Christian Wars and Religious Hypocrisy

Sceptics often argue that due to the wars caused by Christians and the hypocrisy of some who profess to follow the teachings of Christ therefore debunks Christianity because God wouldn't allow his own followers to do those things. To understand the difficult Old Testament passages, please read Old Testament "Atrocities".

## **Wars Waged in the Name of Christianity**

### **The Crusades**

The Crusades were a reactionary war to Islamic expansion up into Palestine, Asia Minor and Europe. Under the Umayyad Caliphate, the majority of Spain was conquered and Islamic forces were slowly encroaching upon Europe after the city of Pamplona surrendered.

To state that Christians just marched on into unsuspecting and indigenous Muslim territories would be historically accurate. In addition, it would be intellectually dishonest for anyone to claim that the launching of the Crusades was exclusively a religious issue. When the Byzantines sought help from the Pope, Urban saw the huge political opportunity to expand the Holy Roman Empire and settle political tensions between the east, which had split several decades prior. Urban realised that he could also use religion to entice people into "fighting for God" in order to earn a place in heaven. *This is not Christianity!* This is Catholic works-righteousness. Do good, and you will infused with more righteousness from God (as opposed to imputed righteousness, which was one of the primary ideas that pushed Luther to start the Protestant Reformation). It flies in the face of everything that Jesus stood for. Rome had changed Christianity into a governmental tool that *"became an entity from what had preceded it as to be unrecognisable."*

Bernard Lewis states:

*"Jihad is sometimes presented as the Muslim equivalent of the Crusade, and the two are seen as more or less equivalent. In a sense this is true—both were proclaimed and waged as holy wars for the true faith against an infidel enemy. But there is a difference. The Crusade is a late development in Christian history and, in a sense, marks a radical departure from basic Christian values as expressed in the Gospels. Christendom had been under attack since the seventh century, and had lost vast territories to Muslim rule; the concept of a holy war, more commonly, a just war, was familiar since antiquity.*
*Yet in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom, the Crusade was late, limited, and of relatively brief duration. Jihad is present from the beginning of Islamic history—in scripture, in the life of the Prophet, and in the actions of his companions and immediate successors. It has continued throughout Islamic history and retains its appeal to the present day.*
*The word crusade derives of course from the cross and originally denoted a holy war for Christianity. But in the Christian world it has long since lost that meaning and is used in the general sense of a morally driven campaign for a good cause. One may wage a crusade for the environment, for clean water, for better social services, for women’s rights, and for a whole range of other causes. The one context in which the word crusade is not used nowadays is precisely the original religious one. Jihad too is used in a variety of senses, but unlike crusade it has retained its original, primary meaning."*
The atrocities committed during the crusades were done at the hands of people who were manipulated by a religious-political system in the same way that the majority of Nazi soldiers who perpetuated the Holocaust were normal people and duped by Hitler's "positive Christianity."

### **The Inquisitions**

A lot of what I have to say on the Inquisitions can be found under Catholicism, but overall, the argument remains the same: the perpetrators of the Inquisition was the Roman Catholic Church, which obviously does not reflect the teachings of Jesus.

### **Majority of Wars?**

There have been other wars fought in the name of Christianity and religion in general: the Anglo-Scottish wars, the French Religious Wars, etc. But do these make up the majority of wars that have taken place in history? Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod list off 1763 wars since 1500 BC and found that only 123 of them were influenced by religions. They found that 66 of these wars were committed in the name of Islam, whilst 57 can be categorised as "other" religions. In short, less than 1/10 of all wars in history have a religious reason behind it.

Another study affirms this idea of religious wars being in the minority. On a scale from 0 - 5 (0 having very little influence from religion, 5 having massive influence from religion) only 7 of the most major wars from 1500 BC to 2003 AD were listed as above category 3.

## **Religious Hypocrites of Today**

Robert G. Ingersoll once said:

*"Every [Christian] sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed His will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, He must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, He must be responsible for all."*
This may seem like the ultimate takedown for Christianity, however, his assumption is that every single Christian sect *has* a certificate from God. Jesus himself states that very few will enter on the narrow road and, regrettably, this includes Christians.

As stated above, Christian wars are the ultimate minority of religious wars and, as we shall see down below, people often claim to be followers of Jesus, but manipulate his teachings for their own need. Religious hypocrisy does not disprove Christianity, but rather, affirms it.

### **Catholic Priest Scandal**

Everyone knows the Catholic priest scandal so I'm not going to delve too deep into it. Again, I address Catholicism as a whole here.

But I state again: do these priests align themselves with what Jesus taught? He stated that unless you become like a child, you will not see the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). He also said *"let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."* After reading this, do you think Catholic Priests who abuse these children will inherit God's Kingdom just because they profess to follow Him? God forbid.

The only way that these priests align with what Jesus taught his disciples is simply fulfilling his prophecies about hypocrites in the last days. The people who profess Jesus with their mouths but fail him in their hearts are nothing more than affirmation that Jesus was right and the Bible speaks the truth: the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).

### **"Hate Preachers"**

A lot of preaching that is labelled as "hate preaching" is actually just normal, regular Christian preaching. People like David Lynn, Phillip Blaire, Dorre Love, Emilio Ramos and others are just preaching what the New Testament has to say. If you want to call their words "hate speech" you're going to have to ban the Bible.

Whilst I don't label people like Jessie Morrell and Steven Anderson as hate preachers, I do not believe that a lot of their teachings are genuine and biblical. Any form of preaching must conform to the scriptures, rightly dividing the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15). That means if a Christian uses an abrogated Old Covenant command to justify something they are doing, they must be called out.

