Long Steep: Hellfire and Salt - Reflections on Holy War

Spill your ReligiosiTea directly with the show host! Let us know your reactions, stories, and more!

This episode discusses heavy themes related to war and religion, including:

• Graphic descriptions of mental health impacts such as PTSD, depression, moral injury, and substance use
• Mentions of death, grief, and suicide
• Discussion of bombings, displacement, and healthcare collapse
• References to Christian nationalism, Zionism, and religiously-justified violence
• Exploration of spiritual psychosis and religious delusion
• Some biblical language may be emotionally triggering depending on personal religious background or trauma

Listener discretion is advised—especially for those with lived experience of war, religious trauma, or moral distress.

What happens when faith becomes a weapon?

In this episode of ReligiosiTea, we venture into the paradox of holy war: how religion, often associated with peace, becomes the banner under which violence is sanctified. From the Crusades to current conflicts in Gaza, the language of God has long been used to justify conquest, displacement, and destruction. Politicians invoke divine mandates—like “those who bless Israel will be blessed”—to rationalize interventionism. Meanwhile, the machinery of Christian nationalism fuels both foreign and domestic policy, emboldening militarism with biblical flair.

But this isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a reckoning. I peel back the layers of rhetoric to ask: what are the actual human costs of faith-fueled warfare?

We dive into the psychological aftermath—PTSD, moral injury, collective grief—and the collapse of healthcare systems that follow in war’s wake. We explore how trauma distorts memory, how soldiers and civilians alike carry wounds that don’t bleed, and how war erodes not only bodies, but beliefs. There’s a reason veterans flinch at fireworks. There’s a reason entire generations disappear behind silence and addiction. And there’s a reason some people stop believing altogether.

This episode also touches on the concept of spiritual psychosis: what happens when a person—or a government—uses faith to detach from shared reality. When religious delusion becomes a political driver, policy becomes prophecy, and violence becomes divine command. We’re not just talking about isolated extremists. We’re talking about the shaping of geopolitics through warped moral vision.

And of course, I turn to the Bible itself. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Live at peace with everyone.” These passages exist alongside verses used to justify genocide and conquest. So which scriptures get remembered—and why? What agendas do they serve?

Through it all, I’m asking one thing: how do we cope when the sacred becomes weaponized? And is there a way to return to faith—not as a justification for war, but as a source of healing?

This one’s heavy. Bring tea. Bring salt. We’re going to need both.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [e-mail] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
This is your host, adrian.
Have you ever thought aboutfighting for your faith?
What about joining a war effortbecause of your faith?
Most religions have doctrinesthat promote peace.
Some are even named after wordsthat mean peace in their native
languages.
Yet religion has historicallybeen gifted to the masses by the

(00:41):
blade or, in the case of modernhistory, by bombs and bullets.
The role religion plays in waris far from over in 2025, as we
have representatives like TedCruz telling media host Tucker
Carlson that his Bible, hisreligious upbringing, taught him

(01:02):
that we must go to war todefend Israel, a theocratic
nation-state, by holy commandfrom God, or we are unholy.
The religion goes deep here,folks.
His exact quote was as aChristian growing up in Sunday
school, I was taught from theBible those who bless Israel

(01:26):
will be blessed and those whocurse Israel will be cursed.
And from my perspective, I'drather be on the blessing side
of things.
Why are we having thisconversation now, and why is it
on religiosity now?
And why is it on religiosity?
Well, in response to theIsraeli-Palestinian war, the

(01:48):
United States has played anincreasingly interventionist
role, or at least attempting tointervene, on the side of Israel
.
Israel has now attacked Iran,with Iran retaliating or vice
versa.
In the game of geopoliticalreligious whodunit, and in a
misguided attempt to put this tobed and secure resources,

(02:09):
president Trump ordered anattack on Iran's nuclear
facility sites on June 22, 2025.
Israel feels that the land thatis Palestine is their promised
land from biblical mandate.
The land itself is actually theholy land for all three major
Abrahamic faiths Judaism,christianity and Islam.

(02:31):
We are seeing these threebranches of the faith of Abraham
battling it out in support ofvarying geopolitical interests
in this region, including accessto religious and holy sites,
resources and strategicpositioning in the Middle East.
As we've seen from my ownhomegrown Texas tabernaculosis

(02:55):
strain of Christian nationalismin Ted Cruz, christianity is
guiding our foreign policy inthe region.
It is also guiding a variety ofconflicts on the home front,
including the wartime jargonused to talk about the attacks
on religious liberties in theUnited States used in some of
our earlier executive ordersfrom President Trump.

(03:17):
Listen to my episode AConstitutional Crisis of Faith
for a breakdown on those.
In fact, christian nationalismhas been guiding divisive
American rhetoric for years.
Think back when was the lasttime you heard about the war on
Christmas, even though Christmastrees, santa Clauses and other

(03:39):
tidings of the pagan holiday,yule, have taken over American
Christmas for decades and arestill available in stores,
including other seasonalreligions that occur at the same
time.
It is a fight against thefaithful.
The conflicts in the UnitedStates around religion and
American interventionism in theUnited States are both centered
around the ongoing religiouscolonization of the nation.

(04:02):
To be clear, I am not sayingChristianity is inherently wrong
, nor that it is wrong to beChristian.
I love many Christian people ofmany denominations.
What I am saying is thatChristianity is being used to
support ideological and actualwars in the United States and

(04:22):
abroad in a fight for religiousideological supremacy.
Today's episode will cover abrief history of religious war,
keying in on Christianity orwars that involved Christianity
as a major contender.
An overview of spiritualpsychosis and how this mental
health outcome might be shapingour foreign policy through

(04:42):
religious experience.
Mental health outcome might beshaping our foreign policy
through religious experience.
A look at spiritual warfare asa Christian concept.
An overview on the healthimpacts of war in general that
we know about, ranging frommental health outcomes like PTSD
to the ultimate health outcome,death.
Finally, we close off this longsteep with a reflection on how

(05:07):
to resist the rhetoric ofChristian nationalism and a look
at where we might be headed asa warring or peaceful nation.
Grab your tea and let's getinto the cathedral, because it's
time for religiosity.
The Crusades began in 1091 andspanned nearly 200 years.

(05:29):
These wars were foughtprimarily between Christians and
Muslims, in attempts on bothsides to gain control of holy
sites and acquire landthroughout the Middle East.
Islam had arisen over 400 yearsprior to the Crusades and had
established a foothold as thepredominant religion in regions
under Turkish rule in WesternAsia.

(05:50):
Much of what is stillconsidered the Middle East today
.
The Muslim rule over the region, which included Jerusalem, a
city synonymous with holinessfor all of the Abrahamic faiths,
was seen as a major threat tothe power of the Holy Roman
Empire and Byzantium.
Since Christianity was foundedout of the stories of Jesus in

(06:11):
Jerusalem, the Christians neededto regain control of their most
holy sites that birthed, shapedand validated their cultural
systems, society and politics.
Holding holy sites andartifacts not only increases the
austerity of any faith, butalso gives the power of belief
to the stories that have shapedsociety.
So, after the initial blessingof Pope Urban II in 1091 and two

(06:36):
centuries of war between theChristians and Muslims of
Eurasia, can we really say thatthe issue of control of
Jerusalem has been settled.
As we know now, jerusalem isstill a highly contentious city.
About a whole millennium later,after Christianity has
conquered over a quarter of thewhole world's belief systems,
the Israeli-Palestinianconflicts have entered the chat,

(06:59):
with Judaism also taking aclaim to one of the world's
holiest cities, judaism alsotaking a claim to one of the
world's holiest cities.
The world is watching, and thereligious descendants of Abraham
across the three holy lineagesof belief, all claim a vested
interest in the politicalcontrol over the region.
Before we get into recentevents, let's look at a few more

(07:19):
examples of holy war.
Let's fast forward a bit Aroundhalf a millennium after the
Crusades.
Protestantism, or the rejectionof Catholic dogma among
Christians, began in 1517 withMartin Luther and his writings
in Germany.
About a hundred years later, in1618, the Holy Roman Emperor,
king Ferdinand II of Bohemia,had had enough.

(07:41):
He decided that he needed tocentralize power in Europe
around a singular Catholic faith, in line with his beliefs and
with the Vatican and papal powerin Italy.
For the next 30 years, forwhich the war is named,
catholics and Protestants foughtover which group would control
the various local politics inEurope.
While this period was a seriesof conflicts between varying

(08:03):
individual nation-states, andoften were between Catholics and
Protestants, religion was thevehicle by which power was
asserted to fight forterritorial and material gain.
When the period was over, themaps were redrawn Sweden and
Denmark gained independence,religious tolerance became a
conversation and religiouscontrol over the various

(08:23):
nation-states become fragmentedbetween Catholics, Calvinists
and Lutherans, the latter twomaking up the Protestants with
their own conflicts.
Around this time, the Spanishwere seeking faster trade routes
to India and China andaccidentally came upon the
Americas.
Much less by accident, theCatholic powers of Spain and

(08:44):
Portugal began activelycolonizing and converting the
indigenous peoples of theAmericas to Catholicism, often
by force.
This was following the SpanishInquisition and ousting of
Moorish Muslims, who had ruledthe region for nearly the past
thousand years, and Jews, withmass forced conversions,
executions and exodus ofnon-Catholics from the region.

(09:06):
So, it's safe to say, thetentative and relatively recent
control of the Catholics overthe Spanish Empire was not
equipped to merge new beliefsystems they had never
encountered before.
Once again, their religiousbeliefs were the crux of their
power over their own empire, andtheir belief system validated
their own authority as a mandatefrom heaven to spread their

(09:26):
faith and their power towhichever lands they took
control over.
Enter the Protestants to theAmericas.
The British, which have theirown bloody history between
Catholic and Protestant rule,came to the Americas seeking
religious freedom.
Ironically, or maybepredictable, the British

(09:46):
settlers were just asunforgiving about religious
freedom as the nation they leftbehind to start a new life more
aligned with their own values.
The inherent nation-state leveltribalism associated with
religion and religious controlled the British colonists to
forcibly convert, make waragainst and otherwise anglicize
the indigenous peoples of theAmericas.
Similar to the threads ofreligiously inspired imperialism

(10:11):
, these sentiments about divineright to rule through the grace
of the Christian God led to theidea of Manifest Destiny in the
historical United States.
Manifest Destiny staked theclaim that God wanted the United
States to control the entirecontinent of North America,
which led to a lot of disputes,conflicts and wars with
indigenous nations, new Spain orhistorical Mexico and parts of

(10:33):
Canada.
Through these conflicts, warsand treaties with imperial
powers like France and theLouisiana Purchase, the United
States did seize a lot of theNorth American continent in the
boundaries we currently have asthe United States.
More contemporarily, we areseeing continued war and
aggression in the Middle East,particularly in the contemporary

(10:54):
Israel-Palestinian conflicts,which began around 100 years ago
.
These conflicts are fueled bythe creation of Israel as a
nation state in 1948, after theSecond World War, which took
possession of land historicallyheld by the Palestinian peoples.
Though Palestine has scarcelybeen recognized as its own
nation-state by supranationalgovernments like the United

(11:15):
Nations, a Jewish nation-stateand held territory is similar to
Manifest Destiny and similar tothe Americans who used Manifest
Destiny to justify theencroachment and seizure of
native lands, israeli politicalactors used Zionism to slowly
erode Palestinian territory andclaim those lands for Israel by

(11:37):
any means necessary.
The idea of divinely inspiredright to land ownership, even if
that means taking it by force,is hardly a new idea, as we've
seen, and it looks like theserealities, spurred on by what I
believe are both sincerely heldreligious beliefs and purely
political motivations towardsself-determined imperialism, are
not going anywhere anytime soon.

(11:58):
In the United States, ourimperialism looks different now.
It is fueled by globalinterventionism, with treaties
and agreements that benefit ouraccess to certain resources,
rather than outright claiminglands and territories for
ourselves.
Unsurprisingly, the remnants ofChristian domination guide many
of these agreements, with manyof our allies being

(12:20):
Christian-dominant Europeannations, with some exceptions if
the locations are strategic orresources are rife.
Religion is also more apparentlyguiding our politics and global
interventionism, with the needto maintain good relationships
with Christian nation-states andglobal proselytization of
global Christianity masqueradingas democracy.

(12:40):
This leads us back to TedCruz's comment about biblical
truth, even if the Bible neversaid that guiding our role in
supporting Israel in the ongoingZionist conquest of Palestine,
christian Zionism is the supportof Zionism, which is an Israeli
Jewish nationalist movement tobring about Armageddon, lead to

(13:01):
the rapture and claim goodChristians for eternity in
heaven and to defend the rightand claim good Christians for
eternity in heaven and to defendthe right of Israel to exist,
to garner good favor with theAbrahamic God.
This is what Ted Cruz wasreferring to as being from the
book of Revelation in theChristian Bible.
I believe that people genuinelybelieve this, but does that
mean it should shape our globalgeopolitical actions and involve

(13:23):
us in the latest wave of holywars in Jerusalem?
On the home front, americanwartime rhetoric is being
applied to national policy as anattack on Christianity.
I talked more about theseattacks in an earlier episode
titled A Constitutional Crisisof Faith, but it's worth
repeating.
Here we are in a culture war ofChristian and non-Christian,

(13:45):
with evangelicals citingbiblical law and rhetoric to
shape our public policy, law andrhetoric to shape our public
policy.
The so-called war on AmericanChristianity has been leveraged
to suppress the rights ofLGBTQIA plus individuals, the
right of women to bodilyautonomy, with weird abortion
laws that have led to strangecases, like a recent case of a
dead woman whose body was lefton life support to carry her

(14:06):
child to term, and has alsoimpacted military readiness
through the attempted removaland barring of people who are
transgender to serve in ourarmed forces.
We are also seeing themilitarization of the United
States' southern border, withrhetorical reinforcement from
misunderstood Catholic values,like Vice President JD Vance's
explication of Ordo Amoris,being used to promote xenophobia

(14:29):
and inhumane treatment offellow Christians because those
Christians do not look, speak oract like a certain segment of
the American populace.
So if religious beliefs areguiding physical wars, culture
wars and internal militaryaction in the United States,
what should we make of thesebeliefs?
They are clearly here to stayand they are powerful, strongly

(14:53):
held belief systems that shapeand warp our perceptions of
reality.
Many of us not me grew upreligious or have experienced
some kind of religious orspiritual feeling in our lives.
This is a leverage point forpolitical motivation, especially
if someone already agrees withthe framework and especially if

(15:14):
the belief system is used toreframe someone's worldview.
And remember religions make upa large part of someone's
worldview.
It guides their behavior, theirbeliefs, their perceptions and
how they feel they ought to liveto attain their reward or
afterlife, or whatever theybelieve they get out of this
system.
So when does this becomedangerous?

(15:34):
Now introducing spiritualpsychosis?
It can sound scary, but anyonewho has ever had an
extraordinary spiritualexperience including speaking in
tongues, feelings ofenlightenment or rapture that
disconnect one from reality,prophetic visions or feelings of
impending doom like Armageddon,or any other kind of experience

(15:56):
that ties back to religious orspiritual beliefs may have been
experiencing a form of spiritualpsychosis.
Despite that understatement ofwhat spiritual psychosis is, it
can be scary, especially when itis experienced en masse and
shapes public consciousness andpublic policy.
This is how people enter intocults and why it's hard to get

(16:17):
people out of cults.
Spiritual psychosis has avariety of symptoms, often
diagnosed through DSM-5 measuresof psychosis and only
delineated as spiritual if thecontext of the symptoms is
framed by religious or spiritualbeliefs.
There are a few symptoms I wantto discuss here, but if you are
interested in this topic.
It is worth exploring more.

(16:37):
It's fascinating in thedreadful
deer-caught-in-the-headlightskind of way.
First, I want to talk aboutaltered perceptions of reality.
Altered perceptions of realityhappen when someone's mental
state is predisposed to findcertain patterns in the world
around them, even if thosepatterns are created or induced
inside their own minds.

(16:58):
Think about people who seem tobe living in a completely
different world than you, evenif you're next-door neighbors.
The way they interpret theworld is framed entirely
differently and often is framedthrough extraordinary
experiences or perceptions aboutthe world.
People may feel like they havea different position in the
world or are experiencing timein a different way.

(17:20):
A major example for ourdiscussion today is the belief
that the end of times is nearand it is up to them and people
like them to come together andstop it, for example, believing
we must protect and intervene inIsrael's Zionist war to garner
favor with God and secure ourspecial positions in heaven when
the rapture comes.
Mind you, I fully believe thatpeople actually deeply believe

(17:46):
this.
It is also surprisingly easy toinduce these altered
perceptions of reality in others.
If someone grew up believingthis line of rhetoric, it shapes
their entire frame of referencefor this situation and when
politicians say we need todefend Israel as our duty, as
good Christians, those who havebeen primed to believe the same

(18:06):
narrative will immediatelyrespond to the call to arms.
They believe it is their dutyand they will reap the rewards
for doing so because of theirspecial position in the world as
a savior and soldier of God.
The belief that Armageddon isimminent is also a temporal
incidence of altered perceptionof reality, or people think that
we are living in a specifictime, even without any evidence

(18:28):
aside from their own beliefs inwhat is happening.
The next symptoms I want todiscuss I will group together
because, at a large scale, theyare entwined in our
political-religiousconsciousness.
They are the withdrawal fromsocial life and paranoia and
suspiciousness.
At a large scale, we are seeingpolicy come out that withdraws

(18:49):
us from the global stage, exceptin cases of specific religious
interventionism.
The United States is pullingout of international agreements
and attempting to close borders,especially to those who are
different from the majoritypopulation, especially
religiously.
Many of the countries who ournation is attempting to bar from
entry and life here are notChristian.

(19:10):
They are Muslim, a religionthat arose as a responsive
addition to Christianity that wefought nearly a 500 years worth
of war against and that we viewas being an antagonist to
Christian values.
I'm saying we here because, asmuch as we might disagree with
what is happening, we can'tseparate ourselves from our
national identity at a globalstage, as much as we might want

(19:32):
to Pair this isolationism withparanoia around internal and
external attacks on Christianity, with the paranoia that
immigrants are the downfall ofour nation and the
suspiciousness of any rhetoricthat does not align with
Christian values in science,public affairs and other aspects
of our social life.
And we find ourselves on thepipeline to Christian theocracy,

(19:55):
fighting an internal theocraticwar and external wars in
support of religiously inducedbeliefs on our duties in the
Middle East.
Our nation is going through aperiod where, for evangelicals
specifically, inclusion ofanyone who is different,
engagement with differentperspectives and tolerance for
non-Christianity are all seen asdirect threats against their

(20:17):
worldview, because they nolonger trust that other people
can live differently from themand be good, decent people.
This is the result of years ofreligious rhetoric and framing.
Explications of religiousthreats and attempts to map the
book of Revelation onto currentevents have culminated in the
need to protect their way oflife, their faith and their

(20:37):
beliefs.
This is terror managementtheory at its finest.
I don't have time to talk aboutterror management theory in
depth, but it basically statesthat we create beliefs and act
according to those beliefsbecause we are all inherently
terrified by our own mortality.
I will go deeper into spiritualpsychosis and terror management

(20:58):
theory in another episode onthe psychological health of
religion.
Finally, I want to talk aboutthe symptom of excessive
religious rituals.
I'm talking about the massesagain here.
We are seeing a recent rise inbaptism and conversion to
Christian denominative faiths inthe United States.
The reasoning behind theincrease in baptisms and faith

(21:20):
participation is varied.
It could be COVID, it could bea lot of specific individual
experiences we'll never knowabout, or it could be the rise
in Christian rhetoric andChristian nationalism in the
United States.
Interestingly, I've heard thata lot of those who are
converting are straight whitemen who are seemingly aligning
themselves with thehyper-masculine aura of

(21:42):
Novo-Christian Americana.
And, to be clear, the Christiannationalist rhetoric has been
denounced by papal authority asbeing countered to what
Christianity teaches.
I want to take a pause here andclarify I am not against
Christianity by any means, evenif I'm not Christian.
I am against the utilization ofany religious or spiritual

(22:05):
belief system to galvanizexenophobic and hateful rhetoric
that contributes to the internaland external violence we are
witnessing coming out of thecurrent administration.
So what does all of this mean?
Is MAGA a cult?
Maybe?
I don't have the answers tothat.
I believe some people have acult-like view of President

(22:27):
Trump, of the United States andour role on the global stage and
on how Christianity ought toshape our internal and global
stage, and on how Christianityought to shape our internal and
global politics, which istextbook spiritual psychosis.
I also believe other people aresearching for meaning.
The religious frameworks usedto fuel our politics is
appealing because it matches upwith things people have heard
all their lives, or it maps ontofigures they believe in, like

(22:50):
God and Jesus Christ, or that itconfirms beliefs about the
state of the world they alreadyheld.
What I can say is thatspiritual psychosis is rising in
the United States amongevangelicals and Christian
nationalists and that it isactively shaping our laws and
the decisions we are making forour own nation and our role in
the world.

(23:11):
So, since evangelicals arepushing us into physical and
cultural wars, what does theBible say about warfare?
The Christian Bible discussesthe existence of physical, real
war in the here and now.
Sometimes, this war isjustified in the eyes of God or
even commanded by his authorityin some cases.

(23:33):
The Christian Bible also talksabout spiritual warfare, the
eternal struggle between goodand evil and the necessity of
good Christians to be on guardagainst the evil influences of
the devil.
Let's talk about this first.
Ephesians 6.10-18 says Finally,be strong in the Lord and in the

(23:55):
strength of his might.
Put on the whole armor of Godthat you may be able to stand
against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against therulers, against the authorities
, against the cosmic powers overthis present darkness, against
the authorities, against thecosmic powers over this present
darkness, against the spiritualforces of evil in the heavenly

(24:18):
places.
Therefore, take up the wholearmor of God that you may be
able to withstand in the evilday and, having done all to
stand firm.
Stand, therefore, havingfastened on the belt of truth
and having put on thebreastplate of righteousness.
So imagine for a moment I knowsome of you won't have to
imagine that you are a goodChristian in your heart that

(24:40):
this rhetoric about the fightbetween good and evil and your
place in it to turn away fromtemptation and from the powers
that be and from the spiritualattack on Christianity.
And then all your politicalleaders say exactly that, that
we are facing an attack ofspiritual warfare upon us and it
is our duty to hold strong inthe face of this evil.

