Islam a religion of peace.

[Kidlicious]

"Some critics of horny gay pandas say that horny gay pandas are evil"
wiki

[Asher]

Yup. Everything I posted is a lie, Kid.

[giblets]

Christianity and violence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns fought mainly between European Christians and Muslims. Shown here is a battle scene from the First Crusade.


The relationship of Christianity and violence is the subject of controversy because one view is that Christianity advocates peace, love and compassion while it is also viewed as a violent religion.^[1][2][3] Peace, compassion and forgiveness of wrongs done by others are key elements of Christian teaching. However, Christians have struggled since the days of the church fathers with the question of when the use of force is justified. Such debates have led to concepts such as just war theory. Throughout history, certain teachings from the Old Testament, the New Testament and Christian theology have been used to justify the use of force against heretics, sinners and external enemies.
Although Christian teaching has been relied on to justify a Christian use of force, another Christian thought is of opposition to the use of force and violence. Sects that have emphasized pacificism as a central tenet of faith have resulted from the latter thought. Christians have also engaged in violence against those that they classify as heretics and non-believers specifically to enforce orthodoxy of their faith. In Letter to a Christian Nation, critic of religion Sam Harris writes that "...faith inspires violence in at least two ways. First, people often kill other human beings because they believe that the creator of the universe wants them to do it... Second, far greater numbers of people fall into conflict with one another because they define their moral community on the basis of their religious affiliation..."^[4]
Christian theologians point to a strong doctrinal and historical imperative within Christianity against violence, particularly Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which taught nonviolence and "love of enemies". For example, Weaver asserts that Jesus' pacifism was "preserved in the justifiable war doctrine that declares all war as sin even when declaring it occasionally a necessary evil, and in the prohibition of fighting by monastics and clergy as well as in a persistent tradition of Christian pacifism."^[5]
[edit] Definition of violence

Abhijit Nayak writes that:

The word "violence" can be defined to extend far beyond pain and shedding blood. It carries the meaning of physical force, violent language, fury and, more importantly, forcible interference.^[6]

Terence Fretheim writes:

For many people, ... only physical violence truly qualifies as violence. But, certainly, violence is more than killing people, unless one includes all those words and actions that kill people slowly. The effect of limitation to a “killing fields” perspective is the widespread neglect of many other forms of violence. We must insist that violence also refers to that which is psychologically destructive, that which demeans, damages, or depersonalizes others. In view of these considerations, violence may be defined as follows: any action, verbal or nonverbal, oral or written, physical or psychical, active or passive, public or private, individual or institutional/societal, human or divine, in whatever degree of intensity, that abuses, violates, injures, or kills. Some of the most pervasive and most dangerous forms of violence are those that are often hidden from view (against women and children, especially); just beneath the surface in many of our homes, churches, and communities is abuse enough to freeze the blood. Moreover, many forms of systemic violence often slip past our attention because they are so much a part of the infrastructure of life (e.g., racism, sexism, ageism).^[7]

Heitman and Hagan identify the Inquisition, Crusades, Wars of Religion and antisemitism as being "among the most notorious examples of Christian violence".^[8] To this list, J. Denny Weaver adds, "warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men." Weaver employs a broader definition of violence that extends the meaning of the word to cover "harm or damage", not just physical violence per se. Thus, under his definition, Christian violence includes "forms of systemic violence such as poverty, racism, and sexism."^[5]
[edit] Christianity as a violent religion

Further information: Religious violence

I Believe in the Sword and Almighty God (1914) by Boardman Robinson.


Charles Selengut characterizes the phrase "religion and violence" as "jarring", asserting that "religion is thought to be opposed to violence and a force for peace and reconciliation. He acknowledges, however, that "the history and scriptures of the world's religions tell stories of violence and war as they speak of peace and love."^[9]
Critics of religion such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins go farther and argue that religions do tremendous harm to society in three ways:^{[10][page needed][11][page needed]}

• Religions sometimes use war, violence, and terrorism to promote their religious goals
• Religious leaders contribute to secular wars and terrorism by endorsing or supporting the violence
• Religious fervor is exploited by secular leaders to support war and terrorism

Byron Bland asserts that one of the most prominent reasons for the "rise of the secular in Western thought" was the reaction against the religious violence of the 16th and 17th centuries. He asserts that "(t)he secular was a way of living with the religious differences that had produced so much horror. Under secularity, political entities have a warrant to make decisions independent from the need to enforce particular versions of religious orthodoxy. Indeed, they may run counter to certain strongly held beliefs if made in the interest of common welfare. Thus, one of the important goals of the secular is to limit violence."^[12]
Miroslav Volf acknowledges that "many contemporaries see religion as a pernicious social ill that needs aggressive treatment rather than a medicine from which cure is expected." However, Volf contests this claim that "(the) Christian faith, as one of the major world religions, predominantly fosters violence." Instead of this negative assessment, Volf argues that Christianity "should be seen as a contributor to more peaceful social environments."^[13]
Many authors highlight the ironical contradiction between Christianity's claims to be centered on "love and peace" while, at the same time, harboring a "violent side". For example, Mark Juergensmeyer argues: "that despite its central tenets of love and peace, Christianity—like most traditions—has always had a violent side. The bloody history of the tradition has provided images as disturbing as those provided by Islam or Sikhism, and violent conflict is vividly portrayed in the Bible. This history and these biblical images have provided the raw material for theologically justifying the violence of contemporary Christian groups. For example, attacks on abortion clinics have been viewed not only as assaults on a practice that Christians regard as immoral, but also as skirmishes in a grand confrontation between forces of evil and good that has social and political implications."^[14]:19-20, sometimes referred to as Spiritual warfare. The statement attributed to Jesus "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" has been interpreted by some as a call to arms to Christians.^[14]
Maurice Bloch also argues that Christian faith fosters violence because Christian faith is a religion, and religions are by their very nature violent; moreover, he argues that religion and politics are two sides of the same coin—power.^[15] Similarly, Hector Avalos argues that, because religions claim divine favor for themselves, over and against other groups, this sense of righteousness leads to violence because conflicting claims to superiority, based on unverifiable appeals to God, cannot be adjudicated objectively.^[2]

Having Their Fling (1917) by Art Young.


Regina Schwartz argues that all monotheistic religions, including Christianity, are inherently violent because of an exclusivism that inevitably fosters violence against those that are considered outsiders.^[16] Lawrence Wechsler asserts that Schwartz isn't just arguing that Abrahamic religions have a violent legacy, but that the legacy is actually genocidal in nature.^[17]
In response, Christian apologists such as Miroslav Volf and J. Denny Weaver reject charges that Christianity is a violent religion, arguing that certain aspects of Christianity might be misused to support violence but that a genuine interpretation of its core elements would not sanction human violence but would instead resist it. Among the examples that are commonly used to argue that Christianity is a violent religion, J. Denny Weaver lists "(the) crusades, the multiple blessings of wars, warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men". Weaver characterizes the counter-argument as focusing on "Jesus, the beginning point of Christian faith,... whose Sermon on the Mount taught nonviolence and love of enemies,; who faced his accusers nonviolent death;whose nonviolent teaching inspired the first centuries of pacifist Christian history and was subsequently preserved in the justifiable war doctrine that declares all war as sin even when declaring it occasionally a necessary evil, and in the prohibition of fighting by monastics and clergy as well as in a persistent tradition of Christian pacifism."^[5]
Miroslav Volf has examined the question of whether Christianity fosters violence, and has identified four main arguments that it does: that religion by its nature is violent, which occurs when people try to act as "soldiers of God"; that monotheism entails violence, because a claim of universal truth divides people into "us versus them"; that creation, as in the Book of Genesis, is an act of violence; and that the intervention of a "new creation", as in the Second Coming, generates violence.^[1] Writing about the latter, Volf says: "Beginning at least with Constantine's conversion, the followers of the Crucified have perpetrated gruesome acts of violence under the sign of the cross. Over the centuries, the seasons of Lent and Holy Week were, for the Jews, times of fear and trepidation; Christians have perpetrated some of the worst pogroms as they remembered the crucifixion of Christ, for which they blamed the Jews. Muslims also associate the cross with violence; crusaders' rampages were undertaken under the sign of the cross."^[18] In each case, Volf concluded that the Christian faith was misused in justifying violence. Volf argues that "thin" readings of Christianity might be used mischievously to support the use of violence. He counters, however, by asserting that "thick" readings of Christianity's core elements will not sanction human violence and would, in fact, resist it.^[1]
Volf asserts that Christian churches suffer from a "confusion of loyalties". He asserts that "rather than the character of the Christian faith itself, a better explanation of why Christian churches are either impotent in the face of violent conflicts or actively participate in them derives from the proclivities of its adherents which are at odds with the character of the Christian faith." Volf observes that "(although) explicitly giving ultimate allegiance to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, many Christians in fact seem to have an overriding commitment to their respective cultures and ethnic groups."^[19]
William Cavanaugh asserts that "the idea that religion has a tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of churches to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East." Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that there is a "myth of religious violence", basing his argument on the assertion that "attempts to separate religious and secular violence are incoherent."^[20]
John Teehan takes a position that integrates the two opposing sides of this debate. He describes the traditional response in defense of religion as "draw(ing) a distinction between the religion and what is done in the name of that religion or its faithful." Teehan argues that "this approach to religious violence may be understandable but it is ultimately untenable and prevents us from gaining any useful insight into either religion or religious violence." He takes the position that "violence done in the name of religion is not a perversion of religious belief... but flows naturally from the moral logic inherent in many religious systems, particularly monotheistic religions..." However, Teehan acknowledges that "religions are also powerful sources of morality." He asserts that "religious morality and religious violence both spring from the same source, and this is the evolutionary psychology underlying religious ethics."^[21]
[edit] Christian scriptures

Main article: Bible and violence
From its earliest days, Christianity has been challenged to reconcile the scriptures known as the "Old Testament" with the scriptures known as the "New Testament". Ra'anan S. Boustan asserts that "(v)iolence can be found throughout the pages of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament."^[22] Philip Jenkins describes the Bible as overflowing with "texts of terror".^[23]
In response to these charges of violence in their scriptures, many Christian theologians and apologists respond that the "God of the Old Testament" is a violent God whereas the "God of the New Testament" is a peaceful and loving God. Gibson and Matthews characterize this view as a "millenia-old bias", one that "places the origins of Judeo-Christian violence squarely within Judaism".^[24]
Terence Freitheim describes the Old Testament as a "book filled with ...the violence of God". He asserts that while the New Testament does not have the same reputation, it too is "filled with violent words and deeds, and Jesus and the God of the New Testament are complicit in this violence.^[7] Gibson and Matthews have a similar perspective.^[24]
Gibson and Matthews make a similar charge, asserting that many studies of violence in the Bible focus on violence in the Old Testament while ignoring or giving little attention to the New Testament. They find even more troubling "those studies that lift up the New Testament as somehow containing the antidote for Old Testament violence."^[25]
This apparent contradiction in the sacred scriptures between a "God of vengeance" and a "God of love" are the basis of a tension between the irenic and eristic tendencies of Christianity that has continued to the present day.
This approach is challenged by those who point out that there are also passages in the New Testament that tolerate, condone and even encourage the use of violence. John Hemer asserts that the two primary approaches that Christian teaching uses to deal with "the problem of violence in the Old Testament" are:

1. Concentrate more on the many passages where God is depicted as loving – much of Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Deuteronomy.
2. Explain how the idea of God as a violent punishing war monger is all part of the historical and cultural conditioning of the author and that we can ignore it in good faith, especially in the light of the New Testament.

In opposition to these two approaches, Hemer argues that to ignore or explain away the violence found in the Old Testament is a mistake. He asserts that "Violence is not peripheral to the Bible it is central, in many ways it is the issue, because of course it is the human problem." He concludes by saying that "The Bible is in fact the story of the slow, painstaking and sometimes faltering escape from the idea of a God who is violent to a God who is love and has absolutely nothing to do with violence."^[26] Ronald Clements expresses a similar view, writing that "to dismiss the biblical language concerning the divine wrath as inappropriate, or even offensive, to the modern religious mind achieves nothing at all by way of resolving the tensions in the reality of human history and human experience.^[27]
The image of a violent God in Hebrew scriptures that condoned and even ordered violence posed a problem for some early Christians who saw this as a direct contradiction to the God of peace and love attested to in the New Testament. Perhaps the most famous example was Marcion who dropped the Hebrew scriptures from his version of the Bible because he found in them a violent God. Marcion saw the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge and creator of the material universe, as a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, whose law represented legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins by suffering and death. Marcion wrote that the God of the Old Testament was an "uncultured, jealous, wild, belligerent, angry and violent God, who has nothing in common with the God of the New Testament..." For Marcion, the God about whom Jesus was an altogether different being, a universal God of compassion and love, who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy. Marcion argued that Christianity should be solely based on Christian Love. He went so far as to say that Jesus’ mission was to overthrow Demiurge -- the fickle, cruel, despotic God of the Old Testament—and replace Him with the Supreme God of Love whom Jesus came to reveal.^[28]
Marcion's teaching was repudiated by Tertullian in five treatises titled "Against Marcion" and Marcion was ultimately excommunicated by the Church of Rome.^[29]
The difficulty posed by the apparent contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament continues to perplex pacifist Christians to this day. Eric Seibert asserts that, "(f)or many Christians, involvement in warfare and killing in the pages of the Old Testament is incontrovertible evidence that such activities have God's blessing. ... Attitudes like this are terribly troubling to religious pacifists and demonstrate the kind of problems these texts create for them."^[30] Some modern-day pacifists such as Charles Raven have argued that the Church should repudiate the Old Testament as an unchristian book, thus echoing the approach taken by Marcion in the 2nd century.^[31]
[edit] Old Testament

The principle of "an eye for an eye" is often referred to using the Latin phrase lex talionis, the law of talion. The meaning of the principle Eye for an Eye is that a person who has injured another person returns the offending action to the originator in compensation. The exact Latin (lex talionis) to English translation of this phrase is actually "The law of retaliation." At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable retribution for an offended party.
Dr Ian Guthridge cited many instances of genocide in the Old Testament:^[32]:319-320
The extent of extermination is described in the scriptural passage Deut 20:16-18 which orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …".^[33] thus leading many scholars to characterize the exterminations as genocide.^{[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]} Niels Peter Lemche asserts that European colonialism in the 19th century was ideologically based on the Old Testament narratives of conquest and extermination.^[44] Arthur Grenke claims that the view or war expressed in Deuteronomy contributed to the destruction of Native Americans and to the destruction of European Jewry.^[45]
[edit] New Testament

Christian interpretation of the lex talionis has been heavily influenced by the quotation from Leviticus (19:18 above) in Jesus of Nazareth's Sermon on the Mount. In the Expounding of the Law (part of the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek when confronted by violence:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:38–39, NRSV)

This saying of Jesus is frequently interpreted as criticism of the Old Testament teaching, and often taken as implying that "an eye for an eye" encourages excessive vengeance rather than an attempt to limit it. It was one of the points of 'fulfilment or destruction' of the Hebrew law which the Church father St. Augustine already discussed in his Contra Faustum, Book XIX.^[46]
[edit] Christian teaching

Theologian Robert McAfee Brown identifies a succession of three basic attitudes towards violence and war during the history of Christian thought. The first of these attitudes was the strict pacifism of the earliest Christians; by the 3rd century, this pacifism had evolved to incorporate the concept of a just war which then led to the development of the holy war or crusade.^[47]
[edit] Pacifism in early Christianity

See also: Constantine I and Christianity
Many scholars assert that Early Christianity (prior to 313 AD) was a pacifist religion and that, only after it had become the state religion of the Roman Empire, did Christianity begin to rationalize, institutionalize and endorse violence to further the interests of the state and the church. Some scholars believe that "the accession of Constantine terminated the pacifist period in church history."^[48] According to Rene Girard, "Beginning with Constantine, Christianity triumphed at the level of the state and soon began to cloak with its authority persecutions similar to those in which the early Christians were victims."^[49] And in Ulrich Luz's formulation; "After Constantine, the Christians too had a responsibility for war and peace. Already Celsus asked bitterly whether Christians, by aloofness from society, wanted to increase the political power of wild and lawless barbarians. His question constituted a new actuality; from now on, Christians and churches had to choose between the testimony of the gospel, which included renunciation of violence, and responsible participation in political power, which was understood as an act of love toward the world." Augustine's Epistle to Marcellinus (Ep 138) is the most influential example of the "new type of interpretation." ^[50]
In response to the accusations of Richard Dawkins, Alister McGrath suggests that, far from endorsing "out-group hostility", Jesus commanded an ethic of "out-group affirmation". McGrath agrees that it is necessary to critique religion, but says that it possesses internal means of reform and renewal, and argues that, while Christians may certainly be accused of failing to live up to Jesus' standard of acceptance, Christian ethics reject violence.^[51]
In the first few centuries of Christianity, many Christians refused to engage in military combat. In fact, there were a number of famous examples of soldiers who became Christians and refused to engage in combat afterward. They were subsequently executed for their refusal to fight.^[52] The commitment to pacifism and rejection of military service is attributed by Allman and Allman to two principles: "(1) the use of force (violence) was seen as antithetical to Jesus' teachings and service in the Roman military required worship of the emperor as a god which was a form of idolatry."^[53]
Origen asserted: "Christians could never slay their enemies. For the more that kings, rulers, and peoples have persecuted them everywhere, the more Christians have increased in number and grown in strength."^[54] Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence."^[55] Tertullian argued forcefully against all forms of violence, considering abortion, warfare and even judicial death penalties to be forms of murder.^[56][57] These positions of these three Church Fathers are maintained today by Catholics^[58] and Orthodox Christians.^[59]

[giblets]

[edit] Non-violence as a Christian doctrine

Main articles: Christian pacifism and Peace churches

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a prominent advocate of Christian nonviolence



The Deserter by Boardman Robinson, The Masses, 1916


There is a long tradition of opposition to violence in Christianity.^[60] Some early figures in Christian thought explicitly disavowed violence. Origen wrote: "Christians could never slay their enemies. For the more that kings, rulers, and peoples have persecuted them everywhere, the more Christians have increased in number and grown in strength."^[54] Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence."^[55] Several present-day Christian churches and communities were established specifically with nonviolence, including conscientious objection to military service, as foundations of their beliefs.^[61] In the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr. adapted the nonviolent ideas of Gandhi to a Baptist theology and politics.^[62] In the 21st century, Christian feminist thinkers have drawn attention to opposing violence against women.^[63]
Some theologians, however, reject the pacifist interpretation of Christian dogma. W.E. Addis et al. have written: "There have been sects, notably the Quakers, which have denied altogether the lawfulness of war, partly because they believe it to be prohibited by Christ (Mt. v. 39, etc), partly on humanitarian grounds. On the Scriptural ground they are easily refuted; the case of the soldiers instructed by in their duties by St. John the Baptist, and that of the military men whom Christ and His Apostles loved and familiarly conversed with (Lk 3:14, Acts 10, Mt 8:5), without a word to imply that their calling was unlawful, sufficiently prove the point."^[64]
[edit] Just war theory

Main article: Just war theory

Forward with God! (1915) by Boardman Robinson.


Just War Theory' (or Bellum iustum) is a doctrine of military ethics of Roman philosophical and Catholic origin^[65][66] studied by moral theologians, ethicists and international policy makers which holds that a conflict can and ought to meet the criteria of philosophical, religious or political justice, provided it follows certain conditions.
Just War theorists combine both a moral abhorrence towards war with a readiness to accept that war may sometimes be necessary. The criteria of the just war tradition act as an aid to determining whether resorting to arms is morally permissible. Just War theories are attempts "to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of organized armed forces"; they attempt "to conceive of how the use of arms might be restrained, made more humane, and ultimately directed towards the aim of establishing lasting peace and justice."^[67]
The Just War tradition addresses the morality of the use of force in two parts: when it is right to resort to armed force (the concern of jus ad bellum) and what is acceptable in using such force (the concern of jus in bello).^[68] In more recent years, a third category — jus post bellum — has been added, which governs the justice of war termination and peace agreements, as well as the prosecution of war criminals.
The concept of justification for war under certain conditions goes back at least to Cicero.^[69] However its importance is connected to Christian medieval theory beginning from Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.^[70] According to Jared Diamond, Saint Augustine played a critical role in delineating Christian thinking about what constitutes a just war, and about how to reconcile Christian teachings of peace with the need for war in certain situations.^[71]
Jonathan Riley Smith writes,

The consensus among Christians on the use of violence has changed radically since the crusades were fought. The just war theory prevailing for most of the last two centuries — that violence is an evil which can in certain situations be condoned as the lesser of evils — is relatively young. Although it has inherited some elements (the criteria of legitimate authority, just cause, right intention) from the older war theory that first evolved around a.d. 400, it has rejected two premises that underpinned all medieval just wars, including crusades: first, that violence could be employed on behalf of Christ's intentions for mankind and could even be directly authorized by him; and second, that it was a morally neutral force which drew whatever ethical coloring it had from the intentions of the perpetrators.^[72]

[edit] Holy war


Saint Augustine of Hippo, a seminal thinker on the concept of just war


In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II declared that some wars could be deemed as not only a bellum iustum ("just war"), but could, in certain cases, rise to the level of a bellum sacrum(holy war).^[73] Jill Claster characterizes this as a "remarkable transformation in the ideology of war", shifting the justification of war from being not only "just" but "spiritually beneficial.^[74] Thomas Murphy examined the Christian concept of Holy War, asking "how a culture formally dedicated to fulfilling the injunction to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' could move to a point where it sanctioned the use of violence against the alien both outside and inside society". The religious sanctioning of the concept of "holy war" was a turning point in Christian attitudes towards violence; "Pope Gregory VII made the Holy War possible by drastically altering the attitude of the church towards war... Hitherto a knight could obtain remission of sins only by giving up arms, but Urban invited him to gain forgiveness 'in and through the exercise of his martial skills'". A Holy War was defined by the Roman Catholic Church as "war that is not only just, but justifying; that is, a war that confers positive spiritual merit on those who fight in it".^[75][76]
In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "'The knight of Christ may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently; for he serves Christ when he strikes, and saves himself when he falls.... When he inflicts death, it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is his own gain."^[77]
According to Daniel Chirot, the Biblical account of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho was used to justify the genocide of Catholics during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.^[78]:3 Chirot also interprets 1 Samuel 15:1-3 as "the sentiment, so clearly expressed, that because a historical wrong was committed, justice demands genocidal retribution."^[78]:7-8


[edit] See also

• Christian terrorism
• Christianity and capital punishment
• Christians in the military
• God's Army (revolutionary group)
• Iron Guard
• Islam and violence
• Islamic terrorism
• Jewish terrorism
• Lord's Resistance Army
• Mormonism and violence
• National-Christian Defense League
• Religious hate groups
• Religious terrorism

[edit] Notes

• ^ ^{a b c} Volf, Miroslav (2008). "Christianity and Violence". In Hess, Richard S.; Martens, E.A.. War in the Bible and terrorism in the twenty-first century. Eisenbrauns. pp. 1–17. ISBN 9781575068039. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
• ^ ^{a b} Avalos, Hector (2005). Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
• ^ Schwartz, Regina M. (1997). The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. The University of Chicago Press.
• ^ Sam Harris (2006). Letter to a Christian Nation. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 80–81. ISBN 9780307265777.
• ^ ^{a b c} J. Denny Weaver (2001). "Violence in Christian Theology". Cross Currents. Retrieved 2010-10-27.
• ^ Nayak, Abhijit (July–October 2008). "Crusade Violence: Understanding and Overcoming the Impact of Mission Among Muslims". International Review of Mission (World Council of Churches) 97 (386-387): 273–291. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6631.2008.tb00645.x. Retrieved 2010-11-23.
• ^ ^{a b} Freitheim, Terence (Winter 2004). "God and Violence in the Old Testament". Word & World 24 (1). Retrieved 2010-11-21.
• ^ International encyclopedia of violence research, Volume 2. Springer. 2003.
• ^ Selengut, Charles (2008-04-28). Sacred fury: understanding religious violence. p. 1. ISBN 9780742560840.
• ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not Great. Twelve.
• ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books.
• ^ Bland, Byron (May 2003). "Evil Enemies: The Convergence of Religion and Politics". p. 4.
• ^ Volf, Miroslav (2002). "Christianity and Violence". Retrieved 2010-10-27.
• ^ ^{a b} Mark Juergensmeyer (2004). Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.
• ^ Bloch, Maurice (1992). Prey into Hunter. The Politics of Religious Experience.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• ^ The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism By Regina M. Schwartz. University of Chicago Press. 1998.
• ^ Wechsler, Lawrence. "Mayhem and Monotheism".
• ^ Volf 2008, p. 13
• ^ Volf, Miroslav. "The Social Meaning of Reconciliation". Retrieved 2010-11-17.
• ^ Cavanaugh, William (2009). The Myth of Religious Violence. Oxford University Press US,. p. 4.
• ^ Teehan, John (2010). In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 145–147.
• ^ Boustan, Ra'anan S. (2010). Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity. BRILL.
• ^ Jenkins, Philip (March 8, 2009). "Dark Passages". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2010-11-26. "the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. … If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery."
• ^ ^{a b} Gibson, Leigh; Matthews, Shelly (2005). Violence in the New Testament. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 1. ISBN 9780567025005.
• ^ Gibson, Leigh; Matthews, Shelly (2005). Violence in the New Testament. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 3.
• ^ Hemer, John (April 2003). "Violence & The Bible". Retrieved 2010-11-21.
• ^ Clements, Ronald Ernest (1988). Jeremiah. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 151. ISBN 9780804231275.
• ^ Metzger, Bruce. Canon of the NT ISBN 978-0-19-826180-3; The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 characterized Marcion as "perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known."; Harnack's Origin of the New Testament: "Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that “follows the Testament of the Creator-God,” and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against the falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles by the original Apostles and the writers of the Gospels. He would necessarily have dealt with the two Testaments of the Catholic Church if the Church had already possessed a New Testament. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under the supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any “litera scripta Novi Testamenti.”"
• ^ Pixley, Jorge V. (2004). Jeremiah. Chalice Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780827205277.
• ^ Seibert, Eric A. (2009). Disturbing divine behavior: troubling Old Testament images of God. Fortress Press.
• ^ Hawkin, David J. (2004). The twenty-first century confronts its gods: globalization, technology, and war. SUNY Press. p. 121. ISBN 9780791461815.
• ^ Ian Guthridge (1999). The Rise and Decline of the Christian Empire. Medici School Publications,Australia. ISBN 0958864543.
• ^ Ruttenberg, Danya, Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security Danya Ruttenberg (Ed.) page 54 (citing Reuven Kimelman, "The Ethics of National Power: Government and War from the Sources of Judaism", in Perspectives, Feb 1987, pp 10-11)
• ^ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, pp 17-30
• ^ Philip Jenkins - quoted in NPR article "Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran?" by Barbara Hagerty. Online at [1].
• ^ Kravitz, Leonard, "What is Crime?", in Crime and punishment in Jewish law: essays and responsa, EditorsWalter Jacob, Moshe Zemer, Berghahn Books, 1999, p 31.
• ^ Magid, Shaul, "Subversion as Return: Scripture, Dissent, and Renewal in Contemporary Judaism, in Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible Beth Hawkins Benedix (Ed), pp 217-236, p 234.
• ^ Cohn, Robert L, "Before Israel: The Canaanites as Other in Biblical Tradition", in The Other in Jewish thought and history: constructions of Jewish culture and identity, Laurence Jay Silberstein, (Ed.), NYU Press, 1994, pp 76-77
• ^ Boustan, Ra'anan S., Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity, BRILL, 2010, pp 3-5
• ^ Firestone, Reuven, "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An Examination of Key Sources", in Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, James Heft (Ed.), Fordham Univ Press, 2004, p 75
• ^ Ehrlich, Carl S., "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide" in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,BRILL, 1999, pp 121-122
• ^ Garber, Zev, "Deconstructing Theodicy and Amalekut", in Post-Shoah dialogues: re-thinking our texts together, James F. Moore (Ed.), University Press of America, 2004, pp 241-243.
• ^ Van Wees, Hans, "Genocide in the Ancient World", in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (Eds), p 242.
• ^ Lemche, Niels Peter, The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pp 315–316:

