Morality
What about all the harm done by the church?
The short answer
Much of it is real, indefensible, and condemned by Jesus more sharply than by any critic. But the standard being used to judge the church is Christ's own — which means the argument is against the failure to follow him, not against him.
Do not defend the indefensible
Abuse covered up, wars blessed, slavery justified, the vulnerable exploited by people with a Bible in hand — Christians should name these as evil without reaching for context first. Jesus reserved his hardest words for religious hypocrites, and warned that a millstone would be better than harming a child.
The standard you are using
To call the Crusades evil, you need a standard of mercy, enemy-love and the equal worth of every person. Historically, that standard came largely from the movement being criticised. The church is being judged, rightly, by its own founder's teaching.
The other half of the ledger
The same faith produced hospitals, universities, orphanages, the abolition movement led by Wilberforce and freed slaves, Bonhoeffer