Adult Sunday School Lessons – Religion & Wars

One key area that adult Sunday school teachers face is that of religion and wars.  Here are some ideas to use for your adult Sunday school lessons on this topic.

Several major wars in history have been fought for religious reasons.  However, most religions proclaim themselves to be peaceful in nature.  How do these two seemingly opposite sentiments combine?  As is true for Christianity, and perhaps other major world religions, there are ideas for “just” wars and “unjust” wars, which will be discussed later.

Most Christians believe that in general, there are better ways to end conflict than with violence and war.  They also believe that in some circumstances, the con-sequences of allowing the ene-my to win is worse than the war that it would take to thwart them.  For that reason, there are wars.  Religious wars also hap-pen because leaders can mobil-ize their people and unite them under religion.  These leaders are not always religious, nor are they fighting a war for just rea-sons, but they can spin things to make their people believe that it is a holy cause, which lends them authority and gives them the support of their people.

As Christians, it is our duty to study the arguments surrounding a proposed war and decide for ourselves, after prayer and contemplation, whether or not we can honestly support the war.

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Category: Sunday School Lessons