CHRISTIANITY IS PRO-CHURCH-BURNING

Quite often in the history of the Church, Christians took it upon themselves to burn down the churches of other denominations and the Temples of the pagans. As long as the Bible advocates Church burning when the Churches are considered heretical, we are entitled to say Christians are promoting it. If you choose to regard an evil book as God's word you are advocating that evil even if you say you are opposed to that evil.
 
St Martin loved to smash pagan idols and St Ambrose commended the burning down of a synagogue as a pious and noble act but both were outraged when the Church introduced the idea that it was a duty to murder heretics (page 73, The Crisis of Moral Authority, SCM Press, London, 1985). The Spanish heretic Priscillian seems to have been the first heretic whose execution was procured by the Church. When it was okay to burn heretics or whatever it was only natural that it would be just as good to attack heretical places of worship and heretical books.
 
One major outburst of such activity happened in the Eastern Church after the council of Nicea in 787 AD. The Church kissed and prayed before icons, pictures of Jesus and the saints. This practice was denounced as idolatry by the iconoclasts - which means destroyers of icons. The worshippers of images were called iconodules. The latter began a campaign of destroying the icons and even burning down Churches which had them, everywhere.
 
After the reformation, Calvinists smashed stained-glass windows and statues in Catholic Churches and burned many of the Churches down to the ground.
 
The Dutch Protestant group, the Sea-Beggars, murdered priests and nuns and attacked Catholic Churches in the sixteenth century.
 
Churches are burned in Northern Ireland every year.
 
All this was done in order to stamp out idolatry or what was thought to be idolatry for it was felt that to let the Churches be was not commend the worship of what was not God. A person who believes that God exists must put God first and if that entails torching up churches so be it.
 
Many Christians argued that interfering with idols is wrong for it offends the worshippers and does not really curb false worship. If you smash the image of the virgin in the parish Church another one will be adored in its place.
 
The Bible says that we should be loyal to God and expect to offend others. Jesus said that his true followers would be hated (Luke 6). So church-burning is not sinful because it hurts. When feelings don’t matter there is no deterrent from burning churches down.
 
Church-burning forces the congregation to hear and know why the culprits did it like no other way can and God expects his word to be spread no matter how we do it. It attacks the strength of the heretical Church.
 
If God comes first and it is certain from even a quick reading of the Bible that idolatry is the sin he hates the most even above murder then it is right to destroy a statue even if it means that one person less will adore it by leaving it alone, is the same as doing it yourself. The idolaters are forcing you to sin so you have the right to stop them.
 
God can put thoughts in their minds to guide them so that if they are angry and offended it is because they want to be meaning that it is no sin to offend them. It is heresy to deny that God does not guide. And it is blasphemy to say such a thing. Jesus said he was the light of the world.
 
In Deuteronomy 7 we read that God wants seven pagan nations to be utterly destroyed by his people. In addition, they have to tear down their altars and burn their idols. The people are not even allowed to keep the gold and silver that the images are made of or to let an idol into their house. God said that he wanted this because he needed to prevent the risk of his people falling into idolatry (Exodus 34). So, when God commanded people he had no reason to think would be lead into it to avoid the slightest temptation by means of such drastic action it proves that nobody can say it is only compulsory under certain serious conditions. He said he was a jealous God and meant this literally from the fact that he would not tolerate any pagan monuments or symbols near his chosen people. He wants us to be jealous for him for we cannot be good unless we are like him. We have to be jealous towards any religion that is not the true religion of God. Catholics and Protestants have to be jealous of each other and try and get one over on the other if they want to be near to their God. The further the religion is away from the true religion in theology the more jealous we have to be.
 
In Deuteronomy 13, God commands that the cities where pagan gods are worshipped by Israel should be burned to the ground and never never be rebuilt. He says he means a city where the people are led astray to follow other gods.
 
There is no evidence from the New Testament that says these laws are done away. It is no use to say that God made these rules because he wanted to set up a county ruled by himself for it was still run by human beings. God gave the Law and left men in charge. Israel was not a theocracy in the sense that God made all its decision for it. God told Israel to hate idols (Deuteronomy 7:26). They did not have to hate them even if they had to destroy them which shows that God believed that idols should be destroyed because they are idols and not just because they are a temptation to sin. God could not do away with a moral law when its validity is not based on consequences alone.
 
An idol was not worshipped just because it was a lump of metal or stone but because the God was thought to live in it or the image was thought to have been transubstantiated into God.
 
God said that the destruction of an idol proved that it was not a God. He rejected the pagan doctrine that if such a thing happened it was because the gods permitted it for a purpose. So, God’s doctrine tells us that we ought to smash up idols and burn Churches of false religions to show the worshippers that they were wrong. The Bible-believer has to trust God even when reason shouts, “Don’t”, which it will because even things which are sacred to God can be destroyed.
 
A Christian must be expected to get fired from her or his job, if that job entails selling idols, rather than just sell the idol.
 
