An honest reckoning

Religious Violence and Christianity

Christians have burned heretics, run inquisitions, waged wars of religion, hunted supposed witches, and executed dissenters, all in the name of God. This is real, and the victims deserve to be remembered without excuse. It is also true that some of the popular numbers are myths that historians have corrected, that violence has many causes besides religion, and that Christianity gave the world some of its strongest voices for conscience and nonviolence. Every drop of it, though, runs against what Jesus taught.

What happened

The record is dark and long. The medieval and Spanish Inquisitions tried, tortured, and killed people accused of heresy. The Reformation split Europe and helped drive over a century of religious wars, culminating in the catastrophic Thirty Years' War. Both Catholics and Protestants burned witches; the Salem trials are only the best-known corner of it. Reformers executed dissenters too: in Geneva, under Calvin's influence, Michael Servetus was burned for his theology. People were killed for their beliefs by those who claimed to follow the Prince of Peace.

The complexity, honestly

Honesty cuts in more than one direction. Some of the numbers that circulate are myths: the millions often attributed to the Spanish Inquisition come from old propaganda, and modern historians, working from the tribunals' own records, count the executions in the thousands over centuries, still an evil, but far from the legend. Much religious violence was also tangled with power, land, and dynasty, so that faith was as often the banner as the cause; scholars debate how much was truly about religion at all. And the same tradition produced the early church's refusal to take up arms, the conscientious objectors, and later the nonviolence of figures like Martin Luther King Jr. The point is not to shrink the wrong, but to see it clearly.

What Jesus taught

Jesus never authorised violence for the faith. He told his followers to put up the sword, to love their enemies, and even, in the parable of the weeds, to leave the sorting of true from false to God rather than tear up the field themselves.

When Christians killed for doctrine, they were not obeying Jesus. They were disobeying him.

Frequently asked questions

How many people did the Inquisition kill?

Far fewer than the legend claims. The figures of millions come from centuries-old propaganda. Historians working from the tribunals' own surviving records now estimate the Spanish Inquisition executed on the order of a few thousand people over roughly 350 years. That is still a real evil, but the popular numbers are a myth.

Is religion the main cause of violence in history?

The claim is overstated. Much so-called religious violence was entangled with power, land, and dynasty, and many of history's worst mass killings were carried out by explicitly secular regimes. Religion has been a banner and sometimes a cause of violence, but it is not a simple, single explanation.

Does Jesus justify killing for the faith?

No. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, said those who take the sword perish by it, commanded love of enemies, and rebuked his disciples for wanting to call down destruction. Violence for doctrine disobeys him rather than serves him.