The Wars of Religion as the Foundation Myth of
the Modern State

In his lecture, Prof. William Cavanaugh challenges the conventional narrative that religious wars were the foundation of the modern secular state. Drawing from his 2009 book The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, he explores the concept of the “migration of the sacred,” where the sacred shifts from the church to the modern nation-state, thereby sanctifying national sovereignty. Cavanaugh speculates that this sacred status may now be moving—or has already moved—to the marketplace, a theme he hints will be further explored in his upcoming book.