  "The [Biblical] story of the 'morally supreme people' that defeats and exterminates another, inferior, nation was part of the ideological baggage of European imperialists and colonizers throughout the nineteenth century. It was also carried by European Jews who,.. migrated to Palestine to inherit their ancestral country … In this modern version of the biblical narrative, the Palestinian population turned into 'Canaanites', supposed to be morally inferior to the Jews, and of course the Arabs were never considered their equals … The Bible was the instrument used to suppress the enemy".

• ^ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, New Academia Publishing, LLC, 2005, pp 17-18:

  "Discussing the influence of Christian beliefs on the destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas, Stannard argues that while the New Testament view of war is ambiguous, there is little such ambiguity in the Old Testament. He points to sections in Deuteronomy in which the Israelite God, Yahweh, commanded that the Israelites utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (Deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16-17). … According to Stannard, this view of war contributed to the .. destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas. It was this view that also led to the destruction of European Jewry. Accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the Old Testament: it not only describes a situation where a group undertakes to totally destroy other groups, but it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide."

• ^ Contra Faustum, Augustine of Hippo, NewAdvent.
• ^ Brown, Robert McAfee (1987). Religion and Violence (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. p. 18. ISBN 066424078X.
• ^ Roland Bainton, quoted in Robin Gill, A Textbook of Christian Ethics, 3rd ed, Continuum, 2006, ISBN 0-567-03112-8, p. 194.
• ^ Girard, Rene. The Scapegoat. p. 204.
• ^ Ulrich Luz, Matthew in History, Fortress Press, 1994, p26-27
• ^ Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0-281-05927-0
• ^ "No known Christian author from the first centuries approved of Christian participation in battle; citations advocating pacifism are found in → Tertullian, → Origen, Lactantius, and others, and in the testimonies of the martyrs Maximilian and Marcellus, who were executed for refusing to serve in the Roman army. Grounds for opposition to military service included fear of idolatry and the oath of loyalty to Caesar, as well as the basic objection to shedding blood on the battlefield.", Fahlbusch, E., & Bromiley, G. W. (2005). Vol. 4: The encyclopedia of Christianity (2). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill.
• ^ Allman, Mark; Allman, Mark J. (2008). Who Would Jesus Kill?: War, Peace, and the Christian Tradition. Saint Mary's Press.
• ^ ^{a b} Origen: Contra Celsus, Book 7 (Roberts-Donaldson)
• ^ ^{a b} Clement of Alexandria: Fragments
• ^ Osborn, Eric (2003). Tertullian, First Theologian of the West. Cambridge University Press. p. 230. ISBN 9780521524957. "Tertullian rejects all violence, even killing by soldiers or by courts of law, any form of abortion, and even attendance at the amphitheatre."
• ^ Nicholson, Helen J. (2004). Medieval warfare: theory and practice of war in Europe, 300-1500. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 24. "At the beginning of the third century, Tertullian recorded that some Christians did fight, but indicated that he did not approve. He argued that God's command not to fight overrode Paul's command to obey the authorities that God had appointed. Tertullian observed that one of the last words of Christ before he was led away to be crucified was when he instructed Simon Peter to put away his sword."
• ^ Evangelium Vitae
• ^ Orthodoxy and Capital Punishment
• ^ "Members of several small Christian sects who try to literally follow the precepts of Jesus Christ have refused to participate in military service in many nations and have been willing to suffer the criminal or civil penalties that followed."Encyclopedia Britannica 2004 CD Rom Edition — Pacifism.
• ^ Speicher, Sara and Durnbaugh, Donald F. (2003), Ecumenical Dictionary:Historic Peace Churches
• ^ King, Jr., Martin Luther; Clayborne Carson; Peter Holloran; Ralph Luker; Penny A. Russell (1992). The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.. University of California Press. ISBN 0520079507.
• ^ Hood, Helen (2003). "Speaking Out and Doing Justice: It’s No Longer a Secret but What are the Churches Doing about Overcoming Violence against Women?". EBSCO Publishing. pp. 216–225. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
• ^ War, A Catholic Dictionary: Containing some Account of the Doctrine, Discipline, Rites, Ceremonies, Councils, and Religious Orders of the Catholic Church, W. E Addis, T. Arnold, Revised T. B Scannell and P. E Hallett, 15th Edition, Virtue & Co, 1953, Nihil Obstat: Reginaldus Philips, Imprimatur: E. Morrogh Bernard, 2 October 1950, "In the Name of God : Violence and Destruction in the World's Religions", M. Jordan, 2006, p. 40
• ^ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/ The first philosophers of just war were Aristotle and Cicero, and the first theologians St. Augustine andSt. Thomas Aquinas
• ^ "Just War Theory [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]". Iep.utm.edu. 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
• ^ "JustWarTheory.com". JustWarTheory.com. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
• ^ "Home > Publications >". Eppc.org. 1998-09-01. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
• ^ "Religion & Ethics - Just War Theory -introduction". BBC. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
• ^ Christians and War: Thomas Aquinas refines the "Just War" Theory^{[dead link]}
• ^ Diamond, Jared (2008). 1000 Events That Shaped the World. National Geographic Society. p. 74. ISBN 1426203144.
• ^ Smith, Jonathan R.. "Rethinking the Crusades". Catholic Education Resource Center.
• ^ "Christian Jihad: The Crusades and Killing in the Name of Christ".
• ^ Claster, Jill N. (2009). Sacred violence: the European crusades to the Middle East, 1095-1396. University of Toronto Press. pp. xvii-xviii. ISBN 9781442600607.
• ^ E. Randolph Daniel; Murphy, Thomas Patrick (1978). "The Holy War (review)". Speculum 53 (3): 602–603. doi:10.2307/2855169. JSTOR 2855169.
• ^ Thomas Patrick Murphy, editor (1976). The holy war. Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State University Press.
• ^ Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise Of The New Knighthood, ca. 1135
• ^ ^{a b} Daniel Chirot. Why Some Wars Become Genocidal and Others Don't. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.

[edit] References

• Avalos, Hector. Fighting Words. The Origins of Religious Violence. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005.
• Schwartz, Regina M. The Curse of Cain. The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

[edit] Further reading

• Bekkenkamp, Jonneke and Sherwood, Yvonne, ed. Sanctified Aggression. Legacies of Biblical and Postbiblical Vocabularies of Violence. London/New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2003.
• Collins, John J. Does the Bible Justify Violence? Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004.
• Hedges, Chris. 2007. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Free Press.
• Lea, Henry Charles. 1961. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Abridged. New York: Macmillan.
• MacMullen, Ramsay, 1989 "Christianizing the Roman Empire: AD 100-400"
• MacMullen, Ramsay, 1997, "Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries"
• Mason, Carol. 2002. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• McTernan, Oliver J. 2003. Violence in God's name: religion in an age of conflict. Orbis Books.
• Tyerman, Christopher. 2006. God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap.
• Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement, [booklet]. Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.
• Robert Spencer (author) Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, Regnery Publishing, 2007, ISBN 1-59698-515-1
• Rodney Stark God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, HarperOne, 2010,

Categories: Christian ethics | Christianity and violence | Christianity-related controversies

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[giblets]

The Bible and violence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Bible and violence)
From its earliest days, Christianity has been challenged to reconcile the scriptures known as the "Old Testament" with the scriptures known as the "New Testament". Ra'anan S. Boustan asserts that "(v)iolence can be found throughout the pages of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament."^[1] Philip Jenkins describes the Bible as overflowing with "texts of terror".^[2]
In response to these charges of violence in their scriptures, many Christian theologians and apologists respond that the "God of the Old Testament" is a violent God whereas the "God of the New Testament" is a peaceful and loving God. This approach is challenged by those who point out that there are also passages in the New Testament that tolerate, condone and even encourage the use of violence. For example, Terence Freitheim describes the Old Testament as a "book filled with ...the violence of God". He asserts that while the New Testament does not have the same reputation, it too is "filled with violent words and deeds, and Jesus and the God of the New Testament are complicit in this violence.^[3]
John Hemer asserts that the two primary approaches that Christian teaching uses to deal with "the problem of violence in the Old Testament" are:

1. Concentrate more on the many passages where God is depicted as loving – much of Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Deuteronomy.
2. Explain how the idea of God as a violent punishing war monger is all part of the historical and cultural conditioning of the author and that we can ignore it in good faith, especially in the light of the New Testament.

In opposition to these two approaches, Hemer argues that to ignore or explain away the violence found in the Old Testament is a mistake. He asserts that "Violence is not peripheral to the Bible it is central, in many ways it is the issue, because of course it is the human problem." He concludes by saying that "The Bible is in fact the story of the slow, painstaking and sometimes faltering escape from the idea of a God who is violent to a God who is love and has absolutely nothing to do with violence."^[4]
Gibson and Matthews assert that many studies of violence in the Bible focus on violence in the Old Testament while ignoring or giving little attention to the New Testament. They find even more troubling "those studies that lift up the New Testament as somehow containing the antidote for Old Testament violence."^[5]
This apparent contradiction in the sacred scriptures between a "God of vengeance" and a "God of love" are the basis of a tension between the irenic and eristic tendencies of Christianity that has continued to the present day.
[edit] Old Testament

See also: Judaism and violence
The principle of an "eye for an eye" is often referred to using the Latin phrase lex talionis, the law of talion. The meaning of the principle eye for an eye is that a person who has injured another person returns the offending action to the originator in compensation. The exact Latin (lex talionis) to English translation of this phrase is actually "The law of retaliation." At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable retribution for an offended party.
Christian interpretation of the Biblical passage has been heavily influenced by the quotation from Leviticus (19:18 above) in Jesus of Nazareth's Sermon on the Mount. In the Expounding of the Law (part of the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek when confronted by violence:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:38–39, NRSV)

This saying of Jesus is frequently interpreted as criticism of the Old Testament teaching, and often taken as implying that "an eye for an eye" encourages excessive vengeance rather than an attempt to limit it. It was one of the points of 'fulfilment or destruction' of the Hebrew law which the Church father St. Augustine already discussed in his Contra Faustum, Book XIX.^[6]
Dr Ian Guthridge cited many instances of genocide in the Old Testament:^[7]:319-320
The extent of extermination is described in the scriptural passage Deut 20:16-18 which orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …".^[8] thus leading many scholars to characterize the exterminations as genocide.^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]} Niels Peter Lemche asserts that European colonialism in the 19th century was ideologically based on the Old Testament narratives of conquest and extermination.^[19] Arthur Grenke claims that the view or war expressed in Deuteronomy contributed to the destruction of Native Americans and to the destruction of European Jewry.^[20]
The image of a violent God in Hebrew scriptures that condoned and even ordered violence posed a problem for some early Christians who saw this as a direct contradiction to the God of peace and love attested to in the New Testament. Perhaps the most famous example was Marcion who dropped the Hebrew scriptures from his version of the Bible because he found in them a violent God. Marcion saw the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge and creator of the material universe, as a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, whose law represented legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins by suffering and death. Marcion wrote that the God of the Old Testament was an "uncultured, jealous, wild, belligerent, angry and violent God, who has nothing in common with the God of the New Testament..." For Marcion, the God about whom Jesus was an altogether different being, a universal God of compassion and love, who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy. Marcion argued that Christianity should be solely based on Christian Love. He went so far as to say that Jesus’ mission was to overthrow Demiurge -- the fickle, cruel, despotic God of the Old Testament—and replace Him with the Supreme God of Love whom Jesus came to reveal.^[21]
Marcion's teaching was repudiated by Tertullian in five treatises titled "Against Marcion" and Marcion was ultimately excommunicated by the Church of Rome.^[22]
The difficulty posed by the apparent contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament continues to perplex pacifist Christians to this day. Eric Seibert asserts that, "(f)or many Christians, involvement in warfare and killing in the pages of the Old Testament is incontrovertible evidence that such activities have God's blessing. ... Attitudes like this are terribly troubling to religious pacifists and demonstrate the kind of problems these texts create for them."^[23] Some modern-day pacifists such as Charles Raven have argued that the Church should repudiate the Old Testament as an unchristian book, thus echoing the approach taken by Marcion in the 2nd century.^[24]
[edit] Lex talionis

