Explain why your sect (whether Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox) pursued, tortured,& killed people?

Question

If a Catholic, justify the Inquisition and other persecutions of "heretics" throughout the centuries, concentrating on why the Pelagianists, the Priscillianists, and the Manichaeans were persecuted; if a Protestant, justify the witch trials and the way that Protestants constantly hunted down native Americans until there were so few that the government could simply take their land; if a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, justify the persecutions of the Old Believers after the reforms of the seventeenth century.

Answer 1

There are psychopaths in every religion that use the name of God as justification to torture and murder. It is unfortunate that these are the ones that are written about and remembered instead of all of the good decent people who helped the poor and gave food to the hungry.

As for the witch trials - there's really no excuse for the hysteria that took place in Salem - the group that held the trials were a radical, cult-like off shoot of the protestant church and did not represent the majority of the protestants in the colonies at that time. The treatment of the Indians can not be blamed on any one group be it religious or political. For a very long time any groups of people that were considered less civilized were treated like sub-humans and called savages. The early colonists - Spanish, English and French - all took lands from the Native Americans. Sometimes it was by force and sometimes it was inadvertant like passing on common diseases and wiping a population out. They behaved just like every other conquering nation behaves - they pushed the native people out and moved their own colonies in. The Romans, Greeks, Saxons, Normans, Germanic and Barbarian tribes all did the same thing. It doesn't make it all together right but it does explain it. There was no organized religious movement to annihilate the Native Americans and it can not be blamed on protestants.

I am proud of my Episcopalian/Anglican roots. The Anglicans do so many things in this world to help others. I think particularly of the Anglican missions in Nairobi, Kenya to help the street children, many of whom have been orphaned by AIDS. It's not a glamorous mission or one that gets much attention but it helps those in need. Perhaps, you'll be able to remember this instead of the Salem witch trials when you think of protestants.

Answer 2

You realize that you are asking for a history lesson which has little to nothing to do with a Christian life of faith? I really don't think that you mean it in amicable terms.

Did you know that there were Anglicans and Roman Catholics in America? Was America in the old days all Protestant? You might be alluding to that by asking your question.

As far as the Salem witch trials, I recommend that you read a book called, "Boston". You might learn something about the Witch trials that you were unaware of.

Those that fought against Indians in North America included:
1) Those who were defending themselves against them.
2) Those who were godless.
3) Those who were under unfortunate 'orders' from superior officers.
4) Those who suffered from a lack of communication.
5) Those who were eventually murdered by Indians.
6) Those who's families were murdered by Indians.
7) Those who had their children abducted by Indians.

How many of those who fought Indians were Protestant? Do you know? If so, what is your source?

Answer 3

Some of the Religious settlers freed their slaves in the 7th year as the Bible Commanded while George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, neither of whom were Christians, kept them forever.

American soldiers distributed blankets from small pox victims to the Indians. That's one of the earlies uses of Germ Warefare.

Remember the 300 Spartans who faced 1 million Persians.

Muslims invaded eveyrone, but you didn't mention them. Why is that. We presenting a one-sided issue here.

What about all those scientists who gave us the A-Bomb, was Oppenheimer a Christian

What about the Japanese attack on Pearl HArbor, were they doing God's Christian work.

Answer 4

We are like that from the old days because the sin of our forefathers is on us. Their blood is in our veins so it is natural we do the things or better its effect.

See, we christian (the sin full one, are blood thirsty) who believe in protecting our faith by our own strength for the glory of God and it is sad to see the other Christian that turn the other cheek when they are persecuted. They are what we called the sissy. But it is OK as long as they are of the same faith. They are our brothers and they only knows how to pray.

If we don't defend aggressively, we will lose our women and home and most of all we will be force to worship their God. We have to be wicked to them or they will to us. Haven't it been proven over and over again ? Do they come to us in peace, no but in war. So war it is and winner takes all. That is the price of war. The wicked verses the wicked. Very Fair!

Answer 5

I cannot speak for the catholics,
However for the Protestants, those who did so were not Christians, many have claimed to be Christians and seemingly did things believing themselves to be doing the work of God but were in actuality not Christian at all, they took only from the Bible out of Context what they wanted to for their own agenda without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Now a question for you.

