Why are Christians so cruel?
David French wrote a piece just before Christmas entitled, “Why are so many Christians so cruel?” You can read the full piece here if you have a NY Times subscription. But if you don’t here’s a site that copied parts of the essay. It’s well worth a read because it’s an important question.
And while I think French offers some good insight into humanity, I think he doesn’t answer the question. And it’s question we should be grappling with.
Christianity has a long history of cruelty, violence, and oppression. Why is that?
Christianity has used and abused political power, sanctioned the slaughter of all types of people, has a long anti-Semitic streak, and more. In this nation (the US), Christianity has been used to prop up racism. That’s no hyperbole. There are literally photos that exist of klan meetings taking place in churches where a preacher in his clerical is standing in the middle. There are stories of lynchings that happen on Sundays following worship. How in the world can that be a thing?
Christianity has gotten in bed with empires and was far worse for it, not tempering the impulses of empires but actually giving them cover for their atrocities. Christianity was used as excuse for genocide. Christianity has been used for nationalistic causes. Christianity has blessed war and weapons of war.
Christianity does not have a good track record when it comes to these things.
And there are also plenty of stories of Christians and Christian institutions who have taken seriously the call of Jesus to serve their neighbors, care for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned. Christianity helped bring about the fall of oppressive Communist regimes. Christianity has been the cause of the building of hospitals, universities, and other institutions have made advances for humanity and the world. Christianity has a long track record of doing things that have had a positive impact.
The question is how is it possible that a religion can be both so very cruel and so very helpful and healing? How can people hear the same message and react and respond in diametrically opposed ways? How can Christians be both cruel and loving in response?
I don’t think anyone has “the” answer to that question. I hear about how following Jesus is impossible because of our sinfulness. But I struggle with this answer because it sounds like an excuse to not even try. I think there’s a difference between not being able to do something, yet still attempting and moving in the direction of it versus outright rejecting it and doing the exact opposite of what the faith calls for. There’s a huge difference between those two. It’s a matter of intention.
I think some of the reason why some Christians are so cruel is that Christians don’t all hear the same message. Some hear about a God who loves and shows mercy and care for the outcast and calls on followers to do likewise. And some hear about a God who is a fierce judge who inspires fear. That paints two very different images of God. No wonder people respond differently. In some ways the way we humans act reflects the God we worship.
I think some of the reason why some Christians are so cruel is that since the Enlightenment and the Reformation in Europe we have made religion into a head knowledge thing. We have over emphasized the left brain – right/wrong thinking, prioritized “correct” belief over action, prioritized science and proof, etc. Our right brains have atrophied when it comes to faith. The right brain is where empathy and creativity resides. It’s the side of the brain that deals with abstraction and encounter, rather than concrete ideas like the left brain. There’s a ton more thought about this. I recommend reading “The Lost Art of Scripture” by Karen Armstrong. You can read my own review of this important book here.
I think some of the reason for why some Christians are so cruel has nothing to do with Christianity. Some people just use Christianity as a tool, like anything else to get what they want. They operate out of a different set of beliefs – that might makes right, that the strong survive, and that the ends justify the means. And if someone believes and lives by these things, then how would they see anything wrong with cruelty or using Christianity for their own purposes? What is taught doesn’t matter for that person. If you think there aren’t many people who live by these creedal beliefs, I would ask you to go back and read the first couple of paragraphs, or read some history. You’ll find plenty of people who don’t state their beliefs, but you can see what they actually believe based on how they act.
I think some of the reason why some Christians are so cruel is that Christianity is just a compartment of their lives. It’s something they can pull out when it’s convenient and put away when it’s not. It’s not the primary foundation of their life or the lens through which they see the world. Think of the implications for that. If loving your enemy isn’t a priority except when it’s convenient, (and it never is), then something else will be (most likely killing your enemy). And when there’s a conflict in beliefs, we’ll lean into the thing we actually believe rather than what we claim to believe.
