gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) (10/07/90)
Again, twice in the same year, I'm making self-referential postings. ;-) In a recent posting, I said: >So for me, the Inquisition was, and is, an abberation--just as the >Crusades were, and are. Slaying those that do not believe does not save >them. And the Catholic clergyman who is reported to have said to "Kill >them all and let God sort them out." was dead wrong. The dead cannot >choose Jesus Christ. And tortured confessions of faith are not >confessions of faith at all. Any one convinced against his or her will >remains unconvinced still. To which, Chuck replies: >[I'm not one to defend the Inquisition, which I agree was a serious >abberation. But I should point out that its intended purpose was not >to kill non-believers, or even force conversions, but to prevent >heresy and backsliding of converts. It certainly killed people -- >which the Church has no right to do (and indeed there was some show of OFM, I apologize for making it sound so simplistic. I know it wasn't. However, the point remains that the Inquisition was, and is an aberration. IMHO, this is what happens when the churches become more concerned with the letter of the law than the Spirit. >Again, the >context of "kill them all -- God will know his own" (if it was ever >said -- there's reason to think it's legendary) was an area under >the control of supposedly dangerous heretics. The point was to >prevent corruption of the Church, and it was felt that things had >gotten so far out of hand that the only way to reestablish authority >in the area was a military campaign. Again, I'll grant that it is probably a suspect quote. But I would maintain that it was an attitude that existed then, and now. Again, an aberration. Anytime that a denomination can marshal such military might, I get worried. And how do we prevent corruption within the church anyway? Certainly not by force of arms. The world does that, but the Church is not supposed to be a part of the world. >Everyone knows that war kills >innocent people. At some point this seems the lesser of evils. There >are good reasons to think that there were political and other unworthy >motivations involved, and in any case the Church has no business >conducting a war to purify its theology. But again, it wasn't quite >an attempt to force conversion. --clh] I'm the wrong person to be talking about war. My stomach still does flip-flops over what I remember of war. Yes, brother, innocents do get killed in war--slaughtered is more an appropriate word. The Church is not called to this. Back to my point in responding to Bill's posting, these things were and are aberrations--the Inquisition and the Crusades (all of them). The Church is not to conquer by force of arms, but by the power of the Spirit and their testimony. Forcing someone to believe in Jesus Christ is just completely foreign to me. In His love, Gene Gross