Top 10 Massacres by Christians in Modern History
“God” slaughters more than you might think
Who kills more—Christians or atheists? It’s question often debated, as various historical scenes, rulers, and regimes can be mentioned.
But oddly, I’ve noticed, many modern massacres by Christians tend to go unmentioned. Here’s just a few of my favorites.
1. Witch hunts
In religious discussions, the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693 tend to be highlighted. But the hunting of women was quite a Christian sport in early modern Europe.
A feature in New England magazine offers some numbers:
“In all, roughly 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft and some 50,000 were executed.”
2. German Peasants’ War
In 1524, the Protestant teachings of Martin Luther were catching on. German peasants found them appealing. They declared they had “Christian freedom” to not be serfs anymore.
A lot of poorly armed peasants staged a revolt, while appealing to Luther for support. They didn’t know that Luther was a firm believer in slavery. He put out a call for their slaughter:
“They must be sliced, choked, stabbed, secretly and publicly, by those who can, like one must kill a rabid dog.”
Estimates have upwards of 300,000 peasants being massacred.
3. Extermination of Indigenous Peoples
From Cortés to Columbus, all the conquistadors were Christian, and used the religion to assert their own supremacy and to slaughter the inhabitants of the lands they found and coveted.
The dream of making a “Christian nation” in the New World came at the expense of native peoples. There is no other way to put it: the religion was complicit in deaths estimated at 56 million or more.
4. The Atlantic Slave Trade
Even the basic premise of racism is Christian. As Winthrop D. Jordan noted, dark skin was said to suggest “sin” and “the devil.”
The Atlantic Slave Trade, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, became a Christian cause. A doctrine was improved to define Africans as ordained to be slaves. Clerics, from John Calvin to Nikolaus von Zinzendorf to Jonathan Edwards, approved slavery. Missionaries were pro-slavery organizers.
Christianity made slavery possible, and deaths from slavery are a Christian massacre. To start off, 1.8 million Africans were estimated to have been put on ships and not make the passage. Some 12 million people of African descent were involved in slavery, their lives often torturous.
5. Hate crimes by the KKK
The racist movie Birth of a Nation ended with a vision of ‘Christ’. It became the founding text of the Ku Klux Klan, which was very Christian, especially the second phase starting in the 1910s. The Southern hate group required a pledge to “the tenets of the Christian religion.”
Don’t think the KKK was just about lynching Black people, although they did that a lot. It was terror, ultimately, in the service of Christian nationalism. This was likely distasteful to many “mainstream” Christians, but was woven into many prominent Christian expressions of the day.
The evangelist Billy Sunday, for example, praised the group. His music leader co-wrote “The Bright Fiery Cross,” the hymn the group sang.
6. The Holocaust in Germany
One of the most foundational ideas in Christian theology from very early on has been utter loathing of Jews. It persisted throughout the millennia, as when Martin Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies.
The doctrine came to fruition in Nazi Germany, which, as the scholar Christopher J. Probst writes, “utilised Luther’s writings about Jews and Judaism with considerable effectiveness…”
Hitler, of course, identified as Christian and sold Nazism on Christian grounds. The anti-Jewish persecution was fundamentally religious. The Holocaust on Jews alone resulted in some six million deaths.
7. Queer murders
There are no statistics for how many queer people have been murdered by Christians, though one’s mind drifts over any number of hate crimes. I think of the June 24, 1973 arson of the New Orleans’ Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in which 32 people were trapped and burned alive.
But I mostly think of the countless queer suicides. Aren’t those Christian killings too? As as character in the 2018 BBC miniseries A Very English Scandal said: “I don’t think it’s suicide. I think it’s murder.”
8. Cult deaths
The subject of death by Christianity could hardly avoid cults—those strange branches of the religion so often focused on self-harm and self-destruction. The famous Jim Jones was a Methodist minister turned Pentecostal minister. It was all very Christian.
And so was ‘Heaven’s Gate’—and any number of other cults.
9. School shootings
Just as terrorist attacks are often taken to be Muslim, school shootings are a deeply Christian phenomenon. The template was set by Columbine in 1999. The Columbine historian Dave Cullen writes of Dylan Klebold: “He was a profoundly religious young man.”
There’s a strong case that Dylan Klebold was gay, as may provide context for his crimes. Christianity places gays in a ‘cursed’ state, then refuses to acknowledge its complicity in the terrible outcome.
More recently, the trans Nashville killer, Aiden Hale went on a rampage at a Christian school, and was recalled by neighbors to be “very religious.” This is amply borne out by a journal leaked by The Tennessee Star, which often finds Aiden anguished over his religious situation.
10. All wars waged by the United States
With the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson, all American presidents have identified as Christian and made profuse references to God. The country is often claimed to be intrinsically Christian. To consider wars instigated by the American government, then, religion is a factor.
George W. Bush, to take one example, was a Protestant who’d said that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. It must be then that Bush was a Christian acting on “Christian” ideas in the Iraq War—as one million Iraqis are often said to have been massacred.
Much was made of Barack Obama being Christian, with his cleric, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., held out as an important life influence.
Obama had the remarkable designation of being the first two-term president to wage wars all eight years. He was especially adept at drone strikes on civilians, with his victims estimated at around 2,753.
How much more slaughter has religious underpinnings?
I think of the Mafia, or the drug cartels in Mexico. Both kept up a regular Catholic identification. That must’ve helped when justifying their crimes. I wonder: Are many drug-related deaths then a ‘Christian massacre’?
So who killed more, Christians or atheists? All I know is: If that’s how you’re deciding on a spirituality, you’d have a very tough choice. 🔶
