CPXtra

In my previous two posts I outlined why I think the charge against the Christian church of failing to live up to its calling is both serious and largely true. But it’s equally true that the popular imagination of the evils of Christian history is frequently exaggerated, to the point of being seriously misleading.
Let me offer two examples of this exaggerated retellings of the past. The Spanish Inquisition is often thought to be Christianity at its most bloodthirsty with hundreds of thousands of heretics killed (trawl the Internet and you will even find estimates of a million or more). However, in its 350 year history, the Spanish Inquisition probably killed around 6000 people1. That comes out at 18 deaths a year. Of course, one a year—one ever—is too much but the figure hardly sustains the monstrous narratives we often hear.

Or take the iconic Northern Ireland conflict. It is widely known that the thirty-year ‘troubles’ led to the deaths of fewer than 4000 people. Again, one death ‘in the name of Christ’ is a blasphemy, but how did the Northern Ireland conflict ever come to symbolize the ferocity of the church?

Compare it with the thoroughly ‘secular’ French Revolution. As many people were executed in the name of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ in a single year of the Revolution (the ‘Terror’ of September 1793 – July 1794) as were killed in the entire three decades of the ‘troubles’2.

1. This comes on the authority of Edward Peters, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading authority on the topic. See his Inquisition. University of California Press, 1989.

2. See William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001.

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C P X | Wednesday, February 17, 2010 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink