Mark Juergensmeyer’s book Terror in the Mind of God claims that religion is violent by nature. It tends to “absolutize and to project images of cosmic war”—even if the ultimate goal is peace and order. To prevent violence and bloodshed to get to this point, religion needs the tempering influence of “rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values give to civil society” (U Cal Press, 2000 [242, 159, 243]).

Three years earlier, Regina Schwartz wrote about the “violent legacy of monotheism” (which includes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) in the book The Curse of Cain (University of Chicago Press, 1997). Belief in one God and exclusive truth claims will mean that those embracing the “one true God” will reject, hate, and remove all who do not embrace their God or worldview (63). It creates an “us-them” mentality. To preserve our identity and religious purity, they must be removed.

The “New Atheists” make the same sorts of claims. Indeed, they have been emboldened by the September 11 terrorist attacks to launch an all-out rhetorical assault on religious belief—an effort that has a religious zeal all its own!

Have these 9/11 attacks vindicated the claims of Juergensmeyer and Schwartz? Yale theologian Mirsoslav Volf’s 2008 essay “Christianity and Violence” offers a superb response to such criticisms. (It was published in War in the Bible and Violence in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Richard S. Hess and Elmer A. Martens [Eisenbrauns]). I’ll follow his discussion as well as offer some of my own comments.

For starters, we’re not denying that the Crusades, Inquisition, and Europe’s religious wars are a tragedy in the history of Christendom. But do these events reflect the essence of Christianity? Why pick these anti-Christian events as the focal point of one’s criticism? Why not look at the example of Jesus—not to mention Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and other Christian peacemakers? Indeed, violence carried out in Jesus’ name flies in the face of Jesus’ own teaching and example.

In fact, we could argue that we don’t need less religion and more “Enlightenment values” (do we want to talk about the barbarity of the French Revolution here?). Actually, properly understood, we need more religion, not less—namely, a truly Christian world- and life-view to bring genuine peace to humans. While the apostle Paul talks about warfare, he refers to spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6. But this war doesn’t require earthly weapons (2 Cor. 10:4). The kind of conquest he calls for is overcoming evil with good (Rom. 12:21).

Now some have claimed that Jesus’ crucifixion justifies violence or even passivity in the face of injustice. A closer look at Scripture hardly justifies this outlook. Consider 1 Peter 2:21-25:

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Jesus isn’t the passive victim on the cross. Rather, Jesus lays down his life of his own accord (Jn. 10:18). Nor is this an instance of divine child abuse, as some conclude. No, the crucifixion is part of the predetermined plan of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—each of whom shares in this suffering and reconciling work (2 Cor. 5:19). In Jesus’ weakness, he actually conquers sin and the powers of darkness (Jn. 12:31; Col. 2:15). According to John’s Gospel, Jesus moment of being “lifted up” or “glorified” comes in the hour of God’s great humiliation. Rather than thinking of the crucifixion as the absence of God—with the darkening skies and the cry of dereliction (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”)—this is actually the moment when God’s presence is most evident (compare the darkening skies at Mt. Sinai!). God’s great moment in history comes when all seems lost, when God seems defeated. God’s glory is revealed in God’s self-humiliation.

What about Schwartz’s claim that monotheism leads to violence? It’s hard to see how God’s oneness could lead to violence in itself. As Volf argues, if one gets rid of monotheism, “the division and violence between ‘us’ and ‘them’ hardly disappears” (8). During the first centuries of church history, Christians were viewed by Roman polytheistic, emperor-worshiping pagans as atheists (one God is close enough to atheism!). It was precisely because they were “monotheists” that they were singled out for attack. Beyond this, whether religious or not, history (not to mention tomorrow’s headlines) reveals one tribe warring against another—including the polytheists and the animists. And why not talk about politics and political abuses of religion or tribalistic mindsets that tend to create violence? Why monotheism per se?

Schwartz’s problem is that she hasn’t taken the doctrine of the Trinity seriously enough. The triune God is not self-enclosed, but graciously creates human beings to share in his life, joy, and goodness. God is indeed humble and other-centered, serving his creatures and showing kindness to all (Mt. 5:45). Someone may object: “Isn’t there the doctrine of hell—the ultimate exclusion? Why doesn’t God show absolute hospitality to all without exclusion? Isn’t this the truly peaceful alternative?

Volf comments that “absolute hospitality” becomes difficult when the unrepentant perpetrators sit down with their unhealed, violated victims. Such perverse view of hospitality would actually “enthrone violence because it would leave the violators unchanged and the consequences of violence unremedied” (13). C.S. Lewis uses different language to say the same sort of thing:

I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will” I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How if they will not give in?” (The Problem of Pain [Macmillan, 1962], 13).

No, the problem isn’t religion—although lots of religiously inspired actions are certainly perverse and grotesque. And what about violent horrors committed in the name of atheism? The New Atheists seem to quietly side-step this issue. (I once heard Daniel Dennett—a new atheist—declare that Josef Stalin was a religious-like figure, as though this somehow gets Stalin’s atheistic worldview off the hook!)

Properly understood, the Christian faith (and not some generic category called “religion”), with its doctrine of the self-giving and other-centered Trinity, is actually a beacon of hope for peacemaking and reconciliation (Rom. 5:6-11; Eph. 2:14-17). Some may refuse to participate and continue the conflict, but that is not the fault of the Christian faith.

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