(25:02):
If you're like me, you'llcritically wonder about where
the evil is, who themetaphorical serpent is in this
scenario.
Is it the people living theirlives peacefully, christian or
otherwise, who choose to lovetheir neighbors, or is it the
people in power, using biblicalrhetoric to incite a moral panic
and call upon the values thathave been instilled through

(25:24):
biblical discourses to empowertheir own political moves?
If you've grown up with theseverses and if you feel the moral
panic being presented to you,you might be more primed to
align with those who you feelare righteous with you, those
who have been anointed by God tofight the good fight trademark.
I'm not saying everyone whoaligns with these narratives is

(25:46):
experiencing spiritual psychosis, because that just isn't true,
but what I am saying loud andclear here is that spiritual
psychosis lends itself tobelieving in this rhetoric and
also fosters the development ofspiritual psychosis through
using someone's existingworldview to reframe their
perceptions of reality andcreate a suspected threat where
there is none.

(26:07):
This language is at the crux ofour culture.
War in the United States.
It is shaping public policy,public discourse and public
sentiment.
One thing is for sure when wehear it, we all, believers or
not, have a reaction to it.
And the powers of belief iscompelling.

(26:27):
So what about real war?
Compelling.
So what about real war?
And what about the religious orpseudo-religious conflicts we
are seeing in the Middle Eastbeing perpetuated by loose
interpretations of the Book ofRevelation and Bible school
lessons on godly duty?
The Bible has verses supportingwar.
Let's not sugarcoat it.
But we will sip this bitter teaand contextualize it.

(26:49):
In Deuteronomy 20, 1-4, godprovides instructions for the
Israelites before going to war.
It says when going to waragainst enemies and seeing
horses and chariots and any armygreater than yours, do not be
afraid.
God, who brought you up out ofEgypt, will be with you.
The priest shall speak to thepeople saying Hear, o Israel,

(27:11):
today you are drawing near forbattle against your enemies.
Let not your heart faint, donot fear or panic or be in dread
of them, for the Lord, your God, is he who goes with you to
fight for you against yourenemies, to save you For the
Lord, your God, is he that goeswith you to fight for you
against your enemies, he thatgoes with you to fight for you

(27:31):
against your enemies, to saveyou.
I won't say if this is true ornot.
That's for you to decide.
But even if it were, god is notcommanding us all to go to war.
This is highly contextualizedto the historical wars that were
being fought between theIsraelites and the Romans A war
for territory, a war to exist.

(27:52):
No such revelation has beenmade by God to us now.
Similarly, samuel 15.3 andJoshua 4.13 describe going to
war by the aid of God.
The wars described in the Bible,like in Deuteronomy or Joshua,
were not permanent and globalcalls to arms.
These biblical passagesdescribe the religious and

(28:18):
emotional needs of men going towar in survival conflicts
between the Israelites and theirneighboring tribes to secure
territorial and political powerfor their superiors.
These stories were framedthrough divine mandate because
that's how people at the timemade sense of violence, land and
their own identity.
What was written as ahistorical explication of divine
providence to understand themotivations of men to go to war

(28:39):
has been misappropriated bymodern politicians as an ongoing
call to arms to facilitatepolitical interests in the
Middle East.
The idea of a perpetual call toarms for Israel is steering our
ship of state into unchartedwaters, because hyper-globalized
nuclear superpowers are not thesame as tribal warfare 2,000
years ago.
We do not have instructions onhow such a war would proceed or

(29:02):
what its ramifications might be.
Although I do live in a desert,we're not living in the deserts
of Canaan.
We're not facing chariots atthe gates.
We're facing robots, nuclearpower and geopolitical interests
that are more about oil nowthan they ever were about God.
The Bible also doesn't shy awayfrom the impacts of war, which

(29:24):
I will highlight here and thendiscuss these implications from
a public health perspective.
Lamentations 2.11-12 depicts ascene after the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
My eyes fail from weeping.
I am in torment within.
My heart is poured out on theground because my people are
destroyed, because children andinfants faint in the streets of

(29:46):
the city.
They say to their mothers whereis bread and wine?
As they faint like the woundedin the streets of the city, as
their lives ebb away in theirmothers' arms.
Jeremiah 4.20 says disasterfollows disaster.
A whole land lies in ruins.
In an instant, my tents aredestroyed, my shelter.
In a moment.
This passage was fromJeremiah's prophetic messages to

(30:08):
Judah about judgment for theiractions.
What is more of a disaster comeabout by action than war?
The above passages highlightthat war or any destructive
force has material, bodily andmental harms.
So if disaster follows disaster, what do these disasters look
like?
What are the public healthimplications of war?

(30:31):
To reiterate why I'm bringingthis topic to religiosity, we
are apparently veering toward aperiod of conflict and current
religious rhetoric is nudging ustoward entering the arena.
So let's steep the tea on whatwe should expect to see, should
faith guide us back to themetaphorical sword.