The meaning of the principle eye for an eye is that a person who has injured another person returns the offending action to the originator in compensation. The exact Latin (lex talionis) to English translation of this phrase is actually "The law of retaliation." At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable retribution for an offended party.
The phrase, "an eye for an eye", (Hebrew: ??? ??? ???, ?ayin ta?ath ?ayin (Modern: ayin tachat ayin, literally "eye under eye")), is a quotation from several passages of the Hebrew Bible.(Leviticus 24:19–21, Exodus 21:22–25, and Deuteronomy 19:16-21) in which a person who has injured the eye of another is instructed to give the value of his or her own eye in compensation. It defined and restricted the extent of retribution in the laws of the Torah.
The English word talion means a punishment identical to the offense, from the Latin talio. The principle of "an eye for an eye" is often referred to using the Latin phrase lex talionis, the law of talion.
The expression "an eye for an eye" does not occur in the Hebrew Bible. Verses such as Ex 21:22–27 and Lv 24:18–20 which are sometimes rendered in Christian translations by "an eye for an eye" or similar have the expression ayin tachat ayin meaning "each and every eye" (verbatim "eye under eye") in the original Hebrew. The verses where the expression occurs list situations for which fines are imposed to compensate injury and state that each and every injury must be compensated. The Talmud (in Bava Kamma, 83b-84a), explicitly discusses the nature of this monetary compensation in tort cases and argues against the reinterpretations by Sadducees that the Bible verses refer to physical retaliation in kind, using the argument that such an interpretation would be inapplicable to blind or eyeless offenders. Since the Torah requires that penalties be universally applicable, the phrase cannot be interpreted in this manner. Moreover, personal retribution is explicitly forbidden by the Torah Lv 19:18, such reciprocal justice being strictly reserved for the social magistrate (usually in the form of regional courts).

The Oral Law explains, based upon the biblical verses, that the Bible mandates a sophisticated five-part monetary form of compensation, consisting of payment for "Damages, Pain, Medical Expenses, Incapacitation, and Mental Anguish"—which underlies many modern legal codes. Some rabbinic literature explains, moreover, that the expression, "An eye for an eye, etc." suggests that the perpetrator deserves to lose his own eye, but that biblical law treats him leniently. − Paraphrased from the Union of Orthodox Congregations^[25]

However, the Torah also discusses a form of direct reciprocal justice, where the phrase ayin tachat ayin makes another appearance (Dt 19:16–21). Here, the Torah discusses false witnesses who conspire to testify against another person. The Torah requires the court to "do to him as he had conspired to do to his brother" (Dt 19:19). Assuming the fulfillment of certain technical criteria (such as the sentencing of the accused whose punishment was not yet executed), wherever it is possible to punish the conspirators with exactly the same punishment through which they had planned to harm their fellow, the court carries out this direct reciprocal justice (including when the punishment constitutes the death penalty). Otherwise, the offenders receive lashes (Makot 1:1; ibid., Bab. Talmud 2a based on critical exegesis of Dt 25:1–3).
Since there is no form of punishment in the Torah that calls for the maiming of an offender, there is no case where a conspiratorial false witness could possibly be punished by the court injuring to his eye, tooth, hand, or foot. (There is one case where the Torah states "…and you shall cut off her hand…" Dt 25:11–12. The sages of the Talmud understood the literal meaning of this verse as referring to a case where the woman is attacking a man in potentially lethal manner. This verse teaches that, although one must intervene to save the victim, one may not kill a lethal attacker if it is possible to neutralize that attacker through non-lethal injury {Sifrei; Maimonides' Yad, Nezikin, Hil. Rotze'ach u'Sh'mirat Nefesh 1:7}. Regardless, there is no verse that even appears to mandate injury to the eye, tooth, or foot.) Thus, it is impossible to read "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" literally in the context of a conspiratorial witness.
Numbers 35:9–30 discusses the only form of remotely reciprocal justice not carried out directly by the court, where, under very limited circumstances, someone found guilty of negligent manslaughter may be killed by a relative of the deceased who takes on the role of "redeemer of blood". In such cases, the court requires the guilty party to flee to a designated city of refuge. While the guilty party is there, the "redeemer of blood" may not kill him. If, however, the guilty party illegally forgoes his exile, the "redeemer of blood", as an accessory of the court, may kill the guilty party. Nevertheless, the provision of the "redeemer of blood" does not serve as true reciprocal justice, because the redeemer only acts to penalize a negligent killer who forgoes his exile. Furthermore, intentional killing does not parallel negligent killing and thus cannot serve directly as a reciprocal punishment for manslaughter, but as a penalty for escaping punishment (Makot 7a–13a). (According to traditional Jewish Law, application of these laws requires the presence and maintenance of the biblically designated cities of refuge, as well as a conviction in an eligible court of 23 judges as delineated by the Torah and Talmud. The latter condition is also applicable for any capital punishment. These circumstances have not existed for approximately 2,000 years.)
Christian interpretation of the Biblical passage has been heavily influenced by the quotation from Leviticus (19:18 above) in Jesus of Nazareth's Sermon on the Mount. In the Expounding of the Law (part of the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek when confronted by violence:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:38–39, NRSV)

This saying of Jesus is frequently interpreted as criticism of the Old Testament teaching, and often taken as implying that "an eye for an eye" encourages excessive vengeance rather than an attempt to limit it. It was one of the points of 'fulfilment or destruction' of the Hebrew law which the Church father St. Augustine already discussed in his Contra Faustum, Book XIX.^[6]
As noted in previous sections, the natural tendency of people is for revenge and in the extreme. “You hurt me or offended me so I am going to take an ‘arm and a leg’ or sue you for all you have!” Although both the Hammurabi Code and Hebrew Law both had death penalties for many crimes, the “eye for eye” was to restrict compensation to the value of the loss; in the hammurabi code as being literal, and in the Hebrew Law applying monetarily. Thus, it might be better read 'only one eye for one eye'.
[edit] Genocide

Dr Ian Guthridge cited many instances of genocide in the Old Testament:^[7]:319-320
The Old Testament contains passages in which God commands the Israelites to exterminate seven Canaanite nations, and describes several wars of extermination that annihilated entire cities or groups of peoples. Examples include the story of Amalekites(Deut 25:17-19, 1 Sam 15:1-6), and the commandment to exterminate them,^[26] the story of the Midianites(Numbers 31:1-18),^[27] and the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6:1-27).^{[28] [29] [30] [31][32][33]} The extent of extermination is described in the scriptural passage Deut 20:16-18 which orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …".^[34] thus leading many scholars to characterize the exterminations as genocide.^{[9] [10] [35] [12] [13] [14] [15] [36] [17] [18]} Niels Peter Lemche asserts that European colonialism in the nineteenth century was ideologically based on the Old Testament narratives of conquest and extermination.^[19] Arthur Grenke claims that the view or war expressed in Deuteronomy contributed to the destruction of Native Americans and to the destruction of European Jewry.^[37]
[edit] New Testament

See also: Christianity and violence
Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa asserts that both 'irenic' and 'eristic' (i.e. peace and strife) tendencies co-exist in the New Testament.^[38] Stroumsa cites the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:25-33) as an example of an irenic passage in the New Testament. As examples of eristic scriptures, Stroumsa cites the following Gospel passages:^[38]

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.Matthew 10:34

I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.Luke 12:49-51

And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.Luke 22:35-38

Ra'anan S. Boustan cites the passage where Jesus foretells a time when "children will rise up against their parents and have them put to death (Matthew 10:21,34-37,Luke 12:51-53)" Boustan also cites the "apocalyptic vision of Revelation which imagines one third of the world's population being killed.(Revelation 9:15)."^[1]
Other sayings and acts of Jesus that have been cited as examples of tacit acceptance of violence include: the absence of any censure of the soldier who asks Jesus to heal his servant, his cleansing of the Temple, and through his Apostles, baptising a Roman Centurion who is never asked to first give up arms.^[39]
W.E. Addis cites the case of the soldiers instructed by in their duties by St. John the Baptist, and that of the military men whom Christ and His Apostles loved and familiarly conversed with (Luke 3:14, Acts 10,Matthew 8:5), without a word to imply that their calling was unlawful, sufficiently prove the point."^[39]
According to Steve Friesen, the apocalyptic Book of Revelation has been employed in a wide array of settings, many of which have been lethal. Among these, Friesen lists Christian hostility, Christian imperialism and Christian sectarian violence.^[40]
There are also passages attributed to the ministry of Jesus used to support Christian pacifism, such as:^[41]

"Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also" (Matthew 6:39)

"Put your sword back in its place.. for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52)

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9)

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-28)

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31)

[edit] See also

• Religious violence

[edit] References

• ^ ^{a b} Boustan, Ra'anan S. (2010). Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity. BRILL.
• ^ Jenkins, Philip (March 8, 2009). "Dark Passages". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2010-11-26. "the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. … If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery."
• ^ |quote=The Old Testament has a reputation: it is a book filled with violence, including the violence of God. The New Testament commonly avoids such a charge; but it, too, is filled with violent words and deeds, and Jesus and the God of the New Testament are complicit in this violence.
• ^ Hemer, John (April 2003). "Violence & The Bible". Retrieved 2010-11-21.
• ^ Gibson, Leigh; Matthews, Shelly (2005). Violence in the New Testament. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 3.
• ^ ^{a b} Contra Faustum, Augustine of Hippo, NewAdvent. Archived 30 July 2007 at WebCite
• ^ ^{a b} Ian Guthridge (1999). The Rise and Decline of the Christian Empire. Medici School Publications,Australia. ISBN 978-0-9588645-4-1.
• ^ Ruttenberg, Danya, Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security Danya Ruttenberg (Ed.) page 54 (citing Reuven Kimelman, "The Ethics of National Power: Government and War from the Sources of Judaism", in Perspectives, Feb 1987, pp 10-11)
• ^ ^{a b} Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, pp 17-30
• ^ ^{a b} Philip Jenkins - quoted in NPR article "Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran?" by Barbara Hagerty. Online atIs The Bible More Violent Than The Quran? : NPR.
• ^ Kravitz, Leonard, "What is Crime?", in Crime and punishment in Jewish law: essays and responsa, EditorsWalter Jacob, Moshe Zemer, Berghahn Books, 1999, p 31.
• ^ ^{a b} Magid, Shaul, "Subversion as Return: Scripture, Dissent, and Renewal in Contemporary Judaism, in Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible Beth Hawkins Benedix (Ed), pp 217-236, p 234.
• ^ ^{a b} Cohn, Robert L, "Before Israel: The Canaanites as Other in Biblical Tradition", in The Other in Jewish thought and history: constructions of Jewish culture and identity, Laurence Jay Silberstein, (Ed.), NYU Press, 1994, pp 76-77
• ^ ^{a b} Boustan, Ra'anan S., Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity, BRILL, 2010, pp 3-5
• ^ ^{a b} Firestone, Reuven, "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An Examination of Key Sources", in Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, James Heft (Ed.), Fordham Univ Press, 2004, p 75
• ^ Ehrlich, Carl S., "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide" in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,BRILL, 1999, pp 121-122
• ^ ^{a b} Garber, Zev, "Deconstructing Theodicy and Amalekut", in Post-Shoah dialogues: re-thinking our texts together, James F. Moore (Ed.), University Press of America, 2004, pp 241-243.
• ^ ^{a b} Van Wees, Hans, "Genocide in the Ancient World", in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (Eds), p 242.
• ^ ^{a b} Lemche, Niels Peter, The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pp 315–316:

  "The [Biblical] story of the 'morally supreme people' that defeats and exterminates another, inferior, nation was part of the ideological baggage of European imperialists and colonizers throughout the nineteenth century. It was also carried by European Jews who,.. migrated to Palestine to inherit their ancestral country … In this modern version of the biblical narrative, the Palestinian population turned into 'Canaanites', supposed to be morally inferior to the Jews, and of course the Arabs were never considered their equals … The Bible was the instrument used to suppress the enemy".

• ^ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, New Academia Publishing, LLC, 2005, pp 17-18:

  "Discussing the influence of Christian beliefs on the destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas, Stannard argues that while the New Testament view of war is ambiguous, there is little such ambiguity in the Old Testament. He points to sections in Deuteronomy in which the God of Israel commanded that the Israelites utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (Deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16-17). … According to Stannard, this view of war contributed to the .. destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas. It was this view that also led to the destruction of European Jewry. Accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the Old Testament: it not only describes a situation where a group undertakes to totally destroy other groups, but it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide."

