Lesson video

Hello, fine, and the wise and noble theologians.

And thank you very much for joining me.

My name is Mr. Green.

And today we are going to carry on learning about the current topic, which is religion, peace and conflict.

In today's lesson, we are going to spend some time looking at reasons for war, and religious views on those reasons for war.

Now in order to become a mighty theologian in all of those areas, I need you to make sure you've got four things with you.

The first is a pen, the second is a different colour pen, the third is a piece of paper to work on, and the fourth is of course your theology brains.

Now, if you need to go and get any of those things to do your work today, please pause the video now and go and get them.

Now, before we start, I just want to say a lesson we are about to complete contains references to war.

And for some people that will be a sensitive topic.

If that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support.

So in today's lesson, we are going to learn about reasons for war.

And to start off with, we want to explain what's meant by greed, self-defense and retaliation.

And then we're going to have a look at what the Christian and Islamic views are, on at those three courses of war.

So, we're going to look at the following motivations for conflict, and we'll then explore the different richest viewpoints on each of these motivations.

The first is greed, and by greed, we mean a selfish desire for something.

So for example, a country might decide to go to war, because they want more money, land or resources, perhaps like oil.

Secondly, retaliation, deliberately harming someone or a group or a nation as a response to them harming you.

So you might undertake a conflict purely because you want to strike back against a nation or a state that is undertaken an aggressive act against you.

And thirdly, self-defense, acting to prevent harm to yourself, preventing harm.

So you may be under attack or under threat of attack.

And in those circumstances you might think, right, I need to strike back, I need to engage in this conflict in order to make sure that citizens in this state are safe.

So we're now going to memorise these definitions.

And the first step to doing that is, writing out the definitions you can see on your screen, and just using the word back at the bottom to help you.

So pause a bit now, and have a go at that for me, please.

Excellent.

So your work should look like this, greed, a selfish desire for something.

Retaliation, deliberately harming someone, a group, a nation, as a response to them harming you and self-defense acting to prevent harm to yourself.

So please pause a bit video, check that you've got that correct, and then join me again at once, you've done that.

So second time now, what are the definitions again? Do then looking at the definitions you've just written down, and then join me for feedback once you finish that.

So please pause the video, and have a go at that for me now, please.

Excellent, well done.

So hopefully you've got the same work again.

So greed, the selfish desire for something, retaliation, deliberately harming someone, a group, a nation, as a response to them harming you, and self-defense, acting to prevent harm to yourself.

So, we're now going to look at some examples.

And after we've spoken through this examples, I'm going to ask you to summarise these examples, and identify which cause of war is being closely linked to the way the example has been explained for you.

So the first one here you can see in World War II, the UK fought to defend itself against Nazi invasion, as well as to defeat a threat to the whole of Europe.

Then you've got the 9/11 attacks.

So on 9/11, terrorists hijacked aircraft in the U.

S.

A, flying them into buildings of national importance, 2,966 people died, believing that Afghanistan was providing shelter for terrorists, the U.

S, backed by the UK began action against them.

And in 2014, Russia took over Crimea, known as the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

And essentially Crimea was taken from the Ukraine, and some have said, this seemed to be driven by a desire for power and control.

So I'd like you please to pause the video, and do the following.

Firstly, you write out the names of the conflict.

You can see I've put those in black bold, underlined text on your screens.

After you've given the name, just give a very short summary of the conflict, and then three, state which motivation best fits with the description that I've given you.

So please pause the video now, and have a go at that, then join me for some feedback.

So hopefully you've managed to identify it like this.

So, World War II, the way it was explained there as to lead to identify self-defense was a reason for the conflict there, the reason why the UK, and although I liked nations got involved.

9/11, we're talking about retaliation there, but of course, it would add into that, whilst yes, retaliation might have been there, also the case that in taking action against terrorists who happened to deteriorate, and therefore defend yourself against future terrorist actions.

And thirdly, associating it with the way it's been described as greed.

So that final bit, I put some have said the seem to be driven by desire or by a desire side for power and control.

If that's true, then it's greed.

But of course, lots of different political commentators would have different views on that, and point to different courses and therefore disagree with the fact that it's been motivated by a desire for that extra power and control.

So just pause the work to check your work, and then resume it once you've made any corrections or amendments or additions that you need to.

