A Brief History of Holy Wars

This is the story of the unbelievable staying power of a Canaanite storm deity and his own prophet who tried to reverse his influence.

Violence becomes sacred. And empire calls it faith.

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The Evolution of God

Long before the Bible told stories about Jericho falling or Goliath dying, there was already a god on the move.

But he didn’t look much like the God many of us were taught to imagine.

He was one among many.
A storm god.
A mountain god.
A tribal protector who rode the clouds, hurled lightning, and waged war on behalf of his people.

He would later be called YHWH.

Many scholars believe the deity who became known as YHWH originated as a regional warrior or storm god, likely worshiped in the desert regions south of ancient Israel—places like Seir, Edom, or Midian.

Some of the oldest biblical texts even preserve echoes of this:

“YHWH came from Sinai,
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.” (Deut. 33:2)

The earliest Israelites likely encountered him not as a cosmic creator, but as a local storm deity—similar in function to other Canaanite gods like Baal.

And like most ancient gods, this one was expected to fight.

Ancient Israel did not begin as monotheistic.
Most scholars agree early Israelite religion was henotheistic—believing many gods existed, but pledging loyalty to one.

That’s why the Ten Commandments say, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Not because there weren’t other gods—just that YHWH was to come first.

YHWH was their god.
Their warrior.
Their weapon.

And in the beginning, that was enough.

But something changed.

Over centuries—through exile, defeat, and deep theological reflection—Israel’s understanding of God began to evolve.

Not in a clean, linear way.
But slowly, the image of God expanded:

From tribal god...
to national god...
to only god...
to cosmic mystery.

This evolution is reflected within the Bible itself—which is why it often contradicts itself.

Sometimes God commands genocide.
Sometimes God forgives enemies.

Sometimes God seems petty and jealous.
Other times, God is love.

It all depends on when the story was written—
and which version of God the people needed at the time.

And that tension—between the violent tribal protector and the loving universal presence—is still with us.

It’s in our hymns.
Our politics.
Our instincts to punish and dominate while still claiming to follow God.

Because the evolution of God never fully finished.

Not in the Bible.
And not in us.

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Before the War Stories

If you grew up in evangelical culture, you probably remember the war stories.

The walls of Jericho falling.
The sun standing still.
The Israelites marching into the land, swords drawn, with God’s blessing.

You might’ve even heard it framed like this:

God gave them the land.
The Canaanites were evil.
The violence was justified.

But here’s the twist:

Those stories weren’t written during the conquest.
They were written centuries later—after Israel had lost everything.

Most scholars agree the books of Joshua, Judges, and large parts of the Torah were compiled or written during or after the Babylonian exile—not in real time. These weren’t eyewitness accounts passed down like journal entries.

They were origin myths—ethnocentric, political, and emotionally loaded.
Crafted by a displaced people trying to reclaim their identity, justify their past, and imagine a future where they weren’t the victims anymore.

Think about that:
The authors weren’t warriors remembering a recent victory.
They were exiles trying to make sense of a devastating loss.

And so, they reached back—not just to remember their story, but to rebuild it.

They told of a time when their God had given them the land.
When they were strong.
When they were righteous.
When they had won.

These weren’t battlefield reports.
They were post-traumatic origin myths.
A way of saying: “We were chosen once. We could be again.”

God wasn’t just a local god anymore.
God was a conquering hero.
And maybe, if they remembered hard enough, God would fight for them again.

That’s the context in which many of the Bible’s war stories emerged.

Not as actual battle accounts.
But as sacred justifications for why they belonged.
For why they had power.
And for why they deserved to get it back.

And even though the vast majority of those war stories never actually happened...

They were more than stories.

They were a vision of the future.
A survival mechanism.
A way to feel powerful again.

Even if it meant imagining a God who kills.

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The Fantasy of Power

If the war stories of Joshua were about reclaiming the land,
the stories of David and Solomon were about reclaiming the throne.

Because if you’ve lost everything—your home, your temple, your national identity—there’s one thing that can still keep hope alive:

The memory of glory.

According to the biblical narrative, King David was a man after God’s own heart.
A poet-warrior who unified the tribes, defeated enemies, and danced half-naked before the Lord.
His son Solomon built the temple. Expanded the kingdom. Became the wisest man who ever lived.

