Some object to God based on the bad fruit that comes out of organised religion, particularly violence, religious wars, and persecution of other groups. There’s been no shortage of violence performed in the name of God: religious purges, the pogroms, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Islamic terrorism, the wars between Islam and Christianity, wars between Sunni and Shiite Islam, wars between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, wars between Hindus and Moslems, and much more. It seems to suggest, as one atheist put it, that “religion poisons everything”. But to suggest the religion is the deep source of this violence would be very mistaken.
The much-overlooked fact is this: violence has also been committed in the name of “Reason” during the French Revolution. Violence has been done in the name of communism, socialism, and nationalism. In the twentieth century, societies that sought to rid themselves of religion committed more atrocities and took more lives than most of the religious wars and societies that preceded them. Indeed, the twentieth century was the bloodiest century in history, driven by governments and regimes that had renounced religion altogether. Evidently, humans commit violence in the name of religion, and commit violence in the name of anti-religion.
It seems violence is endemic to fallen human nature. Whatever cause people prosecute, violence enters it when zeal and fervour become fanatical. Religion is not the source of this evil; fanatical devotion to any cause seems to be the spark that ignites violence, and burns on the fuel of whatever ideology it has embraced.
But shouldn’t Christianity, if it is the true faith, be free of this kind of violence? That depends on whether you’re talking about what Christianity teaches, or what people do in the name of Christ. Jesus Himself taught that violence was not to be part of following Him: “Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36)
It is possible for that those who do violence in the name of Christ are false or phoney believers. It is possible that ‘violent Christians’ are backward and misguided in their understanding. It is possible that some have a warped understanding of Christianity that has created a cruel and deformed expression of the faith. Whatever the case, their behaviour is not an argument against God because their violence is neither taught by Christianity nor unique to it.
In fact, it can be argued that it is Christianity’s teachings alone that diminished violence against women, babies, slaves, and gladiators in the Roman Empire. Medieval Christian kings committed atrocities, but Christians also produced the Magna Carta, limiting the rights of kings, limiting that violence. In early Modern Europe, people who professed Christianity owned slaves, but it was also Christians who lobbied to end the slave-trade (for no financial gain whatsoever). It takes a wide-angle lens to take in hundreds of years and consider whether the fruit of Christianity has been mostly violence, or the mitigation of violence.
On an objective reading, some people who claimed to be Christians were just as violent as non-Christians. But on the same reading, some people who claimed to be Christians did unusual and merciful acts, some of them unique to Christianity: easing suffering, peacemaking, restraining evil, and protecting the vulnerable. To examine the life and teachings of Jesus is to see that this is what He taught, and this is how He lived.