On the night before he died, Jesus told his friends something chilling: “the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God” (John 16:2). Six centuries later the Qur'an described people who, when told “Do not spread corruption on the earth,” reply, “And when it is said unto them: Make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only.” (2:11, Pickthall). Both scriptures saw it coming. The worst evil is often done by people who are sure they are good.
This is one of the most serious charges against religion, and it deserves a straight answer. Crusades, inquisitions, persecutions and terror attacks have all been carried out in God's name. This page does not pretend otherwise. It sets out what each tradition's own scriptures say about it, how believers have confessed and condemned it, what researchers have found about why it happens, and how non-religious people see it.
“When they are told, “Do not spread corruption on the earth,” they say, “And when it is said unto them: Make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only. Are not they indeed the mischief-makers? But they perceive not.”
Qur'an 2:11–12 · Pickthall (1930)
These verses come early in the second chapter, describing people whose words and deeds do not match. Muslim scholars have applied them to anyone who causes harm while claiming to serve God. The Hebrew Bible's third commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:7), has long been read the same way: the worst misuse of God's name is to use it as cover for wrong.
Why good people do terrible things
Researchers who study violence find that doctrine is rarely the whole story. In 2008 the Guardian reported on a restricted study by MI5's behavioural science unit of several hundred people involved in terrorism in Britain. Far from being religious zealots, it found, many did not practise their faith regularly, and many were religious novices. It also concluded that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.
Anthropologists such as Harvey Whitehouse at Oxford study “identity fusion”: when a person's sense of self merges with a group, they become willing to fight and die for it. The groups can be religious, national, political or even football fans. Other researchers study “sacred values”, things people refuse to trade for any price. These can make conflicts harder to settle, whether the value is God, a nation or an ideology.
None of this lets religion off the hook. Religious language can make cruelty feel holy and remove the doubt that might stop someone. The American physicist Steven Weinberg put the charge sharply in 1999. Good people can behave well and bad people do evil with or without religion, he said, “but for good people to do evil, that takes religion.” Believers reply that the twentieth century's officially atheist regimes persuaded millions of good people to do terrible things, with no God involved. The Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who survived the Soviet labour camps, wrote that the line between good and evil does not run between groups. It runs through every human heart.
The fairest summary is that people can use anything they hold sacred, God, nation, race, class or progress, as permission to harm. What matters is whether a tradition contains the means to say no. Below, each one shows that it does.
What each faith says
Judaism
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”
Exodus 20:7 · JPS 1917
Jewish law treats chillul Hashem, desecrating God's name, as one of the gravest of sins, because it makes people think less of God. The Talmud says that when a person known for religious learning behaves dishonestly, people say, “Woe to the one who learned Torah” (Yoma 86a). The rabbis used a verse from Proverbs, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17), as a test of interpretation: a reading of the Torah that leads to cruelty cannot be right. The prophets were fierce critics of religious hypocrisy. Isaiah has God say to worshippers, “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear; Your hands are full of blood” (Isaiah 1:15).
Christianity
“Put your sword back into its place, for all those who take the sword will die by the sword.”
Matthew 26:52 · World English Bible (British Edition), public domain
When Peter drew a sword to defend Jesus, Jesus told him to put it away. Yet Christians have killed in his name: in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the wars of religion and the persecution of Jews. Christians themselves have acknowledged this. On 12 March 2000, at a service in St Peter's in Rome, Pope John Paul II led prayers asking God's forgiveness for sins committed by Christians, including the use of violence “in the service of truth”, and sins against the Jewish people. Many Protestant churches have made similar confessions.
Jesus gave his followers a test: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21). And the First Letter of John is blunt: anyone who says “I love God” and hates his brother “is a liar” (1 John 4:20).
Islam
“O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do.”
Qur'an 5:8 · Pickthall (1930)
The Qur'an forbids killing the innocent, saying it is like killing all of humanity (5:32), and it forbids forced conversion (2:256). The Prophet Muhammad warned: “Beware of extremism in religion, for those before you were destroyed by extremism” (Nasa'i 3057). In 2004 King Abdullah II of Jordan issued the Amman Message. In July 2005, 200 Islamic scholars from 50 countries met in Amman and agreed three points. They recognised all the major schools of Islam, forbade declaring other Muslims unbelievers (takfir), and set strict conditions on who may issue religious rulings. More than 500 leading scholars have endorsed it.
In 2014, more than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world signed an open letter to the self-declared leader of a militant group in Iraq and Syria. Point by point, from the Qur'an and classical law, they set out that it is forbidden to kill the innocent, emissaries, journalists and aid workers, to harm Christians and other People of the Book, to force anyone to convert, to deny women and children their rights, and to torture. In 2016 the Marrakesh Declaration, drawing on the Prophet's Charter of Medina, affirmed the rights of religious minorities in Muslim-majority lands.
Without religion
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil, that takes religion.”
Steven Weinberg, speech in Washington DC, April 1999 · original English
For many non-religious people, violence in God's name is one of the strongest reasons to reject religion. It hands people a reason to harm that cannot be argued with, because it claims to come from God. Humanists also acknowledge that regimes which persecuted religion, in the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, killed millions. Their conclusion is that any belief held beyond question can be dangerous. They argue for free thought, human rights and the right to criticise every idea, including their own.
Sikhi
“No one is my enemy, and no one is a stranger; I get along with everyone.”
Guru Granth Sahib, ang 1299 (Guru Arjan) · our rendering
In 1675 a group of Kashmiri Hindu priests, under pressure to convert, came to the ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, for help. He went to Delhi to stand up for their freedom of worship, a faith that was not his own, and was executed there. Sikhs remember him as Hind di Chadar, the shield of India. Sikh teaching sees forcing faith on anyone as a betrayal of God, who is in every person. Guru Arjan's line below is often quoted in Sikh teaching against hatred.
Hindu traditions
Ahimsa, not harming, is one of the oldest Hindu values, and Mahatma Gandhi built his campaign for India's freedom on it. In January 1948 Gandhi was shot dead by a man who believed he was defending Hindus. Gandhi died because he refused to hate, and many Hindus see his death as the clearest lesson of where violence in religion's name leads.
Beyond the Abrahamic faiths
Buddhism is often thought of as entirely peaceful, but Buddhists have faced their own history too. In 1997 the scholar Brian Victoria, himself an ordained Zen priest, published Zen at War. It showed how leading Japanese Zen teachers supported militarism before and during the Second World War. Several Zen institutions later issued public apologies. The emperor Ashoka, after the slaughter at Kalinga, carved his remorse in stone.
Same and different
No tradition here, religious or not, has clean hands, and every one has the tools to condemn its own worst moments. Judaism has chillul Hashem and the prophets. Christians have Jesus's command to put away the sword and the confessions of the churches. Muslims have the Qur'an's ban on killing the innocent and the scholars' Amman Message and open letter. Sikhs have a Guru who died for another faith's freedom. Hindus have ahimsa, Buddhists have Ashoka's remorse and later Zen apologies, and humanists have human rights. They differ on whether religion makes this evil more likely. They agree that the person who harms in God's name is the one who has misused it.
A moment to reflect
- Jesus said killers would think they were serving God. Why is being sure you are good so dangerous?
- MI5 found that a strong religious identity tended to protect people against violent radicalisation. Does that surprise you?
- Weinberg and Solzhenitsyn disagree about where evil comes from. Who do you think is closer to the truth?
- What would it look like for your own community, religious or not, to confess something?
Do it together
Each tradition in the group brings one text from its own scripture that condemns violence in God's name, and one moment in its own history it is ashamed of. Share both. Notice how it feels to hear others confess, and to confess yourself.
Read a summary of the 2014 open letter's points and the Amman Message's three points. Compare them with Matthew 26:52, Exodus 20:7 and Ashoka's Rock Edict 13. What do they all assume about God, and about people?
Discuss in groups how a community can stop someone twisting its teachings. The Amman Message's answer is to set rules on who may give religious rulings. Is that enough? What else helps, such as education, friendship or speaking up?
Go deeper
- The Amman Message (official site) · document
- Letter to Baghdadi (Wikipedia overview) · article
- MI5 report challenges views on terrorism in Britain (Guardian, 2008) · article
- Does religion cause war? (this site) · find out more
- Overcoming hate (this site) · find out more
In pictures
Sources (13)
- John 16:2, Matthew 26:52, Matthew 7:21, 1 John 4:20 text: World English Bible (British Edition) via bible-api.com
- Exodus 20:7, Proverbs 3:17, Isaiah 1:15 text: Sefaria, JPS 1917
- Chillul Hashem: Yoma 86a: Babylonian Talmud (Sefaria)
- MI5 findings on religious practice and radicalisation: Guardian, Alan Travis, 20 August 2008; summarised by Global Dashboard
- Amman Message: November 2004; July 2005 conference of 200 scholars from 50 countries; three points; 500+ endorsements: ammanmessage.com
- Open letter (2014): 17 points, initially 122 signatories; forbids killing innocents, journalists, aid workers; harming Christians; forced conversion; torture: Wikipedia, Letter to Baghdadi
- ‘Beware of extremism in religion’: Sunan an-Nasa'i 3057
- Marrakesh Declaration (2016): Wikipedia, Marrakesh Declaration
- Day of Pardon, 12 March 2000: Vatican, Universal Prayer: Confession of Sins and Asking for Forgiveness
- Identity fusion: Whitehouse, ‘Dying for the group’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2018)
- Weinberg quote (1999): Wikiquote, Steven Weinberg
- Zen at War (1997): Wikipedia, Zen at War
- Guru Tegh Bahadur and the Kashmiri Pandits (1675): Wikipedia, Guru Tegh Bahadur