• ^ Metzger, Bruce. Canon of the NT ISBN 978-0-19-826180-3; The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 characterized Marcion as "perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known."; Harnack's Origin of the New Testament: "Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that “follows the Testament of the Creator-God,” and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against the falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles by the original Apostles and the writers of the Gospels. He would necessarily have dealt with the two Testaments of the Catholic Church if the Church had already possessed a New Testament. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under the supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any “litera scripta Novi Testamenti.”"
• ^ Pixley, Jorge V. (2004). Jeremiah. Chalice Press. p. 65.
• ^ Seibert, Eric A. (2009). Disturbing divine behavior: troubling Old Testament images of God. Fortress Press.
• ^ Hawkin, David J. (2004). The twenty-first century confronts its gods: globalization, technology, and war. SUNY Press. p. 121.
• ^ Torah, Union of Orthodox Congregations.
• ^ A. G. Hunter "Denominating Amalek: Racist stereotyping in the Bible and the Justification of Discrimination", inSanctified aggression: legacies of biblical and post biblical vocabularies of violence, Jonneke Bekkenkamp, Yvonne Sherwood (Eds.). 2003, Continuum Internatio Publishing Group, pp 92-108
• ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 245. ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9.
• ^ Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion', pp 289 - 296
• ^ Hitchens, Christopher, God is Not Great page 117
• ^ Selengut, Charles, Sacred fury: understanding religious violence, p 20
• ^ Cowles, C. S., Show them no mercy: 4 views on God and Canaanite genocide, page 79
• ^ Salaita, Steven George (2006). The Holy Land in transit: colonialism and the quest for Canaan. Syracuse University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-8156-3109-5.
• ^ Armstrong, Karen (2007). The Bible: a biography. Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 211–216. ISBN 978-0-87113-969-6.
• ^ Ruttenberg, Danya, Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security Danya Ruttenberg (Ed.) page 54 (citing Reuven Kimelman, "The Ethics of National Power: Government and War from the Sources of Judaism", inPerspectives, Feb 1987, pp 10-11)
• ^ Kravitz, Leonard, "What is Crime?", in Crime and punishment in Jewish law: essays and responsa, Editors Walter Jacob, Moshe Zemer, Berghahn Books, 1999, p 31.
• ^ Ehrlich, Carl S., "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide" in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, BRILL, 1999, pp 121-122
• ^ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, New Academia Publishing, LLC, 2005, pp 17-18:

  "Discussing the influence of Christian beliefs on the destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas, Stannard argues that while the New Testament view of war is ambiguous, there is little such ambiguity in the Old Testament. He points to sections in Deuteronomy in which the Israelite God, Yahweh, commanded that the Israelites utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (Deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16-17). … According to Stannard, this view of war contributed to the .. destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas. It was this view that also led to the destruction of European Jewry. Accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the Old Testament: it not only describes a situation where a group undertakes to totally destroy other groups, but it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide."

• ^ ^{a b} Stroumsa, Gedaliahu G.. "Early Christianity as Radical Religion". In Ilai Alon, Ithamar Gruenwald, Itamar Singer. Concepts of the other in Near Eastern religions. p. 176.
• ^ ^{a b} War, A Catholic Dictionary: Containing some Account of the Doctrine, Discipline, Rites, Ceremonies, Councils, and Religious Orders of the Catholic Church, W. E Addis, T. Arnold, Revised T. B Scannell and P. E Hallett, 15th Edition, Virtue & Co, 1953, Nihil Obstat: Reginaldus Philips, Imprimatur: E. Morrogh Bernard, 2 October 1950, "In the Name of God : Violence and Destruction in the World's Religions", M. Jordan, 2006, p. 40
• ^ Barr, David L. (2006). The reality of Apocalypse: rhetoric and politics in the book of Revelation. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 127.
• ^ Orr, Edgar W. (1958). Christian pacifism. C.W. Daniel Co. p. 33.

Categories: Biblical criticism | Religion and violence | Religious controversies | Religious ethics | Religious law | Religious philosophy

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[giblets]

Jewish religious terrorism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Jewish terrorism)
Jewish religious terrorism is a type of religious terrorism committed by extremists of Judaism.^[1][2]
[edit] Terminology

Some researches on ethnic terrorism distinguish between ethnic terrorism and religious terrorism, but admit that the distinction between these forms of terrorism is often blurred in practice. Daniel Bymen, in his study on "The Logic of ethnic terrorism", argues that Jews operate far more as an ethnic group than as a community motivated by and organized according to religious doctrine. The author sees Jewish underground groups Irgun and Lehi as good examples of Jewish terrorism based on ethnic grounds.^[3][4]
[edit] History

[edit] Zealotry in the 1st century

Main article: Zealotry in Jewish history
According to Mark Burgess, the 1st century Jewish political and religious movement called Zealotry was one of the first examples of the use of terrorism by Jews.^[5] They sought to incite the people of Iudaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy land by force of arms. The term Zealot, in Hebrew kanai, means one who is zealous on behalf of God.^[6][7] The most extremist groups of Zealots were called Sicarii.^[5] Sicarii used violent stealth tactics against Romans. Under their cloaks they concealed sicae, or small daggers, from which they received their name. At popular assemblies, particularly during the pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, they stabbed their enemies (Romans or Roman sympathizers, Herodians), lamenting ostentatiously after the deed to blend into the crowd to escape detection. In one account, given in the Talmud, Sicarii destroyed the city's food supply so that the people would be forced to fight against the Roman siege instead of negotiating peace. Sicarii also raided Jewish habitations and killed fellow Jews whom they considered apostate and collaborators.
[edit] After the creation of Israel

According to a study by the political scientist Noemi Gal-Or shows that since the creation of Israel, Jewish terrorism has been assessed as "far less significant" than Arab terrorism.^[8] It lasted a few years during the 1950s and was directed at internal Israel-Jewish targets, not at the Israeli Arab population.^[8] There was then a long intermission until the 1980s, when the Jewish Underground was exposed.^[8]
It has been suggested that a striking similarity between the Jewish groups, and jihad networks in Western democracies is their alienation and isolation from the values of the majority, mainstream culture, which they view as an existential threat to their own community. Other similarities between these groups are that their terrorist ideology is not exclusively religious, as it attempts to achieve political, territorial and nationalistic goals as well, e.g. the disruption of the Camp David accords. However, the newer of these Jewish groups have tended to emphasise religious motives for their actions at the expense of secular ones. In the case of Jewish terrorism most networks consist of religious Zionists and ultra-orthodox Jews living in isolated, homogenous communities.^[9]
The following groups have been considered religious terrorist organizations in Israel:

• Brit HaKanaim (1950–53): an organization operating in Israel from 1950 to 1953 with the objective of imposing Jewish religious law in the country and establishing a Halakhic state.^[2]:33-36

• Gush Emunim Underground (1979–84): formed by members of the Israeli political movement Gush Emunim.^[10] This group is most well-known for two actions. Firstly, for bomb attacks on the mayors of West Bank cities on June 2nd 1980, and secondly, an abandoned plot to blow up the Temple Mount mosques. The Israeli Judge Zvi Cohen, heading the sentencing panel at the group’s trial, stated that they had three motives, ‘not necessarily shared by all the defendants. The first motive, at the heart of the Temple Mount conspiracy, is religious.’ ^[11]

• Keshet (Kvutza Shelo Titpasher) (1981–1989): A Tel Aviv anti-Zionist haredi group focused on bombing property without loss of life.^[12][13]:101 Yigal Marcus, Tel Aviv District Police commander, said that he considered the group a gang of criminals, not a terrorist group.^[14]

• The "Bat Ayin Underground" or Bat Ayin group. In 2002, four people from Bat Ayin and Hebron were arrested outside of Abu Tor School, a Palestinian girls' school in East Jerusalem, with a trailer filled with explosives. Three of the men were convicted for the attempted bombing.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]}

• Brit HaKanaim (Hebrew: בְּרִית הַקַנַאִים, lit. Covenant of the Zealots) was a radical religious Jewish underground organisation which operated in Israel between 1950 and 1953, against the widespread trend of secularisation in the country. The ultimate goal of the movement was to impose Jewish religious law in the State of Israel and establish a Halakhic state.^[22]

• The Kingdom of Israel group (Hebrew: מלכות ישראל, Malchut Yisrael), or Tzrifin Underground, were active in Israel in the 1950s. The group carried out attacks on the diplomatic facilities of the USSR and Czechoslovakia and occasionally shot at Jordanian troops stationed along the border in Jerusalem. Members of the group caught trying to bomb the Israeli Ministry of Education in May 1953, have been described as acting because of the secularisation of Jewish North African immigrants which they saw as 'a direct assault on the religious Jews' way of life and as an existential threat to the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.'^[23]

[edit] Individuals

A number of violent acts by Jews have been described as terrorism and attributed to religious motivations:

• Yaakov Teitel an American-born Israeli, was arrested in the aftermath of the 2009 Tel Aviv gay center shooting for putting up posters that praised the attack. Although Teitel confessed to the gay center shooting, Israeli police have determined he had no part in the attack.^[24] In 2009 Teitel was arrested and indicted for several acts of domestic terror, namely a pipe bomb attack against leftist intellectual Zeev Sternhell, the murders of a Palestinian taxi driver and a West Bank shepherd in 1997, and sending a booby-trapped package to the home of a Messianic Jewish family in Ariel.^[25][26][27] A search of his home revealed a cache of guns and parts used in explosive devices.^[28] As of January 2011, the case is still pending trial.^[29]
• Eden Natan-Zada killed four Israeli Arab civilians on August 4, 2005. His actions were criticized by then prime minister Ariel Sharon, as "a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist", and author Ami Pedhzer describes his motivations as religious.^[2]:134[30]
• Baruch Goldstein an American-born Israeli physician, perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, in which he shot and killed 29 Muslim worshipers inside the Ibrahimi Mosque (within the Cave of the Patriarchs), and wounded another 125 victims.^[31] Goldstein was killed by the survivors.^[32] Goldstein was a supporter of Kach, an Israeli political party founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In the aftermath of the Goldstein attack and Kach statements praising it, Kach was outlawed in Israel.^[33]
• Yigal Amir's assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995 has been described as terrorism with a religious motivation.^{[2]:98-110[34][35]} Amir was quoted as saying he had "acted alone and on orders from God." and that "If not for a Halakhic ruling of din rodef, made against Rabin by a few rabbis I knew about, it would have been very difficult for me to murder."^[13][36]:45 A former combat soldier who had studied Jewish law, Amir stated that his decision to kill the prime minister was influenced by the opinions of militant rabbis that such an assassination would be justified by the Halakhic ruling of din rodef ("pursuer's decree").^[36]:48 This concept allows for an immediate execution of a person if it saves Jewish life, although the characterization of Rabin as din rodef was rejected as a perversion of law by most rabbinic authorities.^[13]:255 According to Amir, allowing the Palestinian Authority to expand on the West Bank represented such a danger.^[36]:48Amir was associated with the radical Eyal movement, which had been greatly influenced by Kahanism.^[36]:53

[edit] See also

• Christian terrorism
• Islamic terrorism
• Judaism and violence
• Religious terrorism
• Religious violence
• Sikh extremism
• Zionist political violence

[edit] Footnotes

• ^ "Explaining Part 1: The Axis of Good and Evil." Section "Terrorism Across Religions." by Mark Burgess. Agentura.ru.
• ^ ^{a b c d} Pedahzur, Ami; Perliger, Arie (2009). Jewish terrorism in Israel. Columbia University Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-02-31-154468. "Our Jewish terrorism dataset consists of a list of terror incidents perpetrated by Jewish terrorists in Israel."
• ^ "The Logic of Terrorism" by Daniel Bymen. 1997. Pages 151, 155 and 157.
• ^ "Global terrorism" by James M. Lutz, Brenda J. Lutz. Walter. Page 127.]
• ^ ^{a b} Burgess, Mark. "A Brief History of Terrorism".
• ^ Zealot, Online Etymology Dictionary
• ^ Zelotes, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus
• ^ ^{a b c} Gal-or, Noemi (Editor). Tolerating Terrorism in the West: An International Survey. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 978-0-415-02441-9. p.61-62
• ^ [1], [Terrorism, Identity, and Legitimacy: The Four Waves Theory and Political Violence: Ed Jean Rosenfeld: Comparison of Jewish and other manifestations of religious terrorism: Ami Pedahzer and Arie Perliger: Pg 105-107]
• ^ For The Land and The Lord: The Evolution of Gush Emunim, by Ian S. Lustick
• ^ Ami Pedahzur, and Arie Perliger (2009). “Jewish Terrorism in Israel.Ch 3”, Columbia University Press, (2009)
• ^ Radical Orthodox Group Terrorizes Secular Israelis. Pittsburgh Press Feb 25, 1989
• ^ ^{a b c} Brother against brother: violence and extremism in Israeli politics Ehud Sprinzak, pg. 277
• ^ Critical essays on Israeli society, politics, and culture By Ian Lustick, Barry M. Rubin, Association for Israel Studies, p.71
• ^ [2], [Terrorism, Identity, and Legitimacy: The Four Waves Theory and Political Violence: Ed Jean Rosenfeld: Comparison of Jewish and other manifestations of religious terrorism: Ami Pedahzer and Arie Perliger: Pg 106]
• ^ [ http://www.haaretz.com/news/supreme-...round-1.206876], [Haaretz.com: Supreme Court rejects appeal of the 'Bat Ayin Underground': Yuval Yoaz ]
• ^ [ http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/...t.php?eid=2312], [Jewish terrorist group (Bat Ayin) attempts to blow up girls school in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of A-Tur: Palestine: Information with Provenance]
• ^ [ http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...rison-1.101613], [Haaretz.com: Bat Ayin terror cell members get 12 to 15 years in prison: Sun, August 07, 2011: Jonathan Lis]
• ^ [ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...view/2_hi.html], Israel’s Next War: CHAPTER TWO: A Plot That Shocked All of Israel: Members of a terror cell in the settlement of Bat Ayin are caught trying to bomb a girls' school in East Jerusalem at the busiest time in the morning
• ^ [ http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Featur...e.aspx?id=3702], [Acts of Jewish terrorism since 1949: 11/03/2005: Matthew Gutman]
• ^ [3], [Jewish Terrorism in Israel: Monday January 11, 2010: Palestine Center Book Review No 1 : 11 January 2010: "Jewish Terrorism in Israel" written by Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger Hardcover: 264 pages, Columbia University Press November 9, 2009:]
• ^ Pedahzur, Ami, and Arie Perliger (2009). “Jewish Terrorism in Israel.pg 33-37”, Columbia University Press, (2009)
• ^ Pedahzur, Ami, and Arie Perliger (2009). “Jewish Terrorism in Israel.pg 31-33”, Columbia University Press, (2009)
• ^ James, Randy (3 November 2009). "Accused Jewish Terrorist Jack Teitel". Time. http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...934103,00.html. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
• ^ Weiss, Mark (2 November 2009). "Israeli police arrest West Bank settler over Palestinian killings". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
• ^ Mitchell, Chris (6 November 2009). "Suspect Arrest Announced in Ami Ortiz Case". CBN News. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
• ^ Levinson, Chaim (1 November 2009). "Who is suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel?". Haaretz. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
• ^
  • "Settler suspected of multiple hate crimes". Ynetnews. 1 November 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
  • [4] (in Hebrew)
• ^ http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...017400,00.html
• ^ [5] Washington Post, 5 August 2005
• ^ Harvey W. Kushner. Encyclopedia of Terrorism, SAGE Publications, 2003, ISBN 9780761924081, p. 150.
• ^ 1994: Jewish settler kills 30 at holy site BBC On This Day
• ^ In the Spotlight: Kach and Kahane Chai Center for Defense Information October 1, 2002
• ^ Stern, Jessica (2004). Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. HarperCollins. p. 91. ISBN 0060505338,.
• ^
  • Mahan, Sue; Griset, Pamala, Terrorism in Perspective, SAGE, 2007, pp 137, 138
  • Mickolus, Edward, The terrorist list: A-K, ABC-CLIO, 2009, p 66
  • Hoffman, Bruce Inside Terrorism 1998 pg. 88
• ^ ^{a b c d} Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.

