Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned

by Brian D. McLaren

Since Constantine, Christianity has repeatedly claimed a legitimate right to do violence to its members to protect its interests and conserve its supremacy. It has sought far-reaching and sometimes almost limitless control over the behavior and minds of its subjects. At times, it has behaved like a totalitarian power, suppressing dissent and claiming divine and absolute authority, capable of absolute corruption. At times, it has behaved like a terrorist organization, intimidating the many by graphic public violence to a relative few. At times (as we will see in the next chapter), it has behaved like a regime of genocide, with a death toll in the millions. Both Catholic and Protestant Christians have covered up pedophilia scandals and mass killings of children in Christian orphanages and boarding schools, protected perpetrators, and silenced victims, showing haunting similarities to a crime network. The tragic irony, once again, makes me grimace: the Christian religion began as a peasant peace movement whose leader said we should all call one another sisters and brothers, but it quickly reduced sisters and brothers to subjects to be dominated, punished, imprisoned, and worse.