Crusades: How to have a holy war.

Here we combine yesterday's hinting at some of the fundamentals of the Crusades, last week's Veteran's day, and the Sunday school lesson yesterday about war/battles as mentioned in the scriptures.

The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. (Wikipedia)  Somehow, since Veteran's day was on Sunday, the talks last week at church wandered into the realm of life being hard for soldiers and families of soldiers, who give most of their attention to selfless acts of devotion to our country.  Not your typical Sacrament Service.  Lastly, yesterday's Sunday School lesson focused primarily on what parents can do to teach their children to be good Christians, which included elements of devotion, patriotism, and fulfilling expectations even when the going gets rough.

via.

I'm not normally one to think about war and fighting, as it generally makes me a bit squeamish.  Recently I have come to a greater sense of empathy, too, which makes it easier to see the human side of an "enemy".  But, with all this talking of war, I wanted to discover what the Book of Mormon says about war.  

What I learned falls into three categories:
I. The Lord will add confidence to the righteous that He will deliver them out of the hands of their enemies.
II. War inspired by a better cause, e.g. family, home, rights, religion, is a duty of believers.
III. Wars of aggression will never be sanctioned by God.

These are the verses I read which taught me these directives:
Alma 58:11-12

11 Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our ^adeliverance in him.
 12 And we did take courage with our small force which we had received, and were fixed with a determination to conquer our enemies, and to^amaintain our lands, and our possessions, and our wives, and our children, and the cause of our ^bliberty.

Lord Spoke Assurances of deliverance, and provided peace, faith, and hope.  The fighting force's conviction to conquer was for the sake of maintaining their possessions, and protecting the liberty of their families.  It was not, "a conquering we'll go" with the expectation of building a kingdom.  It was to allow them to continue to work for their sustenance and enjoy the freedom to make their livelihood.

Alma 43:45-47

 45 Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a ^abetter cause, for they were not ^bfighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their ^cliberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church.
 46 And they were doing that which they felt was the^aduty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: ^bInasmuch as ye are not guilty of the ^cfirst offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.
 47 And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall ^adefend your families even unto ^bbloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion.

See?  I knew I remembered that it was not for monarchy or power.  They felt duty driven to defend their families to the end.  So I was interested to find out what this first and second offense was.

Here was one of the cross-references.  3 Ne 3:21

 21 But Gidgiddoni saith unto them: The Lord ^aforbid; for if we should go up against them the Lord would^bdeliver us into their hands; therefore we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our armies together, and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us; therefore as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands.

Okay, so one offense would have been to be the aggressor.  Deliverance was not promised if they aggressed, but only if they stood with their armies to defend their lands.  Ultimately, I suppose the truth of the matter is that we can do no wrong if we heed the Master's directive from Luke 6:29:

^aAnd unto him that ^bsmiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that ^ctaketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.

Then once you've been smitten twice, or had your cloke and your coat taken, then you are justified in saying "enough is enough"?  Well, as long as the defense is performed humbly, in a nutshell, without flaunting God's power as though He could be commanded to fulfill our short-sighted goals.  Mormon 3:9-11

9 And now, because of this great thing which my people, the Nephites, had done, they began to ^aboast in their own strength, and began to swear before the heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren who had been slain by their enemies.
 10 And they did ^aswear by the heavens, and also by the throne of God, that they ^bwould go up to battle against their enemies, and would cut them off from the face of the land.
 11 And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly^a refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness and abomination.

From this brief exercise, I think I've come to the conclusion that it's expected that we stand up for truth and virtue, acting humbly in defense of God's gifts to us.  If we do it His way, then surely we'll be on the successful side.