[edit] References

• Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence, University of California Press, 2003
• Pedahzur, Ami; Perliger, Arie, Jewish terrorism in Israel, Columbia University Press, 2009
• Sprinzak, Ehud, Brother against brother: violence and extremism in Israeli politics from Altalena to the Rabin assassination, Simon and Schuster, 1999
• Stern, Jessica, Terror in the name of God: why religious militants kill, HarperCollins, 2003

Categories: Jewish terrorism | Arab–Israeli conflict

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[giblets]

Christian terrorism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who claim Christian motivations or goals for their actions. As with other forms of religious terrorism, Christian terrorists have relied on idiosyncratic or literal interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case, the Bible. Such groups have used Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to justify violence and killing or to seek to bring about the "end times" described in the New Testament,^[1] while others have hoped to bring about a Christian theocracy.^[2][3]
[edit] By country

[edit] England

The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches.^[4] The Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. Peter Steinfels characterizes this plot as a notable case of religious terrorism.^[5]
The Irish Republican Army regarded bombing English targets as militarily and symbolic. They were responsible for attacks in England over decades, starting in 1939, and then a new campaign commenced after Bloody Sunday in 1972.^{[6][relevant? – discuss]}
[edit] Northern Ireland

Main article: The Troubles
Some scholars, such as Steve Bruce, a sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, argue that the conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily a religious conflict, its economic and social considerations notwithstanding.^[7] Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has also argued that some acts of terrorism were "religious terrorism... - in these cases, Christianity".^[8]:19-20 Others, such as John Hickey, take a more guarded view.^[9] Writing in The Guardian, Susan McKay discussed religious fundamentalism in connection with the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison and a reporter on crime and the paramilitaries. She attributed the murder to a "range of reasons," including "the gangsters didn't like what he wrote". The alleged killers claimed that they killed him for "crimes against the loyalist people".^[10]
The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches.^[11]
In 1999 Pastor Clifford Peeples of the Bethel Pentecostal Church was convicted of offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and sentenced to ten years imprisonment after being found in possession of hand grenades and a pipe bomb intended for use against Catholics.^[12] Pastor John Somerville, an associate of Peeples, had previously been convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and had received a life sentence for his part in the Miami Showband massacre.^[13] RUC chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan dubbed Peeples and his associates "the demon pastors" – specialising in recounting lurid stories of Catholic savagery towards Protestants, and in finding biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation.^[10] Other notable individuals convicted for terrorism offences include Pastor Kenny McClinton, a convicted murderer who once advocated beheading Roman Catholics and impaling their heads on railings, and Billy Wright, a Born again Christian preacher who became one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland before being assassinated whilst incarcerated in prison.^[14]
[edit] India

[edit] Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India, has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs. ^[15] It is classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, and has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity.^[16][17] The insurgency in Nagaland was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), and it is continued today by a faction named "NSCN–Isaac Muivah", which explicitly calls for a "Nagalim for Christ".^[18] The state government reports that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT.^[16][17][19] In April 2000, the secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested with a large quantity of explosives. He confessed to illegally buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for two years.^[20][19] The NLFT has threatened to kill Hindus celebrating the annual five-day religious festival of Durga Puja and other religious celebrations.^[21] At least 20 Hindus in Tripura have been killed by the NLFT in two years for resisting forced conversion to Christianity.^[22] A leader of the Jamatia tribe, Rampada Jamatia, said that armed NLFT militants were forcibly converting tribal villagers to Christianity, which he said was a serious threat to Hinduism.^[22] It is believed that up to 5,000 tribal villagers were converted to Christianity by the NLFT in two years.^[22]
In August 2000, a tribal Hindu spiritual leader, Shanti Tripura, was shot dead by about ten guerrillas belonging to the NLFT who said it wanted to convert all people in the state to Christianity.^[23] In December 2000, Labh Kumar Jamatia, a religious leader of the state's second largest Hindu group, was kidnapped by the NLFT, and found dead in a forest in Dalak village in southern Tripura. According to police, rebels from the NLFT wanted Jamatia to convert to Christianity, but he refused.^[24] A local Marxist tribal leader, Kishore Debbarma, was clubbed to death in Tripura's Sadar (north) by militants belonging to the Biswamohan faction of the NLFT in May 2005.^[25] He was dragged away at gunpoint by a group of NLFT militants. His body was found with multiple head injuries in a roadside ditch in the Katabon area.
[edit] Assam

In Assam, the Manmasi National Christian Army (MNCA), an extremist group from the Hmar tribe, were charged with forcing Hindus to convert at gunpoint.^[26] Seven or more Hmar youths were charged with visiting Bhuvan Pahar, a Hindu village, armed with guns, and pressuring residents to convert to Christianity.^[27] They also desecrated temples by painting crosses on the walls with their blood.^[27] The Sonai police, along with the 5th Assam Rifles, arrested 13 members of the MNCA, including their commander-in-chief. Guns and ammunition were seized.^[27][28]
[edit] Orissa

See also: Religious violence in Orissa
In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, accused Radhakant Nayak, chief of a local chapter of World Vision, and a former Rajya Sabha member from Orissa in the Indian National Congress party, of plotting to assassinate him.^[29] The Swami also said that World Vision was covertly pumping money into India for religious conversion during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and criticized the activities of Christian missionaries as going against tribal beliefs.^[30] In 2008, he was gunned down along with four disciples on the Hindu festive day of Krishna Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men.^[31] Later, Maoist terrorist leader Sabyasachi Panda admitted responsibility for the assassination, saying that the Maoists had intervened in the religious dispute on behalf of Christians and Dalits.^[32][33] The non-governmental organization Justice on Trial disputed that there had been Maoist involvement, and quoted the Swami as claiming that Christian missionaries had earlier attacked him eight times.^[34][35]
[edit] Norway

Main article: 2011 Norway attacks
In July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik was arrested and charged with terrorism after a car bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting on Utøya island.^[36] Subsequent news reports have noted Breivik's self-description as a "Christian crusader" who believed that Muslim immigrants were undermining Norway's traditional Christian values.^[37] Analyses of his motivations have recognized a complex interplay of Christian terrorist inclinations with non-religious, right-wing beliefs.^[38][39][40] Some commentators have stated that the events were unambiguously Christian terrorism,^[41][42] whereas others have rejected the Christian terrorist label.^[43]
[edit] Romania

Orthodox Christian movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, which have been characterized by Yad Vashem and Stanley G. Payne as anti-semitic and fascist, respectively, were responsible for involvement in the Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.^{[44][45][46][47](p37)[48]}
[edit] Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters, and sex slaves.^[49] A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian and Islamic beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism,^[50][51] it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.^{[page needed][52][52][53][54]} LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.^{[55][56][57][dead link][58][59][60]}
[edit] United States

See also: Anti-abortion violence in the United States

Ku Klux Klan with a burning cross



The End. Victoriously slaying Catholic influence in the U.S. Illustration by Rev. Branford Clarke from Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty 1926 by Bishop Alma White published by the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, NJ.


Beginning after the Civil War, members of the Protestant-led,^[61] Ku Klux Klan organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
They were explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. ^[62] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to, "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first Klansman."^[63] Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of prayers and singing of Christian hymns. ^[64] Many modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, asserting that there is a "war" on to destroy "western Christian civilization." ^[65]
During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.^[66][67][68] A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ.^[69] A group called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven."^[70][71] The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and immoral, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.^[72][73] The Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub, were made by Eric Robert Rudolph; Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist, whereas James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues instead that Rudolph was inspired only in part by religious considerations.^[74]
Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.^[75] Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and what Al-Khattar called "the Christian militia that supported Timothy McVeigh", as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component".^[76] However, some^[who?] claim that McVeigh himself was not a Christian, including McVeigh himself.^{[citation needed]}
In a 2005 Congressional hearing about radicalization in U.S. prisons, Sheila Jackson Lee stated that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they might try to "bring down the country."^[77]
[edit] Motivation, ideology, and theology

See also: Anti-abortion violence, Christian Patriot movement, and Christian Identity movement
Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada.^{[citation needed]}
Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts that North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.^{[78][79][80][81]}
[edit] See also

• Christianism
• Christianity and violence
• Hate groups
• Islamic terrorism
• Religious war
• Sikh extremism

[edit] References

• ^ B. Hoffman, "Inside Terrorism", Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 105–120.
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer (2010-04-15). "The Return of Christian Terrorism". AlterNet. Retrieved 20011-02-21.
• ^ The Reformation in England and Scotland and Ireland: The Reformation Period & Ireland under Elizabeth I, Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• ^ Peter Steinfels (2005-11-05). "A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism". New York Times.
• ^ The IRA campaigns in England, BBC, 4 March, 2001
• ^
  The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality.
  
  Steve Bruce (1986). God Save Ulster. Oxford University Press. p. 249. ISBN 0192852175.^:249 Reviewing the book, David Harkness of The English Historical Review agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious". David Harkness (1989-10). "God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism by Steve Bruce (review)". The English Historical Review (Oxford University Press) 104 (413).
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.
  "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity" and "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant."
  
• ^
  Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain.John Hickey (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem. Gill and Macmillan. p. 67. ISBN 0717111156.
  
