Even though we modern, civilized Christians typically do not kill and murder those with whom we disagree, there is an area of our lives today where we still put others to death for the sake of our religion. We still do kill others over theology.

I am thinking more about the Jihad that Christians have declared upon Muslims.

“No, No! It is they who have declared Jihad upon America!”

Well, Jihad means “Holy War.” It is a war which has a just and righteous cause. It is a war that God not only tells you to fight, but also fights for your cause and your side.

And many Christians do believe these things about American’s wars. We don’t call it Jihad, but we do call it a “Just War,” a war with a righteous cause, a war in which God fights on our side.

There is really not that much difference between “Jihad” and “Just War.”

It is as Sam from GraceGround likes to say, killing others in the name of God, “doesn’t look like Jesus.” Do we really imagine that God goes out with us to kill other people? Do we really imagine that He helps our bullets fly accurately, and our bombs drop in the right spot to bring a bloody end to the lives of others?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not a pacifist.

I do think that national leaders have the responsibility to defend and protect the nation and its citizens against threats. I think the United States should do everything it can to protect all of us who live here against the sort of thing that happened on 9-11.

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In years past, Christians often killed those whom they disagreed theologically.

Today, while we rarely cut off their heads, we may cut them off from their friends by telling people to stay away from them. We may not burn people at the stake, but we might do what we can to get them fired from their job. We may not arrest and imprison them, but we might bind them in chains of guilt and fear when we slander their name around town, preach against them from the pulpit, and tear them down in Bible studies.

When the people get kicked out of our fellowships, or finally leave because they are so frustrated, we quote a verse like 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us,” so that all of us can feel better about treating someone so wickedly, for their departure simply proved that they were “false teachers,” of the “spirit of the antichrist.”

This is how we treat people who disagree with us. We may not actually kill people, but we do kill friendships, families, marriages, careers, and sometimes even people’s future relationship with God. When people get treated so poorly by those who claim to be acting in God’s best interests, some people end up wanting nothing to do with God, and often live much of the lives apart from Him. God alone is the judge of other people, but I sometimes wonder where He will lay the blame when people reject Him because “God’s people” rejected them.
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How do we explain this horrendous behavior of past Christians? The most popular way is to say that Christians of the past were influenced by their culture, and so were not at fault.

Just take one famous and contested example: the execution of Servetus by being burned at the stake. The primary accusation against Servetus was that he denied infant baptism and the classical conception of Trinity. There are numerous historical details surrounding his arrest, trial, and execution, but the main point is how modern Reformed historians explain these events. Here is one popular explanation from a well-known website and author:

The main facts therefore may now be summarized thus:

1. That Servetus was guilty of blasphemy, of a kind and degree which is still punishable here in England by imprisonment.
2. That his sentence was in accordance with the spirit of the age.
3. That he had been sentenced to the same punishment by the Inquisition at Vienne.
4. That the sentence was pronounced by the Councils of Geneva, Calvin having no power either to condemn or to save him.
5. That Calvin and others visited the unhappy man in his last hours, treated him with much kindness, and did all they could to have the sentence mitigated.

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