Rev Dark Wrote:I suppose I should have been even more specific. I thought it was obvious from the context that I meant here in the United States, where we practice (and enforce) freedom of religion (and from religion, too). I'm aware of abuses elsewhere. I'm talking about mainstream Christianity as practiced here in North America. (Though I hadn't heard of the bit about the Soviet Churches before. That's interesting. Link?)Quote:I can not think of a single example in modern times (let's call "modern" to go back to the turn of the previous century - 1900, just for the sake of clarity) of a Christian pastor, priest, bishop, cardinal or any other type or rank of official in any sect of Christianity issuing such a specific type of proclamation that "this person needs to die, and the Church authorizes you to do it". If such a call were made, that official would be drummed out, stripped of his office, and the church would probably cooperate with the state in pressing charges of making death threats. Furthermore, nobody would take such a command seriously.I can think of several involving the pastors associated with militant anti-abortion groups calling specifically for the murders of doctors, and cite the assasinations carried out by their members; various christian sects in Africa issuing proclamations in regards to killing witches, with resulting deaths; not to metion Christian pulpits in the former Soviet republics declaring their support for killing Muslims (and different denominations of Christians.) Roman Catholic priests in the Rwandan genocides using their pulpits to declare other tribes as insects to be killed.
So someone indeed took their commands seriously.
And those pastors you mentioned here? Were they not roundly denounced by the rest of the Church? Do most people seriously consider them representative of Christianity as a whole? I'm speaking largely of the majority perception here.