Violence is Deeply Ingrained in The Christian Psyche
The root cause is found in the Bible
The U.S. is the largest predominantly Christian nation in the world. It is also the most violent country in the world. Its citizens are senselessly killing each other every day and still resorting to violent means to resolve disputes and make political statements.
This behavior is traceable to an erroneous Christian concept: the idea that God somehow condoned and rationalized the violence of the Crucifixion.
There are plenty of instances when violence is displayed in the Old Testament. However, to me, it appears that the predisposition towards violence in the Christian psyche ironically comes from the New Testament. It goes back to the Pharisaic bias of Paul.
One could expect and even hope that the New Testament would show a strong cut-off from the dominating ideas of the God concept in the Old Testament. But it is not so.
The “Lord God” concept continues to influence the New Testament despite Jesus’ revelation of an unconditionally loving God.
The Apostle Paul and the sacrificial lamb
After his sudden and dramatic conversion to the message of Jesus, Paul became an ardent teacher of the doctrine of Jesus.
Before his conversion, however, Paul was a Pharisee pursuing and killing Early Christians. He was at the service of the Sanhedrin, the highest council of Hebrew Rabbis who were ultimately responsible for the arrest and condemnation of Jesus.
Most of Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ teachings came through inner revelation and contemplation. However, his interpretation was still filtered through and heavily influenced by his Pharisaic background.
Paul contributed some significant clarifications in explaining what Jesus had taught. However, Paul was also a trailblazer who went out on a limb in several instances and introduced ideas that we should reject.
The worst of Paul’s false ideas was the reference to Jesus as a sacrificial lamb, sending Christianity on a false path from which it has not yet recovered.
The bias of Paul
Paul’s former Pharisaic beliefs influenced him to occasionally revert to the Lord God of the Old Testament, a god of rewards and punishments.
When Paul spoke of Jesus as the “sacrificial lamb,” this false idea of God came to the surface anew.
Paul’s explanation
Paul needed to explain to his audiences of Jews in the Diaspora and also to the Gentiles why the Son of God would be condemned and crucified.
His explanation was based on an alleged “trade” whereby the suffering of Jesus would erase the sins of humanity initiated by Adam and Eve. This notion was acceptable to those who saw God in the Lord God’s image and were accustomed to animal sacrifices.
However, Paul’s explanation is unacceptable to anyone who embraces the God of Jesus — the God of unconditional love.
It is this God of unconditional love and infinite forgiveness to whom Jesus addressed his prayer on behalf of his tormentors while dying on the Cross: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
But unfortunately, Christianity, by and large, has accepted Paul’s unacceptable explanation.
The idea of redemption by the sacrifice of Jesus
Paul explained the Crucifixion of Jesus with the idea that Jesus, by his suffering and death, had redeemed humanity of the original sin.
This doctrine was outlined by Paul in a couple of his letters, in particular:
1. From 1 Cor. 5:7: “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
2. From Rom. 4:25: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
3. From Rom. 5:9: “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”
The alleged violence of God
Paul’s explanation implies an odious trade between Jesus and God. It implies a blood-thirsty god who would be satisfied by the suffering and death of His/Hers/Its son Jesus to warrant forgiveness of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve’s allegorical original sin story was also misunderstood and erroneously conveyed by its literal interpretation. It is still portrayed in many Christian denominations as an ongoing liability suffered by all humans.
Jesus suffered humiliation as well as physical torture — from the condemnation, the way to the Cross, during the Crucifixion, and while on the Cross. All these stages have been documented in the gospels, and Catholics have a ritual to reenact the stages of the Crucifixion.
During this reenactment, Christians feel not only the suffering of Jesus but also the implied and supposed cruelty of God.
However, it is clear that when Jesus prayed for his murderers and declared, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” he was not holding God responsible for his suffering.
I do not believe a “trade” existed between Jesus and God. There was no divine plan to sacrifice Jesus to allegedly redeem humanity from the so-called and allegorical original sin. My previous article, “Why Did The Crucifixion Happen?” details this important and persistent ideological mistake.