Which leads to another reason why some Christians are so cruel. There’s a difference between the stated beliefs and the actual beliefs. For some Christians, they see no reason to be congruent between stated beliefs and acted on beliefs. Stated beliefs are often aspirations, but when times get tough, the aspirations can be put aside for “reality.” And what steps in are the actual beliefs that these folks lean on.
There’s a ton more I could write. But I think there’s really one more thing to write. Why are some Christians so cruel? You could alter that question a bit – why are some people so cruel? Christians are no different than anyone else. And this gets to the heart of one of the things David French did right about:
“It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, but that answer often begins with a particularly seductive temptation, one common to people of all faiths: that the faithful, those who possess eternal truth, are entitled to rule. Under this construct, might makes right, and right deserves might.“
Why are some Christians so cruel? Because the addiction to control and knowing are real. Because people think they are in control and think they have to control others in order to make the world right according to them and their belief about what is right.
Because the biggest problem we have is idolatry. Not in the sense of worshiping false gods, but rather in the sense of putting ourselves in the place of God. And when we do that, we think we can tell God what to do, what beliefs are correct, and therefore we can tell others what to do and what to think. We take a twisted view of who God is and place it on ourselves and run with it. And it never works. It only leads to destruction and death, pain and suffering, cruelty and violence, oppression and tyranny, exploitation and division.
Humanity is full of stories of this. We just don’t call it what it is. More often than not we try to cover it up, or offer a scapegoat to make ourselves look innocent, or spin it to make ourselves look better, or create myths to give it meaning, or something else.
Why are some Christians so cruel? Do we think this is something new? And do we think we have the answer for it? Some Christians are so cruel because they are following a Jesus that looks more like an empire, rather than a Jesus that looks like a poor, brown skinned homeless, itinerant rabbi who freely healed and fed people, and lived into a message that upset the status quo and was seen as a threat to empire, religion, wealth, power, and more. Cruelty ensures the status quo. And if someone thinks they benefit from the way things are, it won’t matter if the person is a Christian or not.
Which leads to a better question – why are there some Christians who act with love, mercy, and follow the way of Jesus? It is those Christians who are doing the unexpected – actually attempting to follow Jesus and his way of peace, shalom, and life, death, and resurrection. That’s the miracle. It’s the thing that changes the world. It’s the kingdom of God in our midst.
About The Author
There are many problems with this post. But one cries out personally in the statement, “More often than not we try to cover it up, or offer a scapegoat to make ourselves look innocent, or spin it to make ourselves look better, or create myths to give it meaning, or something else.”
The problem is that “innocence” is still being treated in a legalistic way, not naturalistically. It also touches on some of the garbage about “truth” that I was taught growing up in an abusive Lutheran church that would become an ELCA institution, its viloent school, and criminal household that I fled as soon as I reached 18 years of age.
While you also decried Consequentialism (upon which all Medical Ethics is based, even in Luthran medical facilities), the real issue isn’t the idea that the end justifies the means. The real issue is a misplaced objective, and innocence belongs in that objective. But the innocence I’m talking about isn’t non-guilt. It’s much deeper than that; something to which a Lakota friend, a Dean of Religious Studies, awakened me: that the core of innocence is our capacity to dream and to wonder. It echoes the Theaetatus where Plato wrote that wonder is the beginning of Philosophy; and in correspondence, the wonderment one feels when contemplating God is itself the beginning of faith. It’s an innocence that isn’t gone forewver when “lost”, especially when a child learns about sex. It isn’t ignorance at all. Natural innocence can alsays be recovered and cultivated. If that were not so, then it’s ridiculous to claim that any “gospel” exiists.
But this view of innocence doesn’t stand on its own. After all, Hitler, the dictator who mastered Luther’s homeland, had dreams. He also wondered. What’s the difference? His view of truth was relative, that truth is maleable to his wicked desires and all his subjects must follow accordingly.
