My latest column is up on AlterNet, Some Right-Wing Christians Enthusiastically Promoting a Form of Genocide. It’s about the genocidal anti-Muslim fantasies aired in Charisma magazine in a column by Gary Cass (which was subsequently pulled down with no explanation or apology), as well as the long history of Christians advocating the necessity of mass bloodshed generally, going all the way back to the bloody passages of the Old Testament. Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the rest:
Prominent Christian apologists such as William Lane Craig have defended these ghastly verses, arguing that if God commands you to do it, you’re justified in committing any act of violence, up to and including the slaughter of helpless men, women and children. (In fact, Craig argues that the most morally troubling part of this is the psychological toll that would have been inflicted on the Israelite soldiers who were tasked with carrying out the mass execution.) As we see with Cass, this genocidal, God-is-on-our-side mindset isn’t purely a matter of ancient history, but continues to inform the beliefs and ideas of Christians today.