Present Day, June 26, 2026
A United States military commander recently described the current conflict in the Persian Gulf as a holy war intended to bring about the second coming of Christ. He said this to the people he commands: the people who will carry out the killing.
I heard almost identical language from crusading commanders in the 11th century. From commanders on both sides of the Thirty Years War in the 17th century. From generals in the colonial conflicts of the 18th and 19th centuries. From officers in the religiously inflected conflicts of the 20th century. The vocabulary is not metaphorical. It is operational. It tells the people who will do the dying that dying is not death but transformation, that killing is not violence but worship, that the act of war has been pre-approved by the highest available authority and that no other authorization is required.
This language works. It has always worked. It works because it answers the deepest question a soldier can face: am I doing something that can be justified? It provides the justification in advance, at the highest possible level, without the need for individual moral reasoning.
I wrote Holy War before this particular general made this particular statement. I wrote it because this statement is always being made somewhere, by someone with authority over lives. Five centuries of observation made the writing possible. The present moment made it urgent. July 1 the song arrives. July 17 the full testimony.