Editing Religious war (section)

== Definitions ==
{{See also|Just war theory|Religious terrorism|Religious violence}}

[[Konrad Repgen]] (1987) pointed out that belligerents may have multiple intentions to wage a war, may have had ulterior motives that historians can no longer discover, and therefore, calling something a 'religious war' (or '[[war of succession]]') based merely on a motive that a belligerent may have had, does not necessarily make it one.<ref name="Onnekink">{{Cite book |last=Onnekink |first=David |date=2013 |title=War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfmhAgAAQBAJ |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |pages=76–77 |isbn= 9781409480211|access-date=12 March 2022}}</ref> Although ulterior motives may never be known, war proclamations do provide evidence for a belligerent's legitimisation of the war to the public.<ref name="Onnekink"/> Repgen therefore concluded: 
{{cquote|...wars should only be termed [religious wars], in so far as at least one of the belligerents lays claim to 'religion', a religious law, in order to justify his warfare and to substantiate publicly why his use of military force against a political authority should be a ''bellum iustum''.<ref name="Onnekink"/>}}
[[Philip Benedict]] (2006) argued that Repgen's definition of 'religious war' was too narrow, because sometimes both legitimisation and motivation can be established.<ref name="Onnekink"/> David Onnekink (2013) added that a 'religious war' is not necessarily the same as a 'holy war' (''bellum sacrum''): "After all, it is perfectly acceptable to suggest that a worldly prince, say, a Lutheran prince in Reformation Germany, engages in religious warfare using mercenary armies."<ref name="Onnekink"/> While a holy war needs to be authorised by a religious leader and fought by pious soldiers, a religious war does not, he reasoned.<ref name="Onnekink"/> His definition of 'war of religion' thus became:
{{cquote|a war legitimised by religion and/or for religious ends (but possibly fought by secular leaders and soldiers).<ref name="Onnekink"/>}}