Why have so many people been slaughtered in the name of Atheism, people Like Joseph Stalin http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml

Pol Pot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

Mao Tse-Tung http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.html

Answer 6

Any sect with pursued, tortured and killed people did so because of the rather atavistic tendency on the part of humans to form "clans" which regard other clans as a threat.

Answer 7

Why do you not include other religions in your question?
Why do you not ask why atheists have pursued, tortured and killed people?
Why do you not ask this about Muslims?
Or Taoists?
Or the Indians themselves?

As for me, personally, I do not have a "sect".
All I have is my faith in Jesus Christ.
And that is all I need.

May God bless you, and may you come at last to the knowledge of Him that brings peace to your heart...

Answer 8

They were bored. They just didn't have enough to occupy themselves with in a positive, reinforcing way, and as we all know now idle hands are the devils workshop. They're much better now at getting along with others.

Answer 9

Absolutely no Christian, acting consistent with the Biblical Christian faith, ever tortured or killed anyone in defending that faith or in order to bring others to obey it. Rather such things as the Crusades and Inquisitions were done contrary to the clear teachings of Christ under the New Covenant (Jn. 18:36; 2Cor. 6:1-10, 10:1-4; Eph. 6:12 - read the book of Acts), and were a result of keeping the Bible from the common people, who were sometimes punished for reading it, and those who dared print and comment on it without Rome's permission were burnt.

This is because the perpetuated Petrine papacy of Rome finds it's example not in the Bible but in the vast autocratic empire of Rome, and thus Rome adopted an autocratic Cesario-papacy, effectively answerable to no one, not even to Scripture, which for Rome is at best a second class authority, and equal to uninspired human tradition.

Yet this was less than what the objectively baseless morality of atheism has done as practiced by men like Stalin, Mao, Pol, Pot, etc. who did what was atheistically "reasonable" tothem.

As for the relatively few religious killings by Protestants, that was also unScriptural, and were a result of not coming fully out of Rome, as they also kept some other unScritureal Catholic practices.

But as the effects of the Reformation teaching that the Bible, and not Rome, was the ultimate authority, such things ceased, with only cults promoting the kind of implicit faith in themselves, which allowed such things as the Crusades, but which faith only God is worthy of, and thus lost sinners must place al their faith directly in the Lord Jesus to save them, as He alone paid for our sins, and will give us forgiveness and His life give holy Spirit when we truly repent and ask him to save us. Praise ye the Lord.

But the "gospel" of Rome promotes confidence in one's own merits as well as the self-proclaimed power of Rome to save them, though it is coupled with faith in the facts of the gospel.

I was raised in a devout R. C. home, with 2 of my uncles being priests, but Rome never preached the Biblical gospel to me that would convict me that i was a lost sinner, utterly unable to gain acceptance with God or escape form Hell, and thus cast myself on the mercy of God, and trust directly in the Lord Jesus and His shed blood to save me. Instead they treated everyone as if they were saved because of their unBiblical sprinkling (usually as infants and by proxy faith), and that the Catholic church and their own merits, mixed with faith in the facts of the gospel, would save them. However, the Bible states no person can gain Heaven by confidence in personal merit, even if done by God's grace, nor the (supposed) power of the church, but it is solely by faith in the Lord Jesus that God forgives and declares a person justified by the righteousness of Christ (Rm. 3:9- 5:1.). Once i finally did that i was forgiven and was made spiritually alive, and even nature seemed new to me! 20 years later, i KNOW that Jesus is real, and i know His presence and guidance daily, and could write a book of objective evidence to that end, revealing a cause and effect relationship between faith and obedience and the realization of specific and general things promised to those who do trust and obey (as well as necessary negative realizations of chastisement if we presume upon God's grace and wander away).

Look at some testimonies below, and may you repent and believe by the grace of God.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4136610474021109864
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3682855866783766146
http://www.truthsaves.org/testimony/
http://www.crosssearch.com/People/Personal_Christian_Homepages/Topical/Testimonies/
http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/amazing/
http://www.christian-faith.com/truestories.html
http://www.truthsaves.org/testimony/
http://www.shelovesgod.com/library/testimonies.cfm
http://breadsite.org/topics.htm

Answer 10

It's their way or the highway