So we're now going to look at religious teachings on the motivations for conflict.

And I'll have a look specifically at what Christians think about greed, self-defense and retaliation, as reasons for war, and then we'll have a look at what Muslims may think about greed, retaliation, and self-defense as a motivation for war.

So let's start off with greed, and on your screens, you can see a quotation, a quotation from the Bible, and it says, "The love of money is a source of all kinds of evil" we can relate this degree, because now people who love money and just chase above other things, we would say that they're greedy, they're thirsty for money, and would pursue that above other things.

And it makes clear here, look, people who act in that way, who are driven by that greed, tend to fall into doing evil things, so their actions are likely to be evil.

So that would make clear that greed is not a good motivation for any action, because clearly we want to avoid evil actions.

And if greed leads to evil actions, then we need to tackle it at the stem, tackle it, the motivation, and the motivation is greed, and overcome those feelings of greed.

And fighting the war out of greed, say for example, to get more land, money or power, would not be acceptable, 'cause that would imply that those things are more important than life and peace.

And of course, you must remember as well that in conflict, inevitably, life is awesome.

Sometimes there's scale of life loss is avast.

And to say well, a person has desire or a state desire for power or money is more important than life, would clearly contradict a key Christian idea of the sanctity of life.

Life is sacred it's a gift from God and it therefore needs protecting.

So there'd never be acceptable to go to conflict and risks, such a precious gift that of human life is in a pursuit of a selfish desire, or greedy desirey for power, money, land, resources, whatever that might be.

And within this, we can also think about the key Christian event can be.

The key Christian event of God coming to earth in the person of Jesus to die on the cross for people.

And then we think, well, does that tally with greed, and clearly not.

That's a demonstration of love, isn't it? It's a demonstration of a selfless, sacrificial love.

And if Christians are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, then that includes the outlook, their motivations, and the motivation of God on the cross, It is a selfless, loving motivation.

So, our actions to be motivated by that sense of love and that involves sacrifices, not selfishly chasing after things.

So Christians clearly against greed as a motivation, or a reason for war, it would not be acceptable.

The next one, a Christian view on retaliation, and you can see a quotation written there, "Happy are those who work for peace; "God will call them his children." What's this saying? Well, God will bless you, if you work for peace, if you are a peaceful person.

and most Christians would use this to argue that look, Jesus is clearly in favour of peace and reconciliation.

Remember reconciliation, there was stalling, a friendly relationships after a conflict.

And that point to many of His teachings, which seem to endorse peaceful responses, not least one we've looked at already in this sequence of lessons on the Oak National Academy on peace and justice.

We spoke about Jesus overturning the teaching, eye for eye, life for life with turn the other cheek.

A lots of Jesus' teaching seem to contradict the use of violence, and instead move towards peaceful responses.

And as Jesus as God, Christians place great authority on His words, teachings and actions.

And they would say, that perhaps a motivation for Jesus saying these things, Jesus, who they believe to be God, is working for long lasting peace.

If you retaliate, working for long lasting pieces, is more challenging, isn't it? In simple terms, let's imagine, I'm in conflict with someone else, I'm attacked, I attack back.

Does that get us closer to peaceful relationships or further away from peaceful relationships? I think most people would identify that, actually, if we continue that cycle of response, tit for tat, then it moves us further away from reconciliation.

So retaliation can be seen as dangerous for that reason.

It moves your way from reconciliation.

And ultimately, if we want peace, as it's suggested here, if we want peace as suggested here, what we need to do is resist the urge to retaliate, seek peace, for if we seek peace and our response, we get closer to reconciliation.

There's a different view on retaliation.

And that different view is perhaps informed by this quotation here, "Life for life, eye for eye" And comes from the Old Testament book of Exodus.

And this seems to be setting an upper limit on responding to violence, and essentially saying, look, if you are attacked, then you are permitted to respond to the attack with up to, the same amount of damage was caused to you.

It's not necessitating it, it's not saying you have to do it, but it's saying that is an option, so in life for life, if someone takes your life, you're entitled to do the same.

So you're in touch to cause up to, the same amount as damaged as was done to you, but it's not demanding it.

So it doesn't say retaliation is necessary, but it does allow you retaliate in kind.

We've got two different Christian views, we're having on retaliation.

