a history of violence

“Yesterday, I expressed puzzlement and depression at the polling news that American Christians are more likely than non-religious Americans to support the Bush policy of torturing and abusing military detainees.

All I can say is that faith founded genuinely on Jesus could not begin to endorse such a concept (which is why I find Bush's endorsement of it so troubling). But then Christianity's history shows, alas, that Jesus' followers have not exactly always been faithful to his teachings. Today's age of politicized and intolerant Christianism seems to me to be one of those moments when Christianity has estranged itself most thoroughly from the priorities and spirit of its founder. But this will pass. Christianity will survive Christianism. Some true followers of Jesus will recover their faith from Caesar's grip at some point.” Taken from a TIME article by Andrew Sullivan

I’ve read as people have posted one basic belief, over and over again. That Muslims are the only ones mass rioting and/or killing people who believe differently than them. And, while this may currently be true (depending on your political beliefs) it is equally as true that the church’s participation in such mass riots and killing is not null, it’s just past (again, depending on your political beliefs).

From the early days of Christianity, the church has filled history books with stories and eras where all we did was kill people who believed differently than we did. From the Roman government who eventually made Christianity the official state religion, making it illegal to believe anything else, to the Salaam witch trials, the church has a long and historic head start on what many Muslim extremists are doing now. In fact, it was only two months ago that tele-evangelist Pat Robertson called on the U.S. to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a communist.

I’ve read and heard it stated, numerous times, that the Middle East is going through its own medieval era right now. That much of its culture and society can best be compared to our medieval culture and society. Anybody remember reading what the church was doing during much of the medieval era? That’s right. Killing Muslims. We called it the crusades and, incredibly, the crusades are still glorified in some parts of the west.

It seems that, every month or so, I find myself comparing Islam’s actions to the church’s actions. Why do I do this? Is it to humiliate the church? Definitely not (though we could definitely use some humbling) it’s because I believe that, until we understand and maybe can even relate to what Muslim’s are going through right now, we’re never going to find peace with them and, more importantly, they’re never ever going to meet the real Jesus.

I swiped the following quote off of Steve Bussey’s blog last week. He was quoting Walt Mueller…

“Whoever takes interest and listens with both ears will be given the privilege of influence.”

So, before you warm up your fingers to type another excerpt on “why Islam is waaaaaaay worse than Christianity”, stop, think, and consider how we might try and understand Islam and the Middle East a little better.