Christians Do Terrible Things
Yes, they do, which is why you should follow Christ and not Christians
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book.
People have started wars in the name of Christianity. The European Wars of Religion fought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were particularly terrible. That is true. There are two standard responses to this objection. First, the Wars of Religion were at least partially, if not mainly, driven by competition over economic, political, dynastic, and social issues among the warring kings, princes, and emperors, and religion merely served as a convenient banner under which to advance those rulers’ secular ambitions. The second response is to observe that while those wars were indeed terrible, if one wants an example of slaughter on a truly industrial scale, the death toll of the militantly atheist totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century was orders of magnitude worse.[i]
But deflection and whataboutism do not address the core of the objection. There is a long list of good things that Christians have done over the centuries, including the elevation of the status of women, ending infanticide, the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, universities, hospitals, humanitarian aid, building the moral and intellectual foundation of liberal democracy – the list goes on. But none of these good things excuses the evil committed in the name of Christianity, and I will not try to defend that evil.
I will, however, ask if you can name one good thing that evil men have not corrupted. You cannot, and the message of Christ is no exception. That message is “love your neighbor.” Who is our neighbor? Perhaps you are familiar with Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan. Before I share that story, a bit of background knowledge is helpful. First-century Jews harbored a deep antipathy toward Samaritans. They would literally walk around Samaria rather than risk defiling themselves by coming into contact with Samaritans. The ethnic hatred was so intense that one influential rabbi said that eating Samaritan bread was akin to eating pig flesh.[ii]
Against this cultural backdrop, Jesus told the following story.[iii] While traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, a man was assaulted by robbers who beat him, took his possessions, and left him for dead by the roadside. Two religious leaders walk by, but when they notice him, they cross to the other side of the road to avoid helping him. Then, a Samaritan arrives at the scene. The Samaritan knows that the man would almost certainly despise him under normal circumstances. However, moved by compassion, he tends to the man's wounds, places him on his donkey, and takes him to an inn to care for him. The next day, he gives the innkeeper money and says, “Look after him, and if it costs more, I’ll pay you when I come back.”
The point of the story isn’t primarily about helping people; it’s about who does the helping. The Samaritan, an outsider and enemy, shows compassion when the religious insiders did not. The story is a radical call to love beyond boundaries, to act with kindness even toward those you are “supposed” to hate. Jesus commands us to love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us.[iv] This does not mean that we are required to have warm feelings of affection for our enemies. You cannot force yourself to feel a certain way, but, like the Samaritan, you can set your feelings aside and will yourself to do good.
Radical self-denying love is at the heart of Jesus’s message, and he exemplified that love on the cross. In the greatest act of love in the history of the world, the sinless one allowed himself to be crucified so that he could bear the penalty for our sins. Christians are called to follow Christ. Most importantly, this means following his example of self-sacrificial love. For 2,000 years, Christians, including this one, have both succeeded and failed in varying degrees to follow that example.
This brings me back to the objection. The charge is that Christians do bad things. I plead guilty. That's why I’m not asking anyone to follow Christians; I’m asking you to follow Christ. Do you object to Christianity because Christians have done bad things? I understand why you would do that. However, if you’re looking for a religion, ideology, or philosophy whose followers have always been pure and blameless, you are bound to be disappointed. None exists. Do not look to Christ’s followers; even the best among them have feet of clay. It is even more true that you should not look to wicked individuals who claim to be Christ’s followers yet act as if they have never heard his message of radical love.
The bad news is that history reveals that many times fallen men have failed to act in accordance with Christ’s message. There is no denying that. The good news is that those failures do not defeat the message. The gospel of Jesus Christ is very simple. God loved the world so much that he gave his son to suffer, die and rise again. He offers forgiveness of sin and everlasting life to whoever believes in him. If the gospel is true, the horrible things Christians (and those who call themselves Christians) have done do not make it untrue. There is good reason to believe that it is true. Indeed, it is – as it has always been – the hope of the world.
[i] Atheists often argue that this is not a valid comparison because the Wars of Religion were fought in the name of Christianity, while the atheist regimes did not go to war in the name of atheism. However, those regimes’ materialist outlook shaped systems that justified the slaughter of millions of innocent victims. Stalin’s purges and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, to cite two of many examples, demonstrate that atheist regimes are far from inherently peaceful. Indeed, all officially atheist regimes have been brutal totalitarian hellholes.
[ii] This statement is traditionally attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. It is found in the Mishnah, specifically in Shevi'it 8:10.
[iii] Luke 10:25-37.
[iv] Luke 6:27.