry rulers have always existed, and the evil they caused was not always condemned enough. But no-one doubted that it was an evil.
It was Catholic thinking in particular that underscored the fact that even the king is subject to the eternal law of God, and that he too may be judged by his subjects. No-one denounced more the brutal conquest of America by the Spanish Crown than the Spanish priests, bishops and monks, either in America or back in Spanish universities. It was the scholars at Salamanca who taught, against the entire practice of the empire, that the American natives were entitled to their property and individual rights,
even if they refused to convert to the Catholic Faith.
You may affirm truthfully that many Christians failed to live up to Christianity’s standards; but not that Christianity ever condoned their sinful practices.