One saying, no, we need to work for peace and reconciliation, retaliation seems to make that harder.

The second saying it can be acceptable.

Of course, what we mentioned when we looked at the first bit of information on retaliation, is actually Jesus replaced this teaching, didn't he? And many Christians would point that out.

Actually, the quotation that I put on your screens now, "Life for life, eye for eye" was replaced by Jesus, when he said, actually, look, you've heard life for life, eye for eye, but I say to you, turn the other cheek.

Very clearly and deliberately replacing this teaching, which seems to endorse retaliation with a different response, a peaceful response one, which should say don't retaliate, try and disarm your enemies, with love instead of actions in kind.

And then self defence.

And again, if they're going to give you two views on self defence.

AnD the first one, is again what it say, "Love your neighbour as you love yourself." And traditionally, Christianity does allow for self defence as a just cause for conflict.

They might do that, because sometimes you could claim it's the most loving thing to do, to offer that defence, not just to yourself, but also to others.

Take the Nazi genocide as an example, the Holocaust of people of Jewish faith, and also other targeted groups that were discriminated against.

To show those people love, what does that involve? Does it involve sitting back and not taking action, or does it involve potentially using violence, using force to correct, what would otherwise be and was a horrific and unconscionable injustice in society.

When you think about that phrase and most loving thing.

Yeah, so we're not keen to use violence a Christian would say, but a Christian would also perhaps say may be self-defense or defence of others, is a just cause for conflict in order to offer that defence and do what's most loving.

And that obviously relates to the alternative, doesn't it? The alternative to conflict is more damaging to human life, like the example just given, to human life and dignity, and the conflict in itself, then it might be acceptable, some Christians would say, to use violence under those specific circumstances.

However, other Christians might point to the teaching of Jesus, I mentioned earlier, if anyone stops you on the right cheek, let him stop you on the left cheek too.

And implement into that teaching, they may say, look, this makes clear that Jesus was against conflict in all cases.

And they're so likewise, there can be no justification for conflict, that would a great loss of life.

Jesus here says when someone treats you with aggression, what you need to do is not respond back with violence instead, try and disarm them with a different type of response, try and show them the love.

Love will change them, not violence.

And when we think about what the aim is, the aim of conflict, is going to be to produce a peaceful, and adjust outcome.

And if what we're aiming for is peace and justice, then perhaps the most common sense way to go about bringing that peace and justice, is through peaceful means, and you demonstrating what you want the outcome to be as well.

So some challenging ideas there, and time to pause reflect and consolidate what we have just spoken about.

Remember we gave one Christian view on the motivation of greed for war.

And then we gave two different Christian ideas for retaliation, some saying acceptable, some saying unacceptable.

And then we gave two different views on self-defense as a recent for war.

Again, some saying acceptable, some saying unacceptable.

So I'd like you to do please, is copy and complete the table you can see on your screens.

And I'd like you to use the verses, I've put on your screens to explain and explain in detail how those verses can be used to frame those different Christian views that we've just looked at.

So please pause the video now, how'd we get that task, and then join me once you have finished it.

Excellent, some good work there.

So let's have a check of your work.

So hopefully where it said greed, you just went to the unacceptable column and left the acceptable column blank.

What does that tell us firstly? Just the fact that acceptable column blank, you will be hard pushed to find a Christian that thinks greed is an acceptable justification for war.

So let's have a look at the unacceptable.

We've got that quotation, "The love of money is a source of all kinds of evil." And then we've got an explanation, that greed is not an acceptable motivation for any action.

Let alone one that causes a significant loss of life.

It would imply I wouldn't it? That that motivation for resources, power, land, whatever it is, is more important than the precious gift that Christians believe God has given, which is human life.

And that would run counter to their teachings and their beliefs.

Then for retaliation, you've got some referring to, perhaps there's an acceptable reason for war, "Life for life, eye for eye." And the fact that some might argue that allows for retaliation, although it was not demanded.

It might also add into that, that look, it sets an upper limit, doesn't it? "Life for life" So it's saying you can respond in kind causing the same amount of harm or damages you would caused, but that's just the upper limit, it doesn't demand that you cause that amount.

It's a rule to bear in mind, isn't it? And unacceptable for retaliation, "Happy are those who worked for peace.