(30:53):
Not everyone who goes to wardies.
They are often lumped into twogroups the victors and the
survivors, but really they'reall survivors and have witnessed
, experienced and done thingsthat will probably haunt them
for the rest of their lives.
One of the most commonly knownpsychological impacts of war, or

(31:15):
at least most commonly knownimpacts in present time, is
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ptsd occurs after experiencinga particularly traumatic event,
including participation in war.
Ptsd becomes complex PTSD whenmultiple traumas have occurred

(31:35):
and their effects intermingle ina person's psyche.
Ptsd symptomology is oftensimilar or tied to symptoms of
depression and anxiety disorders.
Symptoms are often grouped intofour types of symptomatic
expression Intrusive memories,avoidance, negative changes in

(31:55):
thinking and mood, and changesin physical and emotional
reactions.
Intrusive memories includeflashbacks or the reliving of
traumatic events as if they werehappening again.
Recurrent distressing memories,when you can't stop thinking
about something over and overagain and that something happens
to be some of the worstexperiences imaginable to

(32:17):
humankind.
The infiltration of thesememories or themes into your
dreams or nightmares.
And severe emotional distressor even physical reactions to
things that trigger thesememories.
I have quite a few relativeswho have served in the military
and I know my uncle rest inpeace who served in Desert Storm
, had extreme reactions tofireworks on the 4th of July.

(32:39):
It's hard to witness and Ican't imagine how hard it is to
experience.
Avoidance occurs when someonegoes to sometimes extreme
lengths to avoid things thattrigger these memories.
This can include anything fromcertain thoughts to familiar
faces, neighborhoods or even thescent of something once benign.
Negative affect or negativechanges in thinking and mood

(33:04):
includes negative thoughts aboutyourself or others to the world
.
Negative affect can impactmemory how someone remembers
their own actions or events,blocking especially traumatic
memories altogether or notremembering new events that have
occurred.
Many symptoms of negativeaffect, mirror clinical
depression, including a lack ofinterest in things you used to

(33:25):
enjoy, feelings of hopelessnessor despair or feeling
emotionally numb and, let's bereal, if your mind was telling
you that you were the villain oryou deserved the fate you got,
it might be especiallychallenging to keep a positive
worldview or hold yourself up tothe light and be able to love
what you see in the mirror.
And all of this happens whetherthe negative thoughts hold any

(33:47):
grain of truth or not.
Physiological reactions can alsooccur.
Someone can be in a state ofheightened stress nearly all the
time, being easily startled orfrightened, feeling guarded or
prepared in case anythinghappens.
Trouble sleeping, trouble,focusing.
Some people with PTSD may alsoexperience a lot of anger,

(34:10):
irritability or aggression thatmay be out of their control.
It's part of the stressresponse to being recurringly
haunted by your own brain.
People who are experiencingPTSD may also be prone to
self-medication or copingthrough substance use, which has
its own health impacts andconsequences.
And, to be clear, it is not onlysoldiers in war who get wartime

(34:33):
PTSD.
Someone who has lost a lovedone, someone who has lost a home
, someone who has lost anysingular thing tethering them to
this world through the impactsof war, can experience wartime
PTSD.
War is not pretty, neither arethe health impacts.
War creates loss.

(34:54):
Most obviously is the loss oflife, but there are also other
losses that can impact peopleduring war.
The loss of homes, belongings,the tangible items that give us
identity, memory and continuityimpact many who live in war
zones.
The loss of identity for thosewho have quote-unquote lost the

(35:14):
war and are subject to thedemands of the victors, those
who have quote-unquote lost thewar and are subject to the
demands of the victors.
Sometimes war renames countries.
Are you who you always thoughtyou were if your home has a new
name?
Loss of faith is also prominent.
Where does one turn when theone who was supposed to keep
them safe in eternity didn'tshow up?
How does one cope when theirentire worldview is shattered?

(35:37):
Show up.
How does one cope when theirentire worldview is shattered?
All of these losses, the lossof ego, the loss of dignity at
the hands of others lead toperiods of immense mass grief or
collective grief.
These are periods where itfeels like everyone has lost
someone or something they helddear and they have to mourn it.
I remember learning about warin school and the phrase who did

(35:57):
you lose sticks with me frompost-war descriptions of life,
because it was assumed and oftentrue that whoever you were
talking to lost someone.
Grief has its own symptomology.
Grief can be marked by intensesadness, emotional numbness,
fatigue or the inability tosleep.
Some people feel anxiety andfear, others feel guilty for not

(36:21):
having been the one to go,among other things.
Some people live in denial,others long for the futures they
didn't get to get, a longingthat will never be fulfilled
entirely.
Some quit eating, some getanxiety and some people
experience physical pain fromgrief.
Grief looks different foreveryone, but everyone grieves

(36:43):
at some point or another, and inwar, everyone grieves at once.
Grief is also tied to weakenedimmune systems.
How can a body fight diseasewhen a person is fighting
reality?
Fight disease when a person isfighting reality?
Morally, people also suffer, andmorality is tied to mental

(37:03):
health.
Morality guides our actions,and when we have to act
inconsistently with our moralsor when our morals hurt us,
there are consequences.
These consequences aremanifested in the concept of
moral injury.
Moral injury can conjure up avariety of effects, including
emotional distress from guilt,fear, anger, betrayal and loss
of trust when you have goneagainst your own morals or when

(37:26):
society demands you to.
It hurts, it hurts a lot and iterodes the emotional capacity
you have for kindness,especially towards yourself and
those who forced your hand.
Moral injury also haspsychological symptomology.
It can contribute to depressionand anxiety disorders.
It can lead to withdrawal fromsociety, relational difficulties

(37:47):
and full-on isolation.
Moral injury also has aspiritual impact.
The difference between moralinjury and PTSD or grief really
lies in the sense of personalaccountability in traumatic
circumstances, where PTSD orgrief stem from experiences or
loss that might have happened asa result of the actions of
others or of external forcesoutside of your control.