What does repentance mean? To turn from sin. What does it mean to turn from sin? To abstain from evil. This includes dishonesty and deceit (Revelation 21:27). The individual who professes to be a Christian but fails to actually uphold Biblical principles is a false preacher preaching a false gospel and is therefore accursed (Galatians 1:8).

Of course, there are genuine hate-preachers out there: not motivated by a desire to see people saved or to glorify God, but instead they glorify themselves. The simple litmus test is this: are they preaching the words of Jesus? If they are, move along, but if they are not, call them out. When false preachers are not called out, that's when bad theology starts to fester and grow.

### **Christian Hate Crimes?**

Despite the majority of people in the UK being affiliated with some form of religious belief, hate crimes by religious people are in the minority.

* From 2018-2019, there were 103,379 reported hate crimes in the UK.
* 8% (8, 566) of them were crimes related to religion.
* 50% of this number are categorised as public order offences (causing distress, fear or alarm).

Like any rational person, I wish this number was zero. However, we do not live in paradise. When man rejects the Word of God, fearing neither Him or the judgement that will come from evil actions, we see hypocrisy in the Church arise. Keep to the scripture, and you'll see altruism flourish. Abandon the scripture, and you dissolve into chaos.

## **What Jesus and the Early Christians Think of All This**

We can see from what Jesus, his eyewitnesses and the early Christians taught that none of any of the above examples represent what Christianity stands for:

*“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgement.'"* (Matthew 5:21)
*"... For all who take sword will perish by the sword."* (Matthew 26:52)
"You know the commandments... Do not murder..." (Luke 18:20)
*"They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness."* (Romans 1:29)
*"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."* (1 John 3:15)
*"Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God."* (3 John 1:11)
*"For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law."* (James 2:11)
Clement of Rome writes in 95 AD:

*"Let us cleave, therefore, to those who cultivate peace with godliness, and not to those who hypocritically profess to desire it."*
Ignatius of Antioch writes in 115 AD:

*"Flee, therefore, those evil offshoots [of Satan], which produce death-bearing fruit, whereof if any one tastes, he instantly dies. For these men are not the planting of the Father. For if they were, they would appear as branches of the cross, and their fruit would be incorruptible."*
*The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs*, a Judaeo-Christian writing from the 2nd century, states:

*"Hatred is evil, because it continually abides with lying, speaking against the truth; and it makes small things to be great, and gives heed to darkness as to light, and calls the sweet bitter, and teaches slander, and war, and violence, and every excess of evil; and it fills the heart with devilish poison."*
It's clear to see that the teachings of Jesus and the early church are completely different to those who wage war in Jesus' name. The Bible also teaches on religious hypocrites:

*And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."* (Mark 7:6)
*“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."* (Matthew 7:21)
*"They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work."* (Titus 1:16)
Jesus knew there would be people who professed to know him but did not. If the actions of professing Christians do not align with what Jesus taught, then it's clear they are not fit to be called Christians.

## **Conveniently Ignoring Non-Religious Wars**

As stated above with *The Encyclopedia of Wars*, the utter minority of wars are caused by religion. When looking at the number of wars that are caused by irreligious reasons, they constitute the majority of wars in history: over 1600!

We merely need to look back to the 20th century to see the epitome of this:

* First World War: 14-17 million dead. Cause: Assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Bosnian Revolutionaries that desired a unification of Bosnia into either Yugoslavia or Serbia.
* Russian Civil War: 5 million dead. Cause: Multiple factions vying for control over Russia as well as fighting for independent nation states.
* Stalin's Regime: 9-60 million dead. Cause: Political assassinations, purges, starvation in gulag camps under and atheistic regime.
* Second World War: 48 million dead. Cause: reaction to German and Japanese expansionism (indirectly caused by the First World War).
* Chinese Civil War: 9 million dead. Cause: Collapse of the Qing Dynasty and subsequent power struggles.
* Mao's Regime: 30-40 million dead: Cause Political assassinations, prison labour, religious suppression under an atheistic regime.

Total: 115 - 198 million dead.

Christopher Hitchens claimed in his debate with William Lane Craig that Christianity was the underlying cause of Auchwitz. But the aforementioned evidence refutes such an audacious claim from Hitchens, someone who I usually looked at as an intelligent man.

Did religion have anything to do with the motivating factors that began the wars listed above? No! Heck, the Mongols killed more people than all the death in religious wars in history combined.

## **Sources**

### **Academic Sources**

1. ↑ Roger Collins - *The Basques,* pg. 116
2. ↑ Thomas Asbridge - *The First Crusade: A New History*, pg. 14
3. ↑ James Carroll - *Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews*, pg. 171.
4. ↑ Bernard Lewish - *The Crisis of Islam*, pg. 37-38
5. ↑ Fred. E. Katz - *Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil*, pg. 10
6. ↑ Robert Michael, Philip Rosen - *Dictionary of Antisemitism from the Earliest Times to the Present*, pg. 321
7. ↑ Charles Phillips, Alan Axelrod - *The Encyclopedia of Wars*, pg. 1484-85
8. ↑ Greg Austin, Todd Kranock, Thom Oommen - *God and War: And Audit and an Exploration*, pg. 13-14
9. ↑ Robert Green Ingersoll - *Some Mistakes of Moses*, pg. 77
10. ↑ Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/religionandcrimeinenglandandwales/february2020
11. ↑ *God and War*, pg. 18
12. ↑ Ping-ti Ho - *"An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China"*, in *Études Song*, Series 1, No. 1, pp. 33–53.

### **Ancient Sources**

1. ↑ Clement of Rome - *1 Clement*, ch. 15
2. ↑ Ignatius of Antioch - *Letter to the Trallians*, ch. 11
3. ↑ *The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs*, ch. 9, v. 5