You will not hear about it much in our church history, but Christians have resorted to violence multiple times when they disagreed on points of theology, even to the extent of killing fellow Christians. Examples include Athanasius who was “quite prepared to use the violent methods of the streets, when necessary, to accomplish worthwhile goals.” [1] The historian Ammianus stated: “no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most Christians in their deadly hatred of one another”. [2] The Albigensian crusade in 1209 was quite simply a bloodbath and it was also quite simply a war against what the ruling class thought was heresy. Some of the combatants asked the religious leaders how they were to distinguish the faithful from the heretics and the answer was reported to be: “kill them all, God knows his own”. [3]
There are many ways of interpreting the scripture and these days we generally do not resort to physical violence when we have disagreements in our theology. However, do we use other forms of violence such as denigrating those with whom we disagree? Is this the way Jesus wants us to act? Did not Jesus instruct us to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:43)?
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[1] Richard E. Rubenstein. When Jesus Became God. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., Kindle edition, p. 63
[2] Rubenstain, p. 194.
[3]Tom Holland. Dominion. New York: Basic Books, p. 261.
