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At best, the criticisms of Hitchens and others that Christianity has done great evil through history prove only that Christians have not been Christian enough (sincere believers confess that daily). For anyone can tell you that when Christians are violent and imperialistic they are not obeying their Messiah but defying him who said “love your enemy and do good to those who hate you.” The solution to religious violence, then, is not less Christianity but more. Yale philosopher-theologian Professor Miroslav Volf says it brilliantly:
When it comes to Christianity the cure against religiously induced and legitimized violence is almost exactly the opposite of what an important intellectual current in the West since the Enlightenment has been suggesting. The cure is not less religion, but, in a carefully qualified sense, more religion … The more the Christian faith matters to its adherents as faith and the more they practice it as an ongoing tradition with strong ties to its origins and with clear cognitive and moral content, the better off we will be.1
The same point was made years ago by Albert Einstein. Though a Jew (a deistic Jew) and aware of the many inconsistencies of the German church, he believed that what Germany needed in that crucial hour was not less Christianity but more. In his 1915 essay “My opinion of the war” he wrote in conclusion: “But why so many words when I can say it in one sentence, and in a sentence very appropriate for a Jew. Honour your master, Jesus Christ, not only in words and songs but, rather, foremost in your deeds.” The solution to violent Christianity is real Christianity.

1. Miroslav Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics, 2002, 1.

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C P X | Wednesday, March 03, 2010 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink