Sid sent me a link to the following quote a while back:

“In the absence of a secular authority, would Christians revert to burning astronomers, executing heretics and persecuting their own members?”

To which I’d say that if memory and research serves, we likely did a few of these with the blessing of a secular authority, especially that last one. Humanity, religious or not, is good at persecuting people that we disagree with often to the point of death.

What really lurks under this nasty little question (I say nasty not because it’s not true that we have done those very things, it is, but nasty in the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” way. There is no real good answer.) is another one or two. Are Christians just slavering to get back to our old way of doing things? And are we only held back by those non-religious types or governments founded on non-religious principals?

I’d like to think that humanity in general and Christians in particular are better off than we were a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago. Frankly, we’re not. I have but to point you to Germany sixty years ago or China today. While the leaders of those nations were (arguably in the former case) not religious they certainly killed anyone perceived to be in the way or in disagreement with the party line. So I don’t think much of secular authority and their ability to hold back the masses from the slaughter of those they deem unhealthy for society.

If there was a modern Christian theocracy in the vein of those that were responsible for past atrocities then I suppose we would see similar, though perhaps whitewashed, acts committed. We might not kill our enemies outright. We might “re-educate” them, imprison them for years without just cause, or something equally politically expedient. Again, no different than any current secular government is capable of, even if they aren’t doing it in public view.

See here’s my thing. Many of you folks reading this would argue that humanity has made great strides in the last couple of centuries. We’re so much better off now than we were back then. In some way you’d be right. We have made incredible scientific strides. Civil rights (in some countries at least) are on the increase. We live longer. There are fewer hungry folks. Satellite TV, the internet, cell phones, we’re more “connected” as a species than we’ve ever been before. Does that mean we’re better?

I’d say yes and no. Humanity has incredible potential for good and for evil. Whether you’re religious or not doesn’t matter. Neither world view is intrinsically superior/inferior in terms of its morality. Both sides in this matter have done wonderful things for the human race and both sides will continue to do terrible things in the name of their philosophy. Centuries from now I’m willing to bet that if we’re still here, there will be two people sitting in a cafe somewhere having this very conversation, “Are we better off now than we were then?” The answer to that question in that bright day will be the same as it is now, “That depends in the measuring stick.”

If we as people don’t learn from our past, if we aren’t aware that yes there was a day that Christians drowned each other and lit one another on fire in the name of God then yes we are doomed to repeat it. Even being aware isn’t enough, though. It’s not any kind of insurance. We will hurt those that are entrusted to us. We will destroy those who stand in our way. To those that believe in evolution I would say it’s the wild animal that’s still and will ever be in us. To those that believe God put us here six thousand years ago (or more) I would say, well… you know what I would say. We sin.

There is hope. We as individuals can strive to live up to the measuring stick that God laid out for us. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Bible isn’t the only book that puts forth that command and no matter what you believe I’d say that’s a good thing to aim for every day. We may miss the mark, in fact I guarantee we will. Perhaps if we all did that the world would be a better place. It will never be a perfect place though, even if most of us managed, most of the time (an unlikely event).

There’s hope beyond that too though. I serve a very real God and He has grace on me, a very real sinner. He has a plan for this world and while I can’t tell you that I can even begin to understand that plan in its fullness, I have faith that it’s there. One day when this world passes away and there is a new world created in its place, my hope is that we will all fulfill that command all the time. Until then, all we can do is the best we can.