"God will call them his children." And then he'd say, look, Christians being called to work for peace here, and retaliating often makes working for peace and reconciliation, more challenging.

'Cause you get caught up in that tit for tat retaliation violent, and that tends to move parties further away from a peaceful reconciliation, that closer to it.

So if we're going to work for pieces, we're instructed to here, what that means from the perspective of a Christian is, make sure you do not retaliate and instead try and find a peaceful resolution.

And then the final word in our table, self-defense.

So, some Christians might point to, "Love your neighbour as you love yourself." to justify self-defense as a cause for war.

And then point out that Christianity does allow for the use of force in order to defend yourself.

Sometimes a conflict aimed at restoring peace and justice, is in fact, the most loving thing to do.

Whereas others might disagree and point to Jesus's words elsewhere and say, look, Jesus said, if anyone slaps you on your light cheek, that ends up you on your left cheek too.

And would use that to argue that violence should never be used, Jesus was himself clearly against violence in all circumstances, peace and justice should be achieved through peaceful means.

So if you need to pause the video now to check your work, please do that, do it really carefully, so you've got all the detail that I've shared with you in your notes, thank you.

So, we're going to move on now, and have a look at the Islamic views.

We're going to start off with greed, and you can see the quotation on the board to direct our focus towards forming an Islamic view on greed, is, "Allah loves doers of good" So, if Allah loves doers of good, if Allah loves to do as of good, something just that charm well with being greedy, and immediately we realised, no, don't we? What are the examples of good or one can example of good is zakat, isn't it? Zakat being a charity payment that Muslims are obliged to make.

And that's all about not having a greedy attitude.

So it seems apparent that the doers of good are not people that have a greedy attitude.

So an action that's motivated by greed would not be acceptable in Islam, and Islam command submission to Allah.

And that means Allah must be the number one priority in focus.

And if you're really greedy and perhaps, you're focusing on power, land, financial resources, there's a very real risk, Isn't it? That, that is going to take your number one priority spot away from Allah, and that'd be entirely unacceptable within Islam.

And then we can also imagine, but the greater jihad, the greater jihad remember, requires Muslims to resist inner feelings of desires of greed in order to stay on Allah's path and fulfil his commands.

Remember, jihad is a struggle and the greater jihad is that struggle to stay on Allah's path as spiritual path to go to obey all as rules, and then doing so, overcoming feelings like greed, like desires, that would pay you away from Allah.

So we can see really clearly here can be that, like we saw in Christianity, the Islamic view on green as a motivation for war, is quite categorically, isn't it? It's not a justifiable motivation for conflict.

As it says there, greed is not a just cause for war.

So let's have a look at retaliation then, and we've got on your screens here, "Fight for the cause of God, against those who fight you, "but do not transgress, for God does not love "the transgressors." Remember the calls of God, fighting for God, what could that be? That could be fighting to defend the faith, couldn't it? Make sure, that Muslims can practise their faith really, away from oppression and threats of harm.

But it also says, do not transgress if you transgress you're breaking rules.

So this implies, there are clear rules, for conflict, and indeed that are in Islam.

And one of the rules is, retaliation or any action in conflict needs to be proportionate, that means not using excessive force.

So let's see how we can translate this into a response from Islam as to how to view retaliation.

So we can see here, the Qur'an is not encouraging retaliation.

The cause of God is about protecting and defending the faith, peace and reconciliation are preferable to further conflict.

The rules of lesser jihad clearly discourage retaliation.

One of the rules of lesser jihad, is not to mutilate the deceased bodies of your enemies.

Remember lesser jihad, is a struggle to build a good Islamic society, and that can involve using force to defend the faith.

And if using force to defend the faith, there are lots of rules, for example, not killing the elderly, the women or children, not harming or burning trees, but also in that, is not mutilate the deceased body of your enemies.

What's that talk about, is that talking about vengeance, isn't it? It's saying, look, do not take vengeance, don't cause harm just for the sake of causing calm.

That any response needs to be proportionate and not vengeful, and the rules of lesser jihad, like the one we've just mentioned there, help ensure that is the case.

So similar to the Christian view, we looked at there, the cause of war, retaliation is not being encouraged, it's being discouraged in favour of peace and reconciliation, and retaliation making that much harder.

So, let's have a look at self-defense.