(38:09):
Moral injury occurs when youhad some hand through decisions,
actions or non-actions in whathappened.
Sometimes you're just followingorders, sometimes you're scared
and can't move, and the resultsof those scenarios live with
you in a hauntologicaldismantling of a brain's ability
to think about what's next.
All of the above mental healthoutcomes associated with war can

(38:33):
result in death by suicide.
It is crucially important foranyone experiencing these types
of symptoms to seek medicalpsychiatric care.
Let me use that call to actionas a gateway to our next point
healthcare access.
I hope that anyone who needs ithas access to the care they
need for any health outcome theyare experiencing, but let's

(38:56):
bring it back to war.
Need for any health outcomethey are experiencing, but let's
bring it back to war.
In war, people are maimed,harmed, dismembered.
People get sick.
People in the field need care.
People come home with thesemaladies.
People who live in thebomb-laden zones of wars they
aren't fighting also faceillness, injury and the need for
healthcare.
Historically in population-levelwarfare, it has been a strategy

(39:17):
to dismantle, disrupt, destroyor otherwise cut off access to
healthcare, especially traumacenters and life-saving medical
centers.
Why would a soldier harm anenemy and then let that enemy
seek medical care?
It kind of defeats the purposeof war in the first place, which
is about domination, make nomistake.
But what happens to the peoplewho are not fighting, the

(39:40):
civilians who are battlingcancer, the families who
absolutely did not sign up forthis?
Unfortunately, they are oftenthe victims of war tactics and
lose access to their critical,life-saving care too.
Civilians can no longer get thechemo their mother needs to
keep working to feed the family,even though she's exhausted and
doing her best.
Families can no longer getcheckups or see their family

(40:03):
doctor to heal a broken arm.
Communities who have relied onantibiotics to treat malaria and
prevent its spread, can nolonger access medicines through
supply chain disruptions and arenow at the mercy of the virus
itself, hoping it mutates intosomething benign along the way,
because care called in sick.
When we think of war, we thinkof soldiers as units, we think

(40:26):
of tanks, we think of guns.
We don't often think of people.
But the highest cost of war isalways human and I promise you,
when war is on the table, nobodyis safe from these disruptions.
With critical healthcaredestabilized in times of war,
that also means there is aperiod after every war where the

(40:46):
infrastructure has to berebuilt.
That means that for soldiersreturning with mental and
physical trauma, loss of selfand loss of limb, they have to
wait for the healthcare systemto catch back up to them.
For the families who had theirchronic illness care disrupted,
it might be too late to reversethe damage.
When pandemics rage and westill haven't picked up the

(41:08):
pieces we broke, the medicalsystem will be unavailable to
mitigate the impacts.
Remember that calamity aftercalamity bit from the Bible.
This is where we are and beforewe forget, sometimes war wipes
out entire cities off the map.
The bombings of Nagasaki andHiroshima after the Second World
War literally left shadowswhere people once stood.

(41:30):
Do not ever forget.
The ultimate health outcome isdeath, and no healthcare
infrastructure can ever curedeath, as much as we might want
it to.
So now that we have seen someof the many consequences of war,
especially as they relate tohelp, where do we go now?
For many, they return to whereit all began Faith.

(41:53):
Religious coping is the use ofreligious frameworks to help
make sense of trauma, whetherthat trauma is psychological,
like PTSD or suffering from theloss of someone, to more
physical outcomes, like losinglimbs or acquiring a permanent
disability.
Faith works as a vehicle forcoping in two major ways
adaptive, positive frameworksthat utilize faith to bolster

(42:14):
mental health.
Or maladaptive, negativeframeworks that create
justification narratives for whysomeone did what they did or
experienced what theyexperienced.
Let's start with the positive.
Engagement with churchcommunities has been shown to be
beneficial in maintainingmental and social health
outcomes, prevent loneliness andbolster someone's overall sense

(42:35):
of well-being.
Engagement with faith itselfcan be healing for mental health
if the framework used discussesideas like forgiveness, moving
forward, spreading peace andlove and regaining a sense of
control over one's life.
Further, many people who belongto a faith community look to
their religious leaders forcounseling and guidance on the
issues that plague them,including the remnants of war,

(42:58):
if that should be the case.
These positive socialexperiences are crucial in
ameliorating the deleteriousimpacts of trauma and can help
facilitate access to othersocial services and modes of
care that can help equip someonewith the tools they need to
cope with their trauma.
On the other hand, maladaptivecoping can come from the use of
religion to justify the harm.

(43:19):
Someone is going through a sortof sense of judgment or karmic
debt for some cause or anotherthat brought them to the place
of suffering they findthemselves in, and so they may
choose to stay in that suffering.
Some may also choose to believethe end is near, or near enough
for them to quit attendingservices or to use their belief
system again to justify theharms.
Is near or near enough for themto quit attending services or
to use their belief system againto justify the harms that have

(43:40):
befallen a civilization duringtimes of war?
Think oh, they had it coming,or I had it coming, or this is
inevitable and it's allpointless, and only God knows
why these mental frameworksdeter someone from facing their
trauma and developing positivecoping strategies For people who
use a negative religious affectin their approach to coping

(44:02):
with trauma.
It can be even harder to linkthese people with the care that
they might desperately need frommental health care providers,
social service access they maybe entitled to, etc.
If you thought that you deservedyour fate or that what had come
to pass was an inevitabilitydivinely inspired and therefore
all the ramifications wereplanned, would you go seek

(44:25):
mental health services even ifyou were suffering?
Just like any other aspect ofreligion, interpretations and
experiences are entirelysubjective.
The frameworks that lead to waralso lead each individual
experience of what that warmight mean, what someone's part
in it was or should have been,and how we manage the emotional

(44:46):
and physical fallout in itsaftermath.
I bring up negative coping andonly frame it as negative,
because that is how a lot ofcoping is framed in the
literature, but I think it isimportant to have a sense of
empathy for those who cope inways that prevent them from
seeking care.
It must be an incredible burdento bear when you think the
universe was divinely aligned tomanufacture your own suffering,

(45:08):
and it must be incredibly hardto break through to someone who
truly sincerely believes thatfrom the bottom of their hearts
and there are many sincerelybelieves that from the bottom of
their hearts and there are manymore than we might think Entire
generations have turned tofaith or drink or drugs to cope
with things they were nevergiven the tools to cope with.

