In his book THE SELFISH GENE, biologist Richard
Dawkins writes that "religion causes wars." In
addition, he once told an interviewer that "[belief
in God] can be positively harmful in various ways."

And Dawkins isn't alone. According to Harvard Law
professor Alan Dershowitz, Christianity still owes
the world a full accounting for the Crusades, the
Inquisition, and the seventeenth century wars of
religion.

And many commentators today compare conservative
Christians with Muslim extremists. All of this, of
course, is to diminish Christian faith and Christian
cultural influence.

But is it fair? According to a new book, it's not.
Instead, it's evidence of a double standard that
magnifies Christianity's offenses while overlooking
the sins of other traditions.

In CHRISTIANITY ON TRIAL, Vincent Carroll and David
Shiflett acknowledge that wars have been waged in the
name of religion -- sad but true. But what people
like Dawkins neglect to mention is that Christianity
also prevented wars.

The authors show that it was Christianity that taught
the West to have reservations about war. Both
Christian pacifism and the Just War tradition served
as restraints on the ways that war was waged.

As for the Crusades, CHRISTIANITY ON TRIAL reminds us
that discussions of the Crusades rarely tell the
whole story. For example, for Christians of the time,
the Crusades were fought to defend Christendom or
liberate Christians lands overrun by Islamic
crusaders. Or, that it was Christianity's revulsion
at its own mistakes that led to what are today the
those most cherished of western values: tolerance and
freedom of conscience.

A similarly incomplete story is told about the
conquest of the Americas. We're all familiar with
portrayals of pre-Columbian America as a paradise: a
place where war, as we know it, was almost
nonexistent. Into this garden stepped a serpent
wearing a cross.

The conquistadors who first laid eyes on what's now
Mexico City saw something very different: blood-
soaked altars and thousands of skulls. All of these
bore silent witness to the common practice of human
sacrifice. And there's similar evidence scattered
throughout the Americas.

And as for the Inquisition, the truth is it probably
put to death fewer people during its entire history
than the Aztecs sacrificed in an average year. Now
that doesn't excuse what happened during the
Inquisition or even the conquest of the Americas. But
it's a more accurate telling of the story -- one that
Christianity's critics can't or won't tell.

Why? As the subtitle of CHRISTIANITY ON TRIAL puts
it, "anti-religious bigotry." For people like Dawkins
and Dershowitz, their resentment against Christianity
causes them to make it the source of human misery.
Their conclusion isn't based on a fair reading of the
evidence. It's a product of a pre-existing
philosophical commitment -- in other words, their
worldview.

The problem is that their arguments are rarely
contradicted in public. Thus, they carry more weight
than they deserve. That's why Christians have to be
prepared to set the record straight in conversations
with our friends and neighbors. Chances are, this
will be the only way they will hear the straight
story. Call us or visit our web site for a transcript
of this and other broadcasts in this series based on
the book CHRISTIANITY ON TRIAL.

Because, as any defense lawyer knows, for a trial to
be fair, you need a full accounting of all the facts.

For more information:

Richard Dawkins, THE SELFISH GENE (Oxford University
Press, 1990).

Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett, CHRISTIANITY ON
TRIAL (Encounter Books, 2001).