Again, we've got the same quotation here, "Fight for the cause of God, against those who fight you, "but do not transgress, "for God does not love the transgressors." And we can link here, the concept of lesser jihad again, and the Battle of Badr, to make it clear that, although peace is ideal, sometimes conflict is necessary.

Now, when we just had a quick recap of lesser jihad, we said, look, fighting for the cause of God can be to defend the faith, and lesser jihad allows for that.

It's a struggle to defend the faith and that can allow the use of force to do so where necessary.

I'm going to get a powerful example from that, by the actions of Muhammad in the Battle of Badr.

Remember the Battle of Badr is when Muhammad was confronted, by Meccan tribes, and instead of fighting back, he did all he could to try and resolve that peacefully, including fleeing from Mecca and going to Medina, so he and his followers could be safe.

But the threat didn't desist, he was still confronted by the angry Meccan tribe.

It was only when it became empowered that look, the threat is not going to go.

They're angry Meccan ribes are so threatened, and so worried by the words and actions and teachings of Muhammad and the implications that might half their lifestyle, their business, for example, that our way of life, they weren't going to let that go, they're going to continue to threaten him, continue to seek to do harm.

So Muhammad and his followers really felt like, they had no other option other than to defend themselves and had to use force to do so, in order to mitigate the threat and damage that the Meccan tribe were intent to doing.

So we can see that an example, of Muhammad using force when he felt it was really needed, in order to defend the faith, defend himself, defend his followers.

So that Islam as a religion would be protected, and could subsequently grow and flourish.

So it's therefore acceptable to use force in order to defend the faith, but of course, we joined up with what we said on the last side on talking about retaliation and that word transgress in this quotation here, that it's acceptable to use force to defend the faith as long as it's proportionate.

And that's made clear in the rules.

So there are clear rules, and those rules can't be broken.

One of those rules is any force use must be proportionate.

Excellent, let's now consolidate that work.

So in order to do that, what I'd like to do, is read through the seven statements that you can see on your screen now.

If you read the statement and the statement is true, I'd like to just to write the word "true" followed by the statement.

If it's false, then I'd like you to write the word "false" followed by correction of the statement.

And that'll give you a really good summary of the Islamic views on those three causes of conflict.

So please pause the video now, have a go at that, and then join me for some feedback.

Excellent, let's check your work then.

So the first one was false.

So that needed correcting and hopefully you correct it like this, Islamic teaching suggests greed is an unacceptable motivation for conflict.

Second one was true.

The greater jihad suggests greed is not an acceptable cause of war, as it involves Muslims struggling against desires to ensure they follow Allah's path.

The third one is false, so that needed correcting, Islamic teachings discourage retaliation.

The fourth one was true, so that just needed writing out, Islamic teachings say that, any retaliation must be proportionate.

And the fifth one was true, so that needed writing out to, Islamic teachings allow for self defence.

If you need to make any corrections or amendments to your work, please pause the video now, before we have a look at the final two or three together, Now, final two, both were false, and these needed a bit more explanation.

Didn't they? So, false, the Battle of Badr shows that Muhammad only use violence as a last resort when he needed to defend himself, his followers and the faith.

And the Qur'an teaching, "Fight for the cause of God against those who fight you, "but do not transgress for God does not love the transgressors" can be used in reference to self defence as the cause of God can be to defend the faith from attack.

It can also be used for retaliation, as any response must be proportionate and not vengeful.

So it's being used against retaliation, now, isn't it? When you start you against retaliation to say, and it's almost must be proportionate and not vengeful, but being used to say that it can be used for self defence, when you are defending the faith from attack.

So again, please pause the video, check your work, see if you have any corrections that you need to make.

So well done, again, a very good effort in completing all of that work.

So we've looked at a lot there, haven't we? We've got some definitions and examples of the three different motivating factors for war that we're studying.

Then we've looked at the Christian and Islamic views against those things.

So a lot of really terrific work and effort.

Fantastic.

Now please make sure you attempt a similar quiz to check.

You can recall all that key information.

If you wish you can also share, you can also share your work with the Oak National Academy.

If you'd like to do that, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, using information you can see on the screens there.

It's been lovely spending this time with you again.

And I really look forward to seeing you again in the near future to continue our quest to become fine, and noble and honourable theological squires.

Thank you very much.

Enjoy the rest of your day.