Religion and War from Antiquity to Early Modernity

Registration is now open for international conference Religion and War from Antiquity to Early Modernity: Historical Varieties of a Recurring Nexus that will take place on 24-26 June 2019 at King’s College London.

Programme, abstracts, and registration information can be found on the conference website: www.religionandwar.net<http://www.religionandwar.net>

The Conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

The conference, hosted by the Departments of Classics and War Studies, and the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War at King’s College London, will mark the launch of a new international research networkReligion and War through the Agesdedicated to exploring the nexus between religion and war as a recurring cross-cultural phenomenon attested in a great variety of historical societies from antiquity to the present and presenting a particularly poignant modern challenge.

With wide geographic coverage encompassing the Mediterranean basin, Near East, North Africa, and Europe, and taking Classical Antiquity as a starting point, but looking as far back as the second millennium BCE and forward to the Westphalian settlement of 1648, this conference will be a comparative and cross-cultural exploration of the persistent question about the role of religion in motivating, guiding, and explaining the causes and conduct of war.

What role do religious ideas play in human conflicts? Citing direct divine command or posing as guardians of divine interests, actively seeking divine approval or drawing courage from imagined divine support, armies from ancient times to the present and across diverse regions and cultures, have gone to battle with one another.  The conference will investigate specific historical cases and contexts that illustrate the influence of religion on war, from motivation to rules of conduct.  Major themes include: the demands of different sets of religious beliefs that in the past provided a cause for war; the conditions under which religious considerations became a dominant force among the reasons for and against war; the role religion played in escalating war or putting limits on violence and how that influence was felt; finally, how religion, in turn, was affected by the conduct of war in past societies.