Together, they formed what later generations would call the golden age of Israel.

But most historians agree this era—if it happened at all—was likely smaller, shorter, and messier than the Bible describes.

There’s little archaeological evidence for a vast empire.
Solomon’s grandeur may have been exaggerated.
David may have ruled a few fortified hill towns and gone to war with his neighbors like everyone else.

But that didn’t matter.

Because in exile, the myth of David grew.

He became more than a king.
He became the ideal.

One day, God will send another David.
One day, we’ll be strong again.
One day, the throne will be ours.

The messiah wasn’t originally about afterlife at all.
He was a king.
A real one.
With armies.
And borders.
And vengeance.

This is what the people in Jesus’ day were still waiting for.

Not a spiritual leader.
Not a personal savior.

A new David—a king to make them conquerors.
A new Moses—a deliverer to bring them to the promised land.
A new Joshua—a general to win the battle and give it back.

And then came Jesus.

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His Name Was Joshua

Literally.

The name “Jesus” is just the Greek version of the Hebrew Yeshua—
which is the same name as Joshua.

The warrior-general.
The land-taker.
The sword-wielder.

So when people heard about this new prophet from Nazareth…
this miracle-worker, this possible messiah…

They weren’t thinking love your enemies.
They were thinking revolution.

And the Gospel writers knew that.

They weren’t neutral historians.
They weren’t writing objective biographies.

They were crafting resistance literature—shaped by the needs and hopes of early Christian communities under pressure.

They wanted the world to know: Jesus is the one we’ve been waiting for.

So they constructed the story accordingly.

Matthew opens with a genealogy linking Jesus directly to David—because the messiah had to come from David’s line.
He’s born in Bethlehem—David’s city.
He’s called Son of David again and again.
He teaches from a mountain—like Moses.
He gives a new law—blessed are the peacemakers instead of eye for an eye.
He escapes a tyrant’s decree as a baby—like Moses.
He crosses water, wanders the wilderness, multiplies bread.

These weren’t just coincidences.
They were mythic signals.

A new David.
A new Moses.
A new Joshua.

A king.
A liberator.
A general.

And then…

Jesus turns the whole thing on its head.

He rides into Jerusalem—not on a war horse, but a donkey.
He tells Peter to put the sword away.
He says, pray for your enemies—not kill them.
He praises Samaritans, the sworn enemy.
He breaks bread with the oppressors.
He tells foreigners their sins are already forgiven.

They called him Messiah.
And he refused to play the part.

And at the center of it all: the cross.

For Jesus, death by empire wasn’t defeat—it was the point.

He genuinely seemed to believe—on some deep mystical level—that his death would lead to resurrection.
For his movement.
For his ideas.
For his kingdom.
Maybe even for his body.

And when it comes to holy wars…

It’s not too much of a stretch to wonder if, in his own mysterious way, Jesus saw his death as an offering.
A surrender.
A sacrifice not just for the communal evil of mankind—but maybe even for the sins and war crimes of the very God he loved.

Whatever the historical Jesus actually believed, one thing is clear:
It was nothing like what anyone expected.

The new Moses led the people to the tomb.
The new David died naked in public, mocked as “King of the Jews.”
And the new Joshua—the general—surrendered without a fight.

To me, that’s the greatest miracle of the Gospel.

Not the healings. Not the water into wine. Not even the empty tomb.

But this:

That enough people believed this upside-down vision of power to keep the movement going.

And in that way…

Jesus was right.

His message resurrected.
And spread.
Stronger than ever—

Until empire came calling again.

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For a While, They Meant It

It would be easy to assume the movement died with Jesus.

But it didn’t.

His followers actually lived out his teachings—often at great cost.
And for the first few generations, Christianity was deeply anti-empire.

Not just politically.
Existentially.

Paul was executed by Rome.
Peter, too.
They didn’t die in battle.
They died for refusing to play by Caesar’s rules.

The Book of Revelation—far from being a code for future end times—was likely written to encourage persecuted Christians under Roman rule.
Its “Beast” was Caesar.
Its “Whore of Babylon” was Rome.
Its message was clear: the empire is evil. Don’t bow to it. Don’t be seduced by it.

To follow Jesus was to refuse empire.

