You would think so, from what so many skeptics and non-believers have told me. As evidence they point to the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Conquest of the Americas, and the Holocaust, all of which had religious elements to their rationales, and which targeted Jews, Muslims, heretics, Native Americans, and more. To my objection that such things represent a misuse of the Christian faith for worldly power, I most often hear the following: “Whenever you believe anything as strongly as what religion requires, then it is logically unavoidable that you must hate, attack or even kill someone who fails to believe as you do, or who believes just as strongly, but in something different. If you don’t you obviously don’t really believe.”
They evidently believe that quite strongly, even as strongly as I believe otherwise. And we have all come out of our discussions unharmed, even still friends and family members.
“But what about if your strongly-held religious beliefs include peace, and loving your enemies, even dying for them, rather than killing them?” I ask. “That’s just not possible, not if you’re talking about religion,” is one reply. Or, “Your strongly-held belief in peace don’t qualify as religion; that’s just ‘common sense’ or ‘humanism.’”
It’s hard to keep a conversation going whenever the definitions keep shifting.
I have become accustomed to such arguments and accusations from non-believers. Lately, though, it seems like I am running across more of such in church settings and publications. The argument goes like this: Because Crusaders (or colonists, or white supremacists, or Inquisitors) believed in the Trinity (or the Incarnation, or Biblical inspiration, or the return of Christ, or evangelism or one or more versions of the Atonement), we now must revise, ditch or deny such beliefs, or else we participate in, and continue, their violence, just by sharing their beliefs in these things, because those beliefs had to have inspired their violence.
That brings to mind the ludicrous image of Amish men and women being put on trial for war crimes. It effectively says that it is most Christian to not be Christian. Yes, I too have known that some non-Christians who act more Christian than many self-professed Christians, although I am reluctant to take a seat upon the Great White Throne of judgment and say who is more Christian than others, Christian or not. I won’t presume to say how I would rate in such an exercise. Our moral discernment must always include I Tim. 1: 15: “I am the chief of sinners.” I can know no one’s sin as well as my own.
The value of such arguments is that they force us to look exactly at just how and why such doctrines have been misused and misconstrued in the service of violence. Tragically, we don’t have to look far, hard, nor long. They also force us to take some responsibility for their misuse. Hardly anyone reading this will be personally guilty of killing Jews, Muslims or Native Americans in the name of Christ. But our witness to the victims of violence in our name will not be uncomplicated by the sordid history of other self-professed Christians who did commit such violence, and in Christ’s name. We cannot ignore nor deny that history and its living, lingering effects, nor pretend that it has nothing to say for our work and witness in the world, even if centuries have passed. We must also come to terms with any other ways in which we may repeat such errors, and with any ways we may yet benefit, by way of power, property or prestige, from such history.
We were told to expect as much by our Master (Mt. 7:5). And his judgment against such abuse of the faith is no less severe than that of our critics (Mt. 7:21). Whenever we are warned, critiqued, even condemned for such misappropriations of religion’s power, even if unfairly, we still benefit from the chance to reflect, repent and make restitution, if necessary, to avoid doing evil in God’s name, and face a most true and frightening judgment.
My argument is with the idea that the misuse of any Christian beliefs, by anyone, anywhere, at any time, even if not by ourselves, automatically means that such beliefs are wrong, and requires that we abandon such beliefs. That leads us to the logical absurdity of believing in believing nothing. And such nihilism and relativism have also been put to violent uses. That also gives the abusers of religious authority the very power they sought over us, if only by our reaction against them, if not our submission to them.
I also challenge the idea that abandoning any beliefs that have been misused for violence will stop the violence and lead finally to the peaceful Age of Aquarius to which we would naturally progress, if only those beliefs did not stand in the way. Deny the divinity and supremacy of Christ, the mission of the church to proclaim and exhibit Christ’s lordship, his incarnation, his reconciling death and resurrection, and the triune relationality of God’s nature, and the practical world peace project of a First Century Jewish pacifist will not take their place. The old gods of race, tribe, pleasure and power will. Deny and downplay the heights of Christ’s authority, character and commands, and we will also deny ourselves the depths of his mercy and the comforts of his compassion.
Far from being the fountainhead of violence, these beliefs are, for myself, my firmest foothold against violence. For the detractors of such beliefs are correct in this respect: I who hold them am given to violence. Not that I have ever killed or even hit anyone (not since the school playground in 5th grade). But were I ever convicted of murder, it would be my second. From my first murder, I still “carry the nails in my pocket,” said Martin Luther. I am ever and again surprised at how fearful, defensive, selfish, tribal, prideful, insecure and acquisitive my reactions can be. Those are the very symptoms of sin’s sickness that nailed Christ to the cross, and which have killed other people by the millions. I have encountered no religious or philosophical commitments more relativistic, universalistic and progressive that automatically cure or obviate such violence-inducing traits.
There is all the difference in the world between saying, “I am for peace because I am for Jesus,” and “I am for Jesus because I am for peace.” The former keeps Jesus as the Prince of Peace, on his terms, under his Lordship, according to his power. The latter makes Jesus the mascot of peace, on our terms, according to our own wishes, programs and power. My own wisdom and power, at least, for peacemaking and being at peace, are too limited and too prone to misdirection to rely upon.
In my next essay on this subject, I would like to address a related question and critique: Since these core Christian beliefs are so ancient and medieval, doesn’t that also make them instruments or expressions of violence? After all, don’t they come out of an era of religious chauvinism, imperial politics, and scientific ignorance, from times of witch-burnings, trial by ordeal and belief in a flat earth?