Excellent post!
Man, thanks for that essay. I have not read all of it yet, but I will today, Lord Willing.
But I was willing to concede that the Thirty Years War was a religious conflict and still not yeild the core contention that most 'Wars of Religion' were not actually instigated for religious reasons.
The religious affiliations were consinsidered only in so far as it aided the state in rallying the population or reinforcing its power structure in some other way. This essay supports that contention even for the Thirty Years War as well! Well, if that was not a 'Religious War' then nothing was. Heheh, and it would appear that indeed nothing was!
So, again, can one call a war that religion did not instigate a 'war of religion'?
I think it cannot be.
And if one was so inclined, could not the wars of the twentieth century, mostly wars of ideology, not be called 'Wars of Atheism?'
That's why I went "off topic" except not really. You really need to study Monarchy and War , not because I am on my soapbox about monarchy but because the questions of war and peace that you are asking are intimately connected to the nature of the state. Liberal democracies, secular ones (the world has seen no other kind), derive their authority from "the consent of the governed" not from any higher law, there is no check on the power of the state. So-called 'separation of powers' are pointless, each "branch" of the government has a vested interest in the increase of the power of the whole, as Hoppe argues in The Impossibility of Limited Government: The Prospects for a Second American Revolution . So what is the role of religion in secular democracies? The doctrine of "separation of Church and state" is all about making religion a private affair with no effect on the actions of the state - thereby removing the only true check on the power of the state.
All government is consensual, no individual or group can rule others without their consent, that consent is gained thru idealogy. All states therefore have an idealogy that justifies their authority - whether that justification is the "consent of the governed" or the sanction of God and His Church makes a tremendous difference after all.
The Church is properly independent of the state, and in fact, because of it's moral teachings superior to, the state. In practice this meant actions could not be taken by the King that were not sanctioned by the Church - this precedent started with St. Ambrose called the Roman emperor himself before him for penance (the emperor had ruthlessly massacared the inhabitants of a city). Later when the entire population was effectively Christianized a ruler out of favor with the Church could not survive - an excommunicated King was a dead or deposed King. Usually by the hands of his own family who wished to protect the family's legacy and status, occasionally at the hands of his subjects.
Until the reformation that is - this is point the article makes. It is when that power structure began to invert we see more "wars of religion" - a myth created by statists to justify their denial of the rights proper to the Church. Liberal democracy is a continuation of this denial by removing Her influence entirely and relegating Her to the private sphere only.
Are you beginning to see how this is all connected now? Wars are an undertaking that directly involves moral authority - moral authority in democracies comes from an populace easily manipulated by indoctrination and propoganda (the primary thesis of "Monarchy and War"). The myth of "wars of religion" was created and propogated by those with statist aims who sought to de-legitimize the authority of religion and deny the rights of the Church.
The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the World State to be a monarchy: tradition, as well as the continued existence of a part of the ancient institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the Emperor must be universal, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilised world; the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat of Christendom. His functions will be seen most clearly if we deduce them from the leading principle of medieval mythology, the exact correspondence of earth and heaven . As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, rules blessed spirits in Paradise, so the Pope, His vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigns over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven. So must he (the Imperator coelestis ) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor ( Imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's manifestation, so there must be a rule and care of men's bodies as well as their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that element which is the purer and more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us throughout the Middle Ages. The Pope, as God's Vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they are able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position is that of Advocate or Patron, a title borrowed from the practise adopted by churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants in war. The functions of Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute priestly decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the Faith among the heathen, sparing not to use carnal weapons. Thus does the Emperor answer in every point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the papal Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, seen from different sides; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism
Viscount Byrce, The Holy Roman Empire