Nevertheless, this is the narrative erroneously embraced by most Christians.
Violence as a tool of the Church
The Church embraced Paul’s explanation of the Crucifixion and maintained his Old Testament bias.
That rationale became an invitation for the Church to use violence whenever it was convenient.
The Church was influenced to use violence throughout the ages. This was particularly true, first as an institution of the Roman Empire and later as Christianity wielded ultimate authority over the kings of Europe.
The legal basis for some inquisitorial activity came from Pope Innocent IV in 1252. The Pope authorized the use of torture in certain circumstances by the Inquisition to elicit confessions and denunciations from heretics.
The Dominican order had been created in 1216 for the purpose of “punishing heresy.” The horrifically violent phase of the Inquisition raged on in Europe for a few hundred years.
Although the violent tortures of the Inquisition are no longer practiced, there still is an official Holy Office of the Inquisition within the Vatican.
In 1928, Josemaria Escriva created the Opus Dei (work of God) to “ seek Christian perfection” in their endeavors. One of their daily practices was to self-inflict physical pain by whipping themselves or cutting into their flesh.
Opus Dei promoted the idea of suffering for salvation. Although pernicious, the idea was, and still is, broadly supported, particularly in the Catholic Church.
In 2002, Josemaria Escriva was canonized. By so doing, the Catholic Church continues to promote the pernicious idea of physical suffering for salvation.
Violence in the Old Testament
As we have noted, all these ideas about a violent and punishing god were common throughout the Old Testament. Some of the better-known episodes of a violent divinity include the following:
1. Although rescinded at the last moment, there was a demand from God to Abraham to kill his own cherished son.
2. The episode of Noah and The Flood, when God’s anger led to the destruction of all life forms on earth except for the limited number of humans and animals contained in the Ark. This biblical account continues to contribute to rationalizing the violence of natural disasters as “acts of God.”
3. The series of plagues brought upon the Egyptians and their animals to force their Pharaoh to liberate the Hebrew slaves as part of the Exodus.
4. The order of Moses to kill 3,000 of the Hebrews while in the desert for worshipping Baal, a pagan god.
5. In the Book of Joshua, God’s order and leadership that the Hebrews conquer Canaan, slaughtering other nations along the way.
Violence in the US
Just as it confusedly clings to biblical literalism, Christianity never clearly and effectively drew a demarcation line separating the New from the Old Testament theology.
Those trends can be observed today when witnessing the actions and listening to the sermons of fundamentalist pastors and ultra-conservative priests.
This article began with a look at the modern-day violent havoc this biblical misinterpretation continues to wreak in the U.S. — again, behavior attributable to false Christian ideas that violence, in general, is ok with God and, therefore, ok for humans as well.
In addition to what occurs on our streets and in our communities, another pointed example is the predominance of violence in all of our forms of modern entertainment, which are getting more and more graphic and extreme by the day.
I am not advocating censorship but rather a greater and more acute awareness of an undesirable mentality we continue cultivating in ourselves and our growing children.
Christian Nationalists
A rationale and justification for violence is also commonly encountered in the ideology of Christian Nationalists in their march to turn our democracy into an authoritarian theocracy based on the Lord God of the Old Testament and not on the teaching of Jesus.
Though simultaneously professing a preference for peace, harmony, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself, the modern Christian psyche still seems profoundly conflicted by the acceptance of violence contrary to the specific message of Jesus.
It is even more incredible that so many Christians seem oblivious to the fact that the message of Jesus is the raison d’être of Christianity and that Jesus himself was one of the most non-violent individuals in the history of the world!
Jon Canas
Debunking false creeds. Reclaiming the Soul of Christianity.
Site: https://bio.site/ChristicSoul
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My book: Religion, Politics, and Reclaiming the Soul of Christianity: A Spiritual Imperative for Our Time and Our Nation