Here, I think, Lutheran teaching failed me growiing up, for it was taught that only relative and absolute truth exist when absolute truth isn’t the opposite of Relativism. Relativism is based upon Subjectivism where Objectivity is its true opposite.
A truly innocent person sees truth as objective. The selfishly ambitious embody the counterfeit of innocence, seeing truth as malleable to will. And perhaps here is the best place to give a working definition of truth: that truth in its essence is idea without apothesis because none exists and without prosthesis because none is necessary. For every premise that leads to that truth must be free from decay–loss of salience or import; also free from needing to be propped up with pretense. It stands as reliable.
Consider John 18:37 when Pilate asked Y’shua, “What is truth?” What did Y’shua do in response? He simply stood there, saying nothing. My Lutheran pastor claimed He gave no answer because it isn’t answerable. But this is ridiculous in the light of John 14:6 when He claimed to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” Instead, Y’shua’s answer of silence was eloquent. To say anything would only offer a prosthesis. Y’shua also stood before him without apothesis. In other words, His very presence in silence was truth itself.
So if we should seek a Restorative Ethics, natural innocence must be its cornerstone objective, and that kind of innocence will awaken to the divine sooner or later. And if the restoration and cultivation of that natural, childlike innocence be that objective, then our job becomes that of the healer, following the example of Messiah Himself, mitigating the crises, and ameliorating the tragedies.
Lynnea, Thank you for reading the post and for taking the time to post a response. I read your response with interest. First, I’m very sorry to hear about the church abuse that you suffered. Abuse in the church is wrong. And there has been far too much of it. Far too many people, like yourself have been hurt. Often it gets swept under the rug, or excuses made for it, or something else. My first call ended because I confronted abuse in the call and it did not go well. Some of the people in the call seemed more intent on protecting the abuser than in moving towards healing. There were excuses for it. There were attacks on the those who tried to address the abuse.
Second, I don’t honestly think that we’re all that far apart in thought. I agree that we should seek restorative ethics. Restorative justice is far more healing for everyone and moves society in a better direction. A really great book on this is subject is “On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World” by Danya Ruttenberg. In the book, she talks about restorative ethics and justice and has examples of those things being lived into, as well as the challenges that come with this and what prevents it from happening.
Third, your example of John 18 is beautiful. And it’s why I think there is a difference between the main point of the article I was responding to and what I was attempting to say in imperfect ways. Christianity is a set of beliefs and teachings. And while so much of these teachings are beautiful, the people who claim them and then act in opposing ways to those beliefs leave observes asking how such a faith can produce such results. It’s a valid question. One I hear even in your opening introduction of your own experience. Jesus shows a different way – one that isn’t abusive or cruel. A way that doesn’t use the very techniques and methods that are used against him – he rejects them. I have often said that Jesus isn’t the alternative to the way of the world. His path is the norm. It’s the world that created an alternative instead. Likewise, Jesus didn’t pick sides between Rome and the Temple authorities, which is what so many wanted him to do. He knew both sides were illegitimate. Instead he offered a third option, that is highlighted in the passage that you cited.
Lastly, I really appreciate your ending. I imagine you are familiar with Henri Nouwen. He wrote about the idea of followers of Jesus being wounded healers. A wounded healer is someone who has suffered and instead of giving up or turning towards revenge and violence, instead throws themselves into helping others. That’s what I hear in your last paragraph. I would agree with that.
Blessing to you.
Quickly, I think what is missing is a real “conversion” experience where one is indwelt by the Holy Spirit when one asks Jesus into their heart and life, Jesus becoming their Savior and their Lord! That’s how we change. It’s not all our doing. It’s the Holy Spirit residing within us, giving our spirit life and changing our hearts/minds into a new creation.
Thanks Pat. I agree that sone kind of conversion makes all the difference. When Jesus encounters us, we can’t help but change and be transformed.