(45:29):
So now that we've gone throughthe history of war, spiritual
psychosis, a discussion onspiritual warfare and a brief,
but also somehow long, look atthe potential health
ramifications of war, what do wedo with it all?
First and foremost, I wouldn'tbe a very good host to brew you
tea this dark and not let youdrink it with some sugar.
So I want you to know that thepotentiality for war is always

(45:52):
there, but so is thepotentiality for reason, but so
is the potentiality for reason,rationality, radical empathy and
peace.
I'd be lying if I didn't say Iwas scared.
You wouldn't believe me becauseI literally wrote this whole
podcast about it, which tookages, because the content is
especially heavy for me.
But there are tools we can useas individuals to be discerning

(46:13):
about how faith sometimes, andespecially our own, can lead us
down either path.
Let's break it down.
I'm not even asking you to bean especially critical thinker,
but if you are receivingmessages, sermons, rituals,
speeches or any inklings ofreligious or spiritual messaging
that say we must go to war todefend our faith.

(46:33):
I want you to think really hardabout whether or not it is
actually your faith that is atrisk.
Who's taking it from you?
Who can stop you from beingfaithful if you choose not to
participate in something that isunequivocally harmful at a mass
scale?
I want you to think about whatthis person believes about the
world, and if you also believethat about the world, then I

(46:57):
want you to ask yourself, if youstop any average person on the
street, how likely are they tobelieve this Pretend to be of
another faith, and ask yourselfis it really that serious?
I want you to look at what othermessages are coming out of the
powers that be.
Is this the only thing they'retalking about?
Oftentimes it isn't, and whenyou start to trace the lines

(47:18):
between the dots of theirinterests, you might uncover an
ulterior motive.
After all, politicians on allsides say what they need to say
to get us on their sides.
We're living in a time wherereligiously charged rhetoric is
hitting especially heavy Againterror management theory,
religious psychosis, who knows,but for some reason, this is the

(47:39):
rhetoric that is sticking.
So it's up to you to then bediscerning in your own faith.
Are these really the messagesyou've been taught your whole
life?
If so, ask yourself why, askothers, why you don't have to
solve this puzzle on your own.
But when you start to askquestions and get your own
revelations about what someone'sespecially a politician's

(48:02):
motivations might be to get usinvolved in any kind of fight, I
want you to ask if you stillagree with it in the first place
.
If you do so, be it, but Iimagine many of us are simply
scared and seeking a light thatdoesn't come from a nuclear
flash.
If you are in a faith communitythat feels unsafe, I want you

(48:22):
to know there are other faithcommunities out there.
It is hard to leave.
I can understand that Fornumerous reasons, but I believe
that your faith should beuplifting, affirming and keep
you safe in this very life, notjust a potential afterlife.
Think about the way your faithcommunity makes you feel,
especially in these uncertaintimes when religious rhetoric is

(48:45):
getting a PR spin for hate.
Look out for signs of peerpressure, look out for signs of
hostility and seek outcommunities that are full of
love, support faith and healing.
I think these are thecommunities that make faith so
beautiful in the first place,and I think we all deserve a
space that gives us the peaceand safety we so desperately
seek from religion orspirituality.

(49:06):
And maybe, just maybe, if weall committed to participating
in spaces that uplifted uswithout harming others, we can
show our government and theworld what we really stand for.
An American dream that promotesthe diversity it says it was
founded on, and an Americandream that doesn't dream of
dominating the world.
That's the American nightmare.

(49:30):
So when we're thinking aboutcalls to war, I urge Christians
to look to their own Bible foranswers.
Matthew 5.9.
Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called children
of God.
Matthew 5.38-39.
But I tell you, do not resistan evil person.
If anyone slaps you on theright cheek, turn to them the

(49:52):
other also.
Romans 12.18.
If it is possible, as far as itdepends on you, live at peace
with everyone.
Nobody wants a war.
The impacts of war areirrevocable, and even with
promises of immortality,shouldn't we make this mortal
life a good life too?
I can't speak for everyone, butas a non-Christian, I support

(50:16):
your right to faith.
Everyone.
But as a non-Christian, Isupport your right to faith.
I support your right to believein the things that make you
feel whole, that make you feelholy and that give you light
when everything around you isdark.
Help us keep the darkness atbay.
Faith has such an immeasurablecapacity for healing Believe me,
they're trying to measure it,and it's so nuanced and fixed in
other structures that it's hard.

(50:37):
Let's let faith continue toheal.
Let's let faith lead us topeace and mutual understanding.
Let's let faith lead us intogood mental health and good
spiritual health.
Let's not use faith as a toolto promote the evisceration of
life from entire populations ofpeople.
The ultimate health outcome isdeath, and we don't need to

(50:59):
hasten it, along with all itsother horsemen, brothers of
illness, mental illness,calamity and social collapse.
Let it be known that we wantpeace, that we want love and
that we want light.
Don't forget to vote in themidterm elections.
Don't be afraid to reach out toyour representatives to tell
them that you are not in supportof war by any means and under

(51:21):
any conditions.
When faith becomes the weapon,it is always that serious, as
history has shown, and that'sthe religiosity.
Thank you so much for making itthrough this episode with me.
I'm looking forward to bringingyou more content like this,
like my personal interviews,like my quick spills on the
science of faith and health.

(51:42):
Please follow me on socials atreligiosity everywhere and share
this podcast.
You can reach out to me withthe link in the show notes or on
the socials.
Be happy, be healthy, be welland bye.