To say “Jesus is Lord” is to say “Caesar is not.”

They often chose to suffer instead of strike back.
To pray for enemies instead of conquer them.
To die rather than worship a false king.

Even a hundred years later, Polycarp—an early bishop and disciple of John—was burned alive for refusing to renounce Christ as King.

And his final prayer wasn’t a battle cry.
It was thanksgiving.

The early church didn’t kill for Jesus.
They died like him.

But eventually…

The empire stopped persecuting the church.

By annexing it.

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When Empire Came Calling

The empire couldn’t make sense of the Jesus movement.

So it acquired it like a day trader buying penny stocks.

In the early 300s, the Roman emperor Constantine claimed to have a vision: a cross in the sky, accompanied by the words, “In this sign, conquer.”

And with that, the entire arc of Christian history changed.

Before Constantine, to follow Jesus meant refusing violence.
After Constantine, it meant blessing it.

The same symbol—a cross—that once meant victory through willing death was now painted on Roman shields, banners, weapons, and battlefields.

The cross—once an empire’s tool of terror—became the church’s seal of approval for war.

Christianity was no longer a persecuted fringe movement.
Within a few decades, it became the official religion of the empire.

And with empire came power.
And with power came enemies.
And with enemies came holy wars.

The teachings of Jesus were still there.
But they were now filtered through swords and thrones and statecraft.

His kingdom was no longer “not of this world.”
It had a capital.
An army.
A tax code.

Here is the great irony—and the great sadness—of the Jesus story.

Jesus came to finally replace the God of War with a God of Love.
He flipped the power structure on its head.
And for a while, it worked.
His surrender was his revolution.
His death did change everything.

But then, the unthinkable happened.

A real empire—the biggest empire to ever exist—found his story.
And took it over.

And when Rome looked closely at the story of Jesus, they didn’t see surrender.
They saw a useful weapon.

They saw an ancient God of War—still very alive beneath the surface.

The exiled desert tribe who once fabricated war stories to comfort themselves had, unintentionally, gifted the world something far more dangerous: a conquering, vengeful God for every powerful empire to follow.

And follow him they did.

• In the Crusades, where Christian knights slaughtered Muslims, Jews, and even fellow Christians in the name of reclaiming holy ground.

• In the Doctrine of Discovery, used to justify colonizing and enslaving entire continents.

• In the Atlantic slave trade, where enslavers quoted Scripture while branding human beings.

• In Manifest Destiny, as America claimed divine permission to expand and dominate.

• In Christian nationalism, where churches drape flags over pulpits and confuse patriotism for faith.

• And in every war since—where God gets thanked for victory and violence becomes sanctified.

What started as survival mythology became a human virus.
And now, the God of War wears a cross.

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September 12, 2001

Fast forward.

It’s the day after 9/11.
I was a young senior pastor, leading a growing church plant of about 500 people in Las Vegas.

Every church in America held a service that week.
Ours was no different.
The fear was real.
The grief was real.
And the magnetic pull toward nationalism, retribution, and righteous violence—it was as strong as I’ve ever felt.

George W. Bush spoke at the National Cathedral.
America had been attacked by terrorists.
But underneath that, something else was rising.

They were Muslim.
We were Christian.

And it was becoming clear:
Another holy war was about to brew.

I was already in the middle of my own slow-motion deconstruction.
I had questions I couldn’t shake.
And that night, standing in front of my church, I said some things I knew you’re not supposed to say if you want to grow a church.

While other churches gathered to sing songs of comfort and unity, I preached something else.

I condemned nationalism.
I called my congregation to pray for, and protect, American Muslims.
I warned against rushing into war.
I reminded us that Jesus said to love our enemies—not bomb them.

It wasn’t well received.

Every other church I knew grew after 9/11.
Ours started to shrink.

And that wasn’t an accident.
It was the story of the cross playing out again.

Because flipping power on its head always starts with death.

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And Yet…

So here we are. Twenty-four years later.

Still dropping bombs on Muslim countries.
Still invoking God.
Still trading fear for violence and calling it faith.

Countless holy wars rage on around the world—each one dressed up in divine language.

That insignificant Canaanite storm deity?

Turns out, he had some serious staying power.

That insignificant revolutionary from Nazareth?

Somehow, he does too.