Has Christianity caused more Harm than Good?
It’s no secret that Christianity has a checkered history. Over the course of 2,000 years, Christians have committed abominable acts which have led many to reject Christianity altogether. Friedrich Nietzsche made this point clear when he retorted, “I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christian looks a little more redeemed.”
This line of thinking has only picked up momentum since Nietzchi. More recently, the late Christopher Hitchens wrote in his book God Is Not Great:
As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything.1
Admittedly, Hitchens’ complaint in this paragraph is against religion in general, but he makes his disdain for Christianity abundantly clear elsewhere. The point Hitchens and other skeptics attempt to make is that all the atrocities of any said religion make it both unattractive and unbelievable.
Should the world take notice of these claims made by the likes of Nietzchi and Hitchens? Should people reject Christianity because Christians have done and continue to do horrible things? I don’t believe so. But before we get to those reasons, let’s revisit some of Christianity’s stains from history so we can better respond to the skeptics’ objection.
CHRISTIANITY’S STAINS
Without a doubt, when skeptics bring up Christianity’s awful history, they have a few specific events in mind. We’ll look at three of them.
THE CRUSADES
The Crusades consist of several attempts, over the course of two centuries, to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. Gruesome details fill the accounts — decapitations, burning people alive, excessive torture, and thousands upon thousands dead.
The Crusades were first launched by Pope Urban II with the hopes of regaining Jerusalem. He urged the church to take back this land from the foes of Christ. Furthermore, Urban and later popes told the Christians that if they would go fight, they could earn their salvation. It’s not hard to imagine how the Christians thought they were doing a noble deed.
The Crusades were such an abysmal failure that during one campaign, Christians soldiers didn’t even make it to the Holy Land to fight the Muslims. Instead, they stopped in Constantinople and fought against Christians from the East. Massive bloodshed ensued.
THE INQUISITION
Also during the Middle-Ages, the Inquisition is another stain on the church’s past. After missionary efforts didn’t work, Pope Alexander III sanctioned heresy hunts which resulted in a campaign of terror. Heretics were captured, accused without any chance to defend themselves, and tortured till they confessed their sins. If they wouldn’t repent, the government burned them at the stake.
Not only did the church condemn non-Christians, they also hunted down Protestants. In 1542, Pope Paul III determined to hunt down all Calvinists and force them to repent or else face persecution.
THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS
Near the end of the 1600’s, Salem officials oversaw nineteen hangings for the practice of witchcraft. The entire episode began when a few children started having convulsions and were diagnosed with demonic possession. Hysteria ensued and shortly thereafter officials looked to lay the blame at someone’s feet. Those feet belonged to several women who either admitted to or were falsely accused of witchcraft.
While the death of these women ultimately came at the hand of government officials, it’s hard to overlook the impact church leaders made on the hearings.
If only the world was free from religion, the skeptic says, all of its problems would vanish into the sunset.
IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT RELIGION
John Lennon’s famous song Imagine told us to ask the question, “what would this world be like without religion?” He asks us to imagine what the world would look like without heaven or hell, nothing to kill or die for, or no greed and hunger. In other words, Lennon seems to blame all the fighting, wars, and world hunger on religion. If only religion would get out of the way, utopia would finally emerge, or so he implies.
Christopher Hitchens must have had this song on his playlist, because he regurgitated these same arguments with fervor. Religion spoils everything, he said. In all actuality, we don’t have to imagine a world without religion. We’ve been given several examples of what it might look like.
Take, for example, the French Revolution. That attempt at secular utopia divorced from religion resulted in tens of thousands dead — many from the guillotine.
Or consider the former Soviet Union under the reign of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev. This institutionalized atheistic regime which attempted to rid society of religion was the cause of over 66 million deaths. Additionally, the Chinese Communist regime which sought to eradicate all religion didn’t fare much better killing between 32 and 61 million Chinese.
Imagine a world without religion? We don’t have to imagine real hard because the carnage speaks for itself.
RELIGIOUS WARS
Hitchens and his disciples also like to throw out the claim that religion is the cause of most wars in history. It’s meant to shame the religious — to make them ashamed of their history. Yet, when you take a look at the facts, this claim couldn’t be further from the truth.
According to the Encyclopedia of Wars — the authoritative work on world wars — religion isn’t the main cause for most wars. This three-volume work documents some 1700 wars between 8000 BC and AD 2003 and reports that a mere 7% have been religious.2 Now I’m no mathematician, but 7% doesn’t sound like most to me. Additionally, you could argue that of those 7%, most are actually more about territorial disputes in the Middle East, rather than religiously motivated.
A FORCE FOR GOOD
Despite the horrendous events in Christian history, the church as a whole has been a force for good. Going back to the time of its inception, Christianity spread because of love. The church not only proclaimed a message of love from God, but it demonstrated that love through sacrificial generosity. Christianity was notorious for meeting the needs of the poor as well as treating women with dignity and respect.
Since then, Christianity has been responsible for establishing the first hospitals, universities, and food kitchens. Imagine a world without these types of institutions.
It’s often overlooked, but Christians are also responsible for the modern scientific method. It was Christians in the West who recognized that they could find order in the universe because an orderly God created it. Skeptics don’t like to admit this, because of their deep commitment to scientism, but science as we know it traces its roots to Christians such as Bacon, Galileo, and Newton.
Moreover, Christianity, from the beginning, has been deeply involved in helping the underprivileged. Not only has it sought to fight world hunger (contrary to what John Lennon thinks), it played a crucial role in abolishing the slave trade. You see, it was Christians, like William Wilberforce, who believed that all races of people were created in the image of God. This conviction initiated the modern notion of human rights.
WHAT ABOUT JESUS?
When Nietzsche declared that he would believe in the Redeemer when Christians started acting like the redeemed, I believe he made a fundamental mistake. To be sure, Christians haven’t always lived like Christ, but is that really a good reason to reject Christ himself? As I’ve pointed out above, Christians have been a bit of a mixed bag, but that doesn’t mean Jesus was personally a mixed bag. Jesus was perfect. He never sinned.
The Christian message doesn’t teach that if you put your trust in other Christians, God will forgive your sins. Rather it states that you need to put your trust in Jesus alone. Furthermore, as you consider the teachings of Jesus, you will discover that he consistently taught an ethic of love. He urged us to “love our neighbor as ourselves” and to “love others as I have loved you.” The abuses I documented above in no way represent Christ or the true Christianity. They represent distortions instead.
Nietzsche also fails to ask the most important question. Is it true? Did Jesus really die on a cross and rise again from the dead? If so, one shouldn’t reject Jesus because some of his followers haven’t followed his example.
If you’re not a Christian because you’ve seen organized religion do a lot of terrible things, let me ask you to reconsider. Let me ask you to read the Gospels. Because in them, you’ll find Jesus opposing religious abuses. He frequently clashed with those who used religion for personal gain or to marginalize the weak. In the end, I think you’ll find that you actually agree with Jesus a lot more than you realized.