• ^ ^{a b} Susan McKay (2001-11-17). "Faith, hate and murder". London: The Guardian.
• ^ Claire Mitchell (2006). Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. p. 51. ISBN 0754641554.
• ^ "Self-styled loyalist pastor jailed". BBC News. 2001-03-08.
• ^ Ciaran McGuigan (2005-06-12). "Bomb preacher flees UVF mob". Belfast Telegraph.
• ^ Martin Dillon. God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism. Routledge. ISBN 0415923638.
• ^ Adam, de Cordier, Titeca, and Vlassenroot (2007). "In the Name of the Father? Christian Militantism in Tripura, Northern Uganda, and Ambon". Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30: 963. doi:10.1080/10576100701611288.
• ^ ^{a b} "Constitution of National Liberation Front Of Tripura". South Asia Terrorism Portal.
• ^ ^{a b} "National Liberation Front of Tripura, India". South Asia Terrorism Portal.
• ^ http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countr...ts/Nscn_im.htm
• ^ ^{a b} Bhaumik, Subhir (April 18, 2000). "'Church backing Tripura rebels'". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-08-26.
• ^ "Church backing Tripura rebels". BBC News. 2000-04-18.
• ^ "Separatist group bans Hindu festivities". BBC News. 2000-10-02.
• ^ ^{a b c} http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/aug/02trip.htm
• ^ "Hindu preacher killed by Tripura rebels". BBC News. 2000-08-28.
• ^ "Tripura tribal leader killed". BBC News. 2000-12-27.
• ^ http://www.telegraphindia.com/105051...ry_4747409.asp
• ^ Christianity threat looms over Bhuvan Pahar Assam Times - June 23, 2009
• ^ ^{a b c} http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...jun2309/State3
• ^ http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/stats/
• ^ http://www.dailypioneer.com/61677/RS...Kandhamal.html
• ^ http://www.newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=3557
• ^ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ne...urder/403507/0
• ^ http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/05orissa1.htm
• ^ The Times Of India. http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...eaders-maoists.
• ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/st...O/1/14653.html
• ^ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/mod...pid=255&page=4
• ^ "Scores killed in Norway attack". BBC (UK). 23 July 2011. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
• ^ Schwirtz, Michael (August 14, 2011). "Suspect in Norway Reconstructs Killings for Police". New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Washington, Jesse (July 31, 2011). "'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate". Associated Press. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Sheppard, Robert (July 24, 2011). "Norway's shooter: Delusional loner or far-right conspirator?". CBC News. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Thistlethwaite, Susan Brooks (July 25, 2011). "When Christianity becomes lethal". Washington Post. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Juergensmeyer, Mark (July 24, 2011). "Is Norway's Suspected Murderer Anders Breivik a Christian Terrorist?". Religious Dispatches Magazine. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Reynolds, John Mark (July 28, 2011). "Breivik betrays Christianity". Washington Post.
• ^ Hirschfield, Brad (July 29, 2011). "Breivik a Christian, terrorist but not 'Christian terrorist'". Washington Post. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Paul Tinichigiu (2004-01). "Sami Fiul (interview)". The Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation.
• ^ Radu Ioanid (2004). "The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5 (3): 419–453(35). doi:10.1080/1469076042000312203.
• ^ Leon Volovici. Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism. p. 98. ISBN 0080410243. "citing N. Cainic, Ortodoxie şi etnocraţie, pp. 162–4"
• ^ "Roots of Romanian Antisemitism: The League of National Christian Defense and Iron Guard Antisemitism" (PDF). Background and precursors to the Holocaust (Yad Vashem – The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority).
• ^ Payne, Stanley G. (1995). A History of Fascism 1914–1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press (pp. 277–289) ISBN 0-299-14874-2
• ^ Xan Rice (2007-10-20). "Background: the Lord's Resistance Army". London: The Guardian.
• ^ Marc Lacey (2002-08-04). "Uganda's Terror Crackdown Multiplies the Suffering". New York Times.
• ^ [1] The scars of death: children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda By Human Rights Watch/Africa 1997 page 72
• ^ ^{a b} Ruddy Doom and Koen Vlassenroot (1999). "Kony's message: A new Koine? The Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda". African Affairs (Oxford Journals / Royal African Society) 98 (390): 5–36.
• ^ "Ugandan rebels raid Sudanese villages". BBC News. 2002-04-08. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
• ^ K. Ward (2001). "The Armies of the Lord: Christianity, Rebels and the State in Northern Uganda, 1986–1999". Journal of Religion in Africa 31 (2).
• ^ Marc Lacey (2002-08-04). "Uganda's Terror Crackdown Multiplies the Suffering". New York Times.
• ^ "In pictures: Ugandan rebels come home". BBC News. Retrieved 2010-01-02. "One of the differences on the LRA pips is a white bible inside a heart"
• ^ David Blair (2005-08-03). "I killed so many I lost count, says boy, 11". London: The Telegraph.
• ^ Matthew Green (2008-02-08). "Africa’s Most Wanted". Financial Times.
• ^ Christina Lamb (2008-03-02). "The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted by Matthew Green". London: The Times.
• ^ Marc Lacey (2005-04-18). "Atrocity Victims in Uganda Choose to Forgive". New York Times.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30, 55, 91.
• ^ Michael, Robert, and Philip Rosen. Dictionary of antisemitism from the earliest times to the present. Lanham, Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Press, 1997 p. 267.
• ^ Wade, Wyn Craig (1998). The fiery cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 185. Retrieved May 3, 2011.
• ^ Robb, Thomas. [2] "The Knights Party, USA." Accessed March 22, 2011
• ^ Frederick Clarkson (2002-12-02). "Kopp Lays Groundwork to Justify Murdering Abortion Provider Slepian". National Organization for Women.
• ^ Laurie Goodstein and Pierre Thomas (1995-01-17). "Clinic Killings Follow Years of Antiabortion Violence". Washington Post.
• ^ "'Army Of God' Anthrax Threats". CBS News. 2001-11-09.
• ^ Bruce Hoffman (1998). Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231114680.
• ^ "Apocalyptic Christians detained in Israel for alleged violence plot". CNN. 1999-01-03.^{[dead link]}
• ^ "Cult members deported from Israel". BBC News. 1999-01-09. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
• ^ "George Tiller's killer has no regrets, doesn't ask for forgiveness". Houston Belief. 1999-02-09. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
• ^ Davey, Monica (January 28, 2010). "Doctor’s Killer Puts Abortion on the Stand". New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
• ^ Cooperman, Alan (June 2, 2003). "Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect? Religion May Have Motivated Bombing: Suspect". Washington Post. Retrieved August 10, 2011. ""Based on what we know of Rudolph so far, and admittedly it's fragmentary, there seems to be a fairly high likelihood that he can legitimately be called a Christian terrorist," said Michael Barkun, a professor of political science at Syracuse University who has been a consultant to the FBI on Christian extremist groups."
• ^ "US 'Christian militants' charged after FBI raids " BBC, March 30, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30.
• ^ Ms Jackson Lee, questions Dunleavy, he refers to Christian militants as Ideologue.
• ^ Mark S. Hamm (2001). In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground. Northeastern. ISBN 1555534929.
• ^ James Alfred Aho (1995). The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism. University of Washington Press. p. 86. ISBN 029597494X.
• ^ Alan Cooperman (2003-06-02). "Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect?". Washington Post.
• ^ Martin Schönteich and Henri Boshoff (2003). 'Volk' Faith and Fatherland: The Security Threat Posed by the White Right. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. ISBN 1919913300.

[edit] Bibliography

• Mason, Carol. 2002. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement, [booklet]. Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.
• Al-Khattar, Aref M. Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Greenwood. January 2003. ISBN 978-0275969233

[edit] Further reading

• Robert Spencer (author) Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, Regnery Publishing, 2007, ISBN 1-59698-515-1
• Rodney Stark God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, HarperOne, 2010,

Categories: Christian terrorism | Anti-abortion violence in the United States | Religiously motivated violence in the United States | Christianity-related controversies | Christianity and violence

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[giblets]

Christian terrorism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who claim Christian motivations or goals for their actions. As with other forms of religious terrorism, Christian terrorists have relied on idiosyncratic or literal interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case, the Bible. Such groups have used Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to justify violence and killing or to seek to bring about the "end times" described in the New Testament,^[1] while others have hoped to bring about a Christian theocracy.^[2][3]
[edit] By country

[edit] England

The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches.^[4] The Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. Peter Steinfels characterizes this plot as a notable case of religious terrorism.^[5]
The Irish Republican Army regarded bombing English targets as militarily and symbolic. They were responsible for attacks in England over decades, starting in 1939, and then a new campaign commenced after Bloody Sunday in 1972.^{[6][relevant? – discuss]}
[edit] Northern Ireland

Main article: The Troubles
Some scholars, such as Steve Bruce, a sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, argue that the conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily a religious conflict, its economic and social considerations notwithstanding.^[7] Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has also argued that some acts of terrorism were "religious terrorism... - in these cases, Christianity".^[8]:19-20 Others, such as John Hickey, take a more guarded view.^[9] Writing in The Guardian, Susan McKay discussed religious fundamentalism in connection with the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison and a reporter on crime and the paramilitaries. She attributed the murder to a "range of reasons," including "the gangsters didn't like what he wrote". The alleged killers claimed that they killed him for "crimes against the loyalist people".^[10]
The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches.^[11]
In 1999 Pastor Clifford Peeples of the Bethel Pentecostal Church was convicted of offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and sentenced to ten years imprisonment after being found in possession of hand grenades and a pipe bomb intended for use against Catholics.^[12] Pastor John Somerville, an associate of Peeples, had previously been convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and had received a life sentence for his part in the Miami Showband massacre.^[13] RUC chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan dubbed Peeples and his associates "the demon pastors" – specialising in recounting lurid stories of Catholic savagery towards Protestants, and in finding biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation.^[10] Other notable individuals convicted for terrorism offences include Pastor Kenny McClinton, a convicted murderer who once advocated beheading Roman Catholics and impaling their heads on railings, and Billy Wright, a Born again Christian preacher who became one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland before being assassinated whilst incarcerated in prison.^[14]
[edit] India

[edit] Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India, has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs. ^[15] It is classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, and has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity.^[16][17] The insurgency in Nagaland was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), and it is continued today by a faction named "NSCN–Isaac Muivah", which explicitly calls for a "Nagalim for Christ".^[18] The state government reports that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT.^[16][17][19] In April 2000, the secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested with a large quantity of explosives. He confessed to illegally buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for two years.^[20][19] The NLFT has threatened to kill Hindus celebrating the annual five-day religious festival of Durga Puja and other religious celebrations.^[21] At least 20 Hindus in Tripura have been killed by the NLFT in two years for resisting forced conversion to Christianity.^[22] A leader of the Jamatia tribe, Rampada Jamatia, said that armed NLFT militants were forcibly converting tribal villagers to Christianity, which he said was a serious threat to Hinduism.^[22] It is believed that up to 5,000 tribal villagers were converted to Christianity by the NLFT in two years.^[22]
In August 2000, a tribal Hindu spiritual leader, Shanti Tripura, was shot dead by about ten guerrillas belonging to the NLFT who said it wanted to convert all people in the state to Christianity.^[23] In December 2000, Labh Kumar Jamatia, a religious leader of the state's second largest Hindu group, was kidnapped by the NLFT, and found dead in a forest in Dalak village in southern Tripura. According to police, rebels from the NLFT wanted Jamatia to convert to Christianity, but he refused.^[24] A local Marxist tribal leader, Kishore Debbarma, was clubbed to death in Tripura's Sadar (north) by militants belonging to the Biswamohan faction of the NLFT in May 2005.^[25] He was dragged away at gunpoint by a group of NLFT militants. His body was found with multiple head injuries in a roadside ditch in the Katabon area.
[edit] Assam

In Assam, the Manmasi National Christian Army (MNCA), an extremist group from the Hmar tribe, were charged with forcing Hindus to convert at gunpoint.^[26] Seven or more Hmar youths were charged with visiting Bhuvan Pahar, a Hindu village, armed with guns, and pressuring residents to convert to Christianity.^[27] They also desecrated temples by painting crosses on the walls with their blood.^[27] The Sonai police, along with the 5th Assam Rifles, arrested 13 members of the MNCA, including their commander-in-chief. Guns and ammunition were seized.^[27][28]
[edit] Orissa

See also: Religious violence in Orissa
In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, accused Radhakant Nayak, chief of a local chapter of World Vision, and a former Rajya Sabha member from Orissa in the Indian National Congress party, of plotting to assassinate him.^[29] The Swami also said that World Vision was covertly pumping money into India for religious conversion during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and criticized the activities of Christian missionaries as going against tribal beliefs.^[30] In 2008, he was gunned down along with four disciples on the Hindu festive day of Krishna Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men.^[31] Later, Maoist terrorist leader Sabyasachi Panda admitted responsibility for the assassination, saying that the Maoists had intervened in the religious dispute on behalf of Christians and Dalits.^[32][33] The non-governmental organization Justice on Trial disputed that there had been Maoist involvement, and quoted the Swami as claiming that Christian missionaries had earlier attacked him eight times.^[34][35]
[edit] Norway

Main article: 2011 Norway attacks
In July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik was arrested and charged with terrorism after a car bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting on Utøya island.^[36] Subsequent news reports have noted Breivik's self-description as a "Christian crusader" who believed that Muslim immigrants were undermining Norway's traditional Christian values.^[37] Analyses of his motivations have recognized a complex interplay of Christian terrorist inclinations with non-religious, right-wing beliefs.^[38][39][40] Some commentators have stated that the events were unambiguously Christian terrorism,^[41][42] whereas others have rejected the Christian terrorist label.^[43]
[edit] Romania

Orthodox Christian movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, which have been characterized by Yad Vashem and Stanley G. Payne as anti-semitic and fascist, respectively, were responsible for involvement in the Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.^{[44][45][46][47](p37)[48]}
[edit] Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters, and sex slaves.^[49] A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian and Islamic beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism,^[50][51] it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.^{[page needed][52][52][53][54]} LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.^{[55][56][57][dead link][58][59][60]}
[edit] United States

See also: Anti-abortion violence in the United States

Ku Klux Klan with a burning cross



The End. Victoriously slaying Catholic influence in the U.S. Illustration by Rev. Branford Clarke from Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty 1926 by Bishop Alma White published by the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, NJ.


