Carsten Selch Jensen

Historisk set har forestillingen om den retfærdige krig meget dybe rødder i den kristne teologi og kultur. Derfor stiller denne bog skarpt på de kristne rødder bag forestillingerne om retfærdig krigsførelse. Kan man gå i krig i retfærdighedens navn eller måske ligefrem i Guds navn? Nogle siger ja, andre nej! Historisk set har forestillingen om den retfærdige krig meget dybe rødder i den kristne teologi og kultur. Derfor stiller denne bog skarpt på de kristne rødder bag forestillingerne om retfærdig krigsførelse. I takt med, at Europa forandrede sig og gav rum for stærke nationalstater, blev kirkens indflydelse skubbet mere og mere i baggrunden. Undervejs blev reformationen en af de afgørende historiske begivenheder, der var med til at drive refleksionerne over krigens legitimitet fremad. Carsten Selch Jensen er lektor ph.d. i kirkehistorie ved Det Teologiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. 2017 markerer 500-året for reformationens begyndelse med Luthers opslag af 95 teser mod pavekirkens afladshandel i Wittenberg i Tyskland. Eksistensen sætter reformationens aftryk på vores liv, kultur og samfund til diskussion i en serie minibøger.

'God wills it, God wills it ' - this was the response to the sermon of Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095, in which he exhorted his audience to take the cross and liberate Jerusalem. And his words spread, even to the remotest islands in the north of Christendom. For the first time since the mid-nineteenth century, historians have investigated Latin, Danish, German, and Russian source materials about the Danish Crusades in the Baltic region. This team of four Danish medievalists describe how the idea of crusading reached the North and how Scandinavia became involved in the Western European crusading movement. Crusading ideology inspired Danish wars for hundreds of years against the Wends, Prussians, Lithuanians, Estonians and other pagan peoples along the coasts of the Baltic Sea so that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Denmark became the dominant crusading power in the region: a Jerusalem in the North. Indeed, crusading remained an important political reality in Denmark until the Lutheran Reformation in the early seventeenth century. Ane L. Bysted holds a Ph. D. from the University of Southern Denmark with a dissertation on the development of the crusade indulgence, and has written on crusade theology and preaching. Carsten Selch Jensen is Associate Professor in Church History at the University of Copenhagen. Has written on crusading history, especially in the Baltic Region as well as on holy and just war in the Middle Ages. Kurt Villads Jensen is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the University of Southern Denmark and chair of the Medieval Centre. He has written on Christian mission and crusades, especially in the Baltic region and Iberia. John H. Lind has written extensively on the Baltic crusades and on relations between Scandinavia, Finland and Russia from the Viking Age up to modern times.

I et langt historisk perspektiv skildres forskellige epokers, kulturers og religioners refleksioner over krigen og dens legitimitet