Lately, we have seen the phrase Deus vult — Latin for “God wills it” — in the news.
It first used by Pope Urban II in 1095, when he launched the first Crusade. He wanted to convince kings and sub-jects to march on Jerusalem and reclaim the Holy Lands from what he called “the infidels.” “God wills it” was his rationale for the wars.
When the Pope, long pro-claimed God’s spokesman, spoke, people listened. For the next two centuries, one crusade after another left Europe for Israel, leaving little more than death and destruction in their wake.
Memories are long, and many of today’s problems between Jews, Muslims and Christians are a consequence of these wars.
The phrase Deus vult has remained and is still used by one group to oppress another via politics, religion and/or military might.
Some claim it is God’s will for the United States to be a Christian nation. To be sure, nearly all men who signed the Declaration of Inde-pendence and framed the U.S. Constitution were Chris-tians of one denomination or another.
They also saw the dangers of merging politics with or-ganized religion and wanted to keep them separate. In-stead of a Christian nation, they wanted a nation where Christianity could be prac-ticed.
There are practical prob-lems with Christian national-ism of this stripe. For one, who decides which denomi-nation is “genuinely Chris-tian,” which is not? What will be the litmus test? What happens to those who don’t measure up?
The matter of money comes up too. Ever since Constantine merged Christi-anity and the Roman Empire in 350 AD, one means for a government to control insti-tutional religion is pay their expenses.
Is that something we want to do now in the U.S? Again, which churches are in, which out? Will churches deemed “out” be ordered to close their doors, forced to pay taxes or something else?
Shouting Deus vult won’t easily solve those and other challenges. It will likely make matters worse, as it did 2,500 years ago.
Say I, as an individual, de-clare God wills it I rake and blow the last leaves off my lawn this afternoon. Is that really God’s will, or me in-voking His name to pull this scheme
Of course, fall cleanup is small potatoes compared to launching a religious war. A double page in one of my World War I books shows Germany Kaiser, France’s President, the King of Eng-land and the Czar of Russia all telling their troops it was God’s will they and their al-lies should be victorious. Four years and tens of mil-lions of deaths later, it was clear everybody lost.
More than one religious leader has invoked Deus vult to further his or her personal agenda or gratify their ego. A famous Oklahoma preacher in 1999 proclaimed it was Gods’ will parishioners do-nate $34 million to build a great tower in His honor? One wonders who he meant by “He.”
Ancient Greeks warned of the sin of hubris. One king there traveled to Delphi to ask the Sybil about going to war against another king. “A great kingdom will fall,” she prophetized, but didn’t speci-fy which one it would be.
The commandant in my junior high school study hall ordained it was wicked to be lefthanded was wicked. “You are sinister!” he would shout before bringing a 24-inch down over the offenders’ hands. Seems he mistook the Latin sinister, which means “left,” for the English “evil.”
Deus vult can be a danger-ous tool, regardless of our beliefs. It is often used to bully and intimidate others, secular or sacred. It was used to justify slavery, the eradi-cation of the Native peoples in North America, uphold Jim Crow laws or minority quo-tas for schools and work-places.
Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” showed the hideous result of an alliance between religion and politics to subjugate women. Without the words being used, it was still Deus vult. Not good.
