The Dark Side of Christian History

From time to time in the next months I will be discussing the history of the Christian faith, focusing on how it has been a blessing to the world and to untold millions of people struggling in their quest for life to have meaning. I take on this task realizing that these days there is harsh criticism being leveled at all post-moderin institutions , including the church. What is more, we are being continually confronted with horror stories detailing how religious institutions have exhibited the worst and the most destructive aspects of culture. In a few weeks I will describe the blessings brought by the church and its story, but this week I will review evidences of the dark side of Christian history.

The church began as a persecuted Jewish fragment of the Roman-dominated world, as it experienced continual persecution by an empire that sought to eradicate it and its influence. In the 4th century, A.D. however, the emperor Constantine became aware of the church’s increasing strength, and adopted it as the empire’s religion, having first elicited from church leaders what became theological orthodoxy. With the emporor’s blessing, the church became the persecutor, instead of the persecuted.

By the 8th century the church ihad ncreasingly sought to control European culture. During the 13th century, in what is called the Inquisition, the Vatican determined to eliminate from Spain, first all Moslem influence, then the Jews and then heretical Christians or Jews who claimed to be Christians. This persecution was extended all the way to Holland.

From 1096 to 1291 European warriors under the cross of Jesus and blessed by a pope who declared it to be “God’s will,” marched south to violently confront Moslems, retake religious shrines and, on the way, open to European merchants the trade routes to the riches of Asia.

Among those persecuted by the church in the MiddleAges were women who were condemned as witches. This was long before the Salem trials in which twenty persons were executed. In addition to the young girls, five men and one pregnant woman were tried and killed for being servants of the devil.

The Anti-Semitism evident in the Inquisition was kept alive throughout Europe. The Protestant reformation sought to confront Catholic-based persecutions, but Martin Luther poisoned this new reformation with his own version of anti-Semitism, calling for the elimination of Jews in Germany, and advocating the burning of their synagogues. Later Adolph Hitler, in his final solution to the Jewish problem, took Luther’s diatribe seriously and linked arms with the Catholic hierarchy that signed a concordat with the Nazi Reich.
In more recent times, many American Protestants formed the backbone of slavery. The slave-holding South was dominated by Methodists and Baptists who insisted that slavery was God-ordained. Even following “The Emancipation,” white-hooded Christians continued the persecution and supported segregation with the fiery cross of Jesus “going on before.“ At the same time, as American expansion took place, other God-fearing Christians participated in the slaughter of Native Americans. In South Africa the Reformed church was the guarantor of apartheid.

What I have cited are only a few of the most grievous examples of Christianity’s dark side. The question arises as to what all these grim religious episodes had in common. Looking at the historic record I find three consistent threads.

First, in every case those who led these attacks were orthodox believers, holding that the church they represented was doctrinally pure, and the Bible the absolute unchangeable word of God.
Second, in every case, the religious emphasis was focused on the conviction that the persecutors were doing God’s will. We have, in every instance, the belief that their particular reading of Christianity was absolute. The word identifying that conviction is “fundamentalism.”

Third, in every case the church aligned itself with strong political powers, and sought from them support even, as it supported conservative political systems. Instead of being the leaven, (a metaphor Jesus used) whose task was to infiltrate the dominent culture, conservative religion saw itself as part of the loaf with no need to be leavened. When a popular powerful church that believes it is the sole possessor of truth makes common cause with a powerful conservative political system, everyone else in the neighborhood is in trouble.(I will let readers draw the parallels with what is happening currently in the United States.)

From time to timen coming months I’ll be looking at the role of Christianity and its institutions as among societies greatest blessings.