It is better to be an Atheist for Atheism is a kind of idolatry. It is putting self and people before God. Atheists don’t care if God is mocked by idol-worshippers for he is an idol, albeit a mental one, himself. Those who decry idolatry must examine themselves in case they are the worst idolaters of the lot.
 
 
 
BOOKS CONSULTED

 
 
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A Shattered Visage The Real Face of Atheism, Ravi Zacharias, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Tenneessee, 1990
A Thief in the Night, John Cornwell, Penguin, London, 1990
A Woman Rides the Beast, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1994
All Roads Lead to Rome, Michael de Semlyen, Dorchester House Publications, Bucks, 1993 (page 120 recounts Cardinal Konig of Vienna’s testimony that the Vatican helped Nazi war criminals to escape)
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 1, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin 1954
Apologetics for the Pulpit, Aloysius Roche Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd, London, 1950
Blind Alley Beliefs, David Cook, Pickering & Inglis, Glasgow, 1979
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Christianity, David Albert Jones, OP, Family Publications, Oxford, 1999
Convert or Die, Edmond Paris, Chick Publications, Chino, California, undated
Correction and Discipline of Children, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
Crisis of Moral Authority, Don Cupitt, SCM Press, London, 1985
Documents of the Christian Church, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979
Does America Need the Moral Majority? William Willoughby, Haven Books, New Jersey, 1981
Does Conscience Decide? Bishop William J Philbin, Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Dublin
Ecumenical Jihad, Peter Kreeft, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1996
European Union and Roman Catholic Influence In Britain, David N Samuel, The Harrison Trust, Kent, 1995
Fascism in the English Church, A London Journalist, Henry E Walter, London, 1938
Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome, Charles Chiniquy, Chick Publications, Chino, California, 1985
God and the Gun, The Church and Irish Terrorism, Martin Dillon, Orion, London, 1998
God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
‘God, That’s not fair!’ Dick Dowsett, OMF Books, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Belmont, The Vine, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3TZ] Kent, 1982
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1995
Human Rights, Michael Bertram Crowe Veritas, Dublin, 1978
In God’s Name, David Yallop, Corgi, London, 1987
Is the Roman Catholic Church a Secret Society? John V Simcox, Warren Sandell and Raymond Winch Watts & Co London, 1946  
Is There Salvation Outside The Catholic Church? Fr J Bainvel SJ, TAN, Illinois, 1979
Jesuit Plots, From Elizabethan to Modern Times, Albert Close, Protestant Truth Society, London undated
Jesus the Only Saviour, Tony and Patricia Higton, Monarch Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 1993
New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Radio Replies, Vol 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota, 1938
Radio Replies, Vol 2, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota 1940
Radio Replies, Vol 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota 1942
Religious Freedom, A Fundamental Right, Michael Swhwartz, Liguori Publications, Missouri, 1987
Roman Catholicism, Loraine Boettner, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1987
Rome – Our Enemy, Clifford Smyth, Puritan Printing, Belfast, 1975
Secular Humanism – The Most Dangerous Religion in America, Homer Duncan, MC International Publications, Lubbock, Texas. Undated.
Sex Education in Our Public Schools, Jack Hyles, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1969
Sex, Dissidence and Damnation, Jeffrey Richards, Routledge, London 1994
Spy in the Vatican 1941-45, Branko Bokun, Tom Stacey Books, London, 1973
Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas, Part II, Second Number, Thomas Baker, London, 1918.
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Christian and War, Robert Moyer, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
The Church of Rome, Wilson Ewin, Bible Baptist Church, Nashua NH USA
The Encyclopaedia of Heresies and Heretics, Leonard George, Robson Books, London, 1995
The End Of Faith, Religion, Terror And The Future Of Reason, Sam Harris, Free Press, London, 2005
The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Henry Charles Lea, Citadel, New York, 1963
The Last Temptation of Christ, Its Deception and What you Should Do About it, Erwin T Lutzer, Moody Press, Chicago, 1988
The Pestilence of AIDS, Hugh Pyle, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1987
The Rise of the Spanish Inquisition, Jean Plaidy, Star, London, 1978
The Sacred Executioner Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt Hyam Maccoby Thames and Hudson, London, 1982
The Secret History of the Jesuits, Edmond Paris, Chick Publications, Chino, California, 1975
The Truth About the Homosexuals, Dr Hugh F Pyle, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1978
The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, Watchtower, New York, 1968
The Unequal Yoke, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
The Upside-Down Kingdom, Donald B Kraybill Marshalls, Hants, 1978
The Vatican Connection, The Explosive Expose of a Billion-Dollar Counterfeit Stock Deal Between the Mafia the Church, Richard Hammers Penguin, Middlesex, 1982
Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, Corgi, London, 1997
Unholy Sacrifices of the New Age, Paul de Parrie and Mary Pride, Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 1988
Vatican USA, Nino LoBello, Trident Press, New York, 1972
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Walking with Unbelievers, Michael Paul Gallagher SJ, Veritas Dublin 1985
War and Politics The Christian’s Duty, Peter Watkins, Christadelphian Bible Mission, Birmingham
What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
Whatever Happened to Heaven? Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Publishers, Oregon, 1988