DUANE’S QUESTION:
He’d like to know what The Religion Guy was talking about in this from “Religion Q and A” on June 8: “When atheists seized governments in the 20th Century they fused their belief in unbelief with state power and enforced it with a cruel vengeance unmatched by the worst cross-and-crown tyrannies during Christendom’s bygone centuries.”
The Guy was thinking of hard facts about Communists holding political power. To explain the comment (which compared Communism with Christianity, not Islam) let’s first consider the most famous cruelties centuries ago when Christians dominated politics (events today’s churches would rather forget).
* The Crusades. Starting in the 11th Century, European Christian forces fought Islamic invaders over control of the Holy Land. The two religions suffered some 3 million deaths, according to necrometrics.com, where librarian Matthew White compiles estimates on history’s death tolls.
* The Spanish Inquisition. Historian R.J. Rummel figures from the 15th Century onward Christians executed 10,000 heretics, though many times that number died from abuse or disease while in prison.
*The anti-witch hysteria. In the 16th and 17th Centuries Germany executed 26,000 supposed witches, plus some 11,000 elsewhere in Europe, according to a University of Missouri – Kansas City scholar.
*The Thirty Years’ War. With this 17th Century European catastrophe, population estimates are sketchy but many millions died from battle or disease. As with many long-ago wars this one mingled national with religious rivalries, in this case Protestant vs. Catholic.
Plenty to repent of there. And we’d add millions more from the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities if Hitler’s regime acted out of Christian belief.