Beginning after the Civil War, members of the Protestant-led,^[61] Ku Klux Klan organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
They were explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. ^[62] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to, "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first Klansman."^[63] Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of prayers and singing of Christian hymns. ^[64] Many modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, asserting that there is a "war" on to destroy "western Christian civilization." ^[65]
During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.^[66][67][68] A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ.^[69] A group called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven."^[70][71] The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and immoral, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.^[72][73] The Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub, were made by Eric Robert Rudolph; Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist, whereas James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues instead that Rudolph was inspired only in part by religious considerations.^[74]
Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.^[75] Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and what Al-Khattar called "the Christian militia that supported Timothy McVeigh", as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component".^[76] However, some^[who?] claim that McVeigh himself was not a Christian, including McVeigh himself.^{[citation needed]}
In a 2005 Congressional hearing about radicalization in U.S. prisons, Sheila Jackson Lee stated that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they might try to "bring down the country."^[77]
[edit] Motivation, ideology, and theology

See also: Anti-abortion violence, Christian Patriot movement, and Christian Identity movement
Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada.^{[citation needed]}
Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts that North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.^{[78][79][80][81]}
[edit] See also

• Christianism
• Christianity and violence
• Hate groups
• Islamic terrorism
• Religious war
• Sikh extremism

[edit] References

• ^ B. Hoffman, "Inside Terrorism", Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 105–120.
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer (2010-04-15). "The Return of Christian Terrorism". AlterNet. Retrieved 20011-02-21.
• ^ The Reformation in England and Scotland and Ireland: The Reformation Period & Ireland under Elizabeth I, Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• ^ Peter Steinfels (2005-11-05). "A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism". New York Times.
• ^ The IRA campaigns in England, BBC, 4 March, 2001
• ^
  The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality.
  
  Steve Bruce (1986). God Save Ulster. Oxford University Press. p. 249. ISBN 0192852175.^:249 Reviewing the book, David Harkness of The English Historical Review agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious". David Harkness (1989-10). "God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism by Steve Bruce (review)". The English Historical Review (Oxford University Press) 104 (413).
• ^ Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0520240111.
  "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity" and "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant."
  
• ^
  Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain.John Hickey (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem. Gill and Macmillan. p. 67. ISBN 0717111156.
  
• ^ ^{a b} Susan McKay (2001-11-17). "Faith, hate and murder". London: The Guardian.
• ^ Claire Mitchell (2006). Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. p. 51. ISBN 0754641554.
• ^ "Self-styled loyalist pastor jailed". BBC News. 2001-03-08.
• ^ Ciaran McGuigan (2005-06-12). "Bomb preacher flees UVF mob". Belfast Telegraph.
• ^ Martin Dillon. God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism. Routledge. ISBN 0415923638.
• ^ Adam, de Cordier, Titeca, and Vlassenroot (2007). "In the Name of the Father? Christian Militantism in Tripura, Northern Uganda, and Ambon". Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30: 963. doi:10.1080/10576100701611288.
• ^ ^{a b} "Constitution of National Liberation Front Of Tripura". South Asia Terrorism Portal.
• ^ ^{a b} "National Liberation Front of Tripura, India". South Asia Terrorism Portal.
• ^ http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countr...ts/Nscn_im.htm
• ^ ^{a b} Bhaumik, Subhir (April 18, 2000). "'Church backing Tripura rebels'". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-08-26.
• ^ "Church backing Tripura rebels". BBC News. 2000-04-18.
• ^ "Separatist group bans Hindu festivities". BBC News. 2000-10-02.
• ^ ^{a b c} http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/aug/02trip.htm
• ^ "Hindu preacher killed by Tripura rebels". BBC News. 2000-08-28.
• ^ "Tripura tribal leader killed". BBC News. 2000-12-27.
• ^ http://www.telegraphindia.com/105051...ry_4747409.asp
• ^ Christianity threat looms over Bhuvan Pahar Assam Times - June 23, 2009
• ^ ^{a b c} http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...jun2309/State3
• ^ http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/stats/
• ^ http://www.dailypioneer.com/61677/RS...Kandhamal.html
• ^ http://www.newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=3557
• ^ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ne...urder/403507/0
• ^ http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/05orissa1.htm
• ^ The Times Of India. http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...eaders-maoists.
• ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/st...O/1/14653.html
• ^ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/mod...pid=255&page=4
• ^ "Scores killed in Norway attack". BBC (UK). 23 July 2011. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
• ^ Schwirtz, Michael (August 14, 2011). "Suspect in Norway Reconstructs Killings for Police". New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Washington, Jesse (July 31, 2011). "'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate". Associated Press. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Sheppard, Robert (July 24, 2011). "Norway's shooter: Delusional loner or far-right conspirator?". CBC News. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Thistlethwaite, Susan Brooks (July 25, 2011). "When Christianity becomes lethal". Washington Post. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Juergensmeyer, Mark (July 24, 2011). "Is Norway's Suspected Murderer Anders Breivik a Christian Terrorist?". Religious Dispatches Magazine. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Reynolds, John Mark (July 28, 2011). "Breivik betrays Christianity". Washington Post.
• ^ Hirschfield, Brad (July 29, 2011). "Breivik a Christian, terrorist but not 'Christian terrorist'". Washington Post. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
• ^ Paul Tinichigiu (2004-01). "Sami Fiul (interview)". The Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation.
• ^ Radu Ioanid (2004). "The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5 (3): 419–453(35). doi:10.1080/1469076042000312203.
• ^ Leon Volovici. Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism. p. 98. ISBN 0080410243. "citing N. Cainic, Ortodoxie şi etnocraţie, pp. 162–4"
• ^ "Roots of Romanian Antisemitism: The League of National Christian Defense and Iron Guard Antisemitism" (PDF). Background and precursors to the Holocaust (Yad Vashem – The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority).
• ^ Payne, Stanley G. (1995). A History of Fascism 1914–1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press (pp. 277–289) ISBN 0-299-14874-2
• ^ Xan Rice (2007-10-20). "Background: the Lord's Resistance Army". London: The Guardian.
• ^ Marc Lacey (2002-08-04). "Uganda's Terror Crackdown Multiplies the Suffering". New York Times.
• ^ [1] The scars of death: children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda By Human Rights Watch/Africa 1997 page 72
• ^ ^{a b} Ruddy Doom and Koen Vlassenroot (1999). "Kony's message: A new Koine? The Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda". African Affairs (Oxford Journals / Royal African Society) 98 (390): 5–36.
• ^ "Ugandan rebels raid Sudanese villages". BBC News. 2002-04-08. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
• ^ K. Ward (2001). "The Armies of the Lord: Christianity, Rebels and the State in Northern Uganda, 1986–1999". Journal of Religion in Africa 31 (2).
• ^ Marc Lacey (2002-08-04). "Uganda's Terror Crackdown Multiplies the Suffering". New York Times.
• ^ "In pictures: Ugandan rebels come home". BBC News. Retrieved 2010-01-02. "One of the differences on the LRA pips is a white bible inside a heart"
• ^ David Blair (2005-08-03). "I killed so many I lost count, says boy, 11". London: The Telegraph.
• ^ Matthew Green (2008-02-08). "Africa’s Most Wanted". Financial Times.
• ^ Christina Lamb (2008-03-02). "The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted by Matthew Green". London: The Times.
• ^ Marc Lacey (2005-04-18). "Atrocity Victims in Uganda Choose to Forgive". New York Times.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30, 55, 91.
• ^ Michael, Robert, and Philip Rosen. Dictionary of antisemitism from the earliest times to the present. Lanham, Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Press, 1997 p. 267.
• ^ Wade, Wyn Craig (1998). The fiery cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 185. Retrieved May 3, 2011.
• ^ Robb, Thomas. [2] "The Knights Party, USA." Accessed March 22, 2011
• ^ Frederick Clarkson (2002-12-02). "Kopp Lays Groundwork to Justify Murdering Abortion Provider Slepian". National Organization for Women.
• ^ Laurie Goodstein and Pierre Thomas (1995-01-17). "Clinic Killings Follow Years of Antiabortion Violence". Washington Post.
• ^ "'Army Of God' Anthrax Threats". CBS News. 2001-11-09.
• ^ Bruce Hoffman (1998). Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231114680.
• ^ "Apocalyptic Christians detained in Israel for alleged violence plot". CNN. 1999-01-03.^{[dead link]}
• ^ "Cult members deported from Israel". BBC News. 1999-01-09. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
• ^ "George Tiller's killer has no regrets, doesn't ask for forgiveness". Houston Belief. 1999-02-09. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
• ^ Davey, Monica (January 28, 2010). "Doctor’s Killer Puts Abortion on the Stand". New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
• ^ Cooperman, Alan (June 2, 2003). "Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect? Religion May Have Motivated Bombing: Suspect". Washington Post. Retrieved August 10, 2011. ""Based on what we know of Rudolph so far, and admittedly it's fragmentary, there seems to be a fairly high likelihood that he can legitimately be called a Christian terrorist," said Michael Barkun, a professor of political science at Syracuse University who has been a consultant to the FBI on Christian extremist groups."
• ^ "US 'Christian militants' charged after FBI raids " BBC, March 30, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
• ^ Al-Khattar, Aref M. (2003). Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 21, 30.
• ^ Ms Jackson Lee, questions Dunleavy, he refers to Christian militants as Ideologue.
• ^ Mark S. Hamm (2001). In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground. Northeastern. ISBN 1555534929.
• ^ James Alfred Aho (1995). The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism. University of Washington Press. p. 86. ISBN 029597494X.
• ^ Alan Cooperman (2003-06-02). "Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect?". Washington Post.
• ^ Martin Schönteich and Henri Boshoff (2003). 'Volk' Faith and Fatherland: The Security Threat Posed by the White Right. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. ISBN 1919913300.

[edit] Bibliography

• Mason, Carol. 2002. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement, [booklet]. Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.
• Al-Khattar, Aref M. Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Greenwood. January 2003. ISBN 978-0275969233

[edit] Further reading

• Robert Spencer (author) Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, Regnery Publishing, 2007, ISBN 1-59698-515-1
• Rodney Stark God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, HarperOne, 2010,

Categories: Christian terrorism | Anti-abortion violence in the United States | Religiously motivated violence in the United States | Christianity-related controversies | Christianity and violence

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[giblets]

The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ^[1] against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.^[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

[Docfeelgood]

Jewish terrorism has been assessed as "far less significant" than Arab terrorism.[8] It lasted a few years during the 1950s and was directed at internal Israel-Jewish targets, not at the Israeli Arab population.

.

[Asher]

According to a Jewish professor at a Tel Aviv university.

[Docfeelgood]

According to a Jewish professor at a Tel Aviv university.

Noemi Gal-Or (B.A., Tel Aviv University, Ph.D., Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, LL.B. University of British Columbia, Vancouver) is Director of the Institute for Transborder Studies (ITS) and professor at the Department of Political Science, Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She has published extensively in matters of security and strategic studies (specifically terrorism), international law (trade & investment, dispute settlement, humanitarian law, terrorism, and conflict resolution), international political economy and regional integration (cross-border integration, EU, NAFTA, FTAA), public policy, and migration. She consulted the Solicitor General of Canada and the Government of Israel in some of these areas. Prof. Gal-Or serves as member of the editorial board of The Journal of Conflict Studies, Centre for Conflict Studies, University of New Brunswick, and is manuscript referee for Oxford University Press; Canadian Journal of Political Science; and The Journal of Conflict Studies, St Antony's (Ox) International Review (STAIR).

Prof. Gal-Or is an active member of the Law Society of British Columbia (BC) and the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) and other legal professional and academic associations. She is currently serving on the Executive of the CBA National International Law Section, is co-Chair of its Trade & Investment Committee, member of its Canadian International Lawyer Committee, and the legislative liaison of the International Law Section of the BC Branch of the CBA; member of the Board of Directors, International Law association (ILA) Canadian Branch, which she represents on the ILA’s Non-State Actor and Feminism and International Law Committees; member of ArbitralWomen; and member of the Canada-US Relations Committee of the Vancouver Board of Trade. She is a frequent contributor to various legal professional publications incl. the Lawyers Weekly and the CBA’s International Law Bulletin.

[Asher]

You forgot to bold the part where she got the degree.

UBC is also where Ben got most of his education, FWIW. She currently teaches some kind of arts program at a no-name technical college as well? Winner.

[Robert]

Oh man do we really need to pull things out of the Old Testament to show how evil the Jews are?

The literal style of the Old Testament is a completely different one then the style of the Quran.
In the Quran the text is setup as if the reader is being adressed directly, without a context.
The Old Testament styles are more about someone telling a tale about in some context something happened.

It's quite a difference if you read: "Go out and kill all people" or "And God told Moses to go out there and kill all Egyptians who are chasing you"

While both may both be equally violent, the first one is far more easier to be interpertated as a personal order to one of the current readers, while the 2nd one is harder to be understood that way.

Bottom line is that the Quran suffers from this style, b/c in it's context and time Muhammed isn't that evil at all. He's actually more noble then other military leaders of his time. But b/c of the literal style of the Quran, the context is completely lost. And therefore Muslims are far more eager to use violence.

History teaches that christians who have used violence often can be described as being not very christian in their daily life, but just using religion as a tool to achieve their own selfish goals. There aren't many examples of very devoted christians who used the sword. Mostly it's about powerhungry kings. (a bit in the style of Saddam Hussain and Khadaffi, for example, who also abused Islam for their own crazy reasons).

People like OBL, in example, or Ahmedinejad, actually are/were devoted muslims though who are as as matter of fact orthodox muslims.

The main difference of course between Christianity and Islam is that Muhammed was a religious, military AND political leader. And Muslims must live like him. Jesus was just only a religious leader who clearly opposed violence and clearly stated that the his followers should listen to the laws of the emperor.

That's the key difference.
That doesn't mean that any christian can't be as violent as any muslim.
But the nature of the religions are completely different. Jews are a bit in between the both of them.

[Docfeelgood]

You forgot to bold the part where she got the degree.

UBC is also where Ben got most of his education, FWIW. She currently teaches some kind of arts program at a no-name technical college as well? Winner.

You're saying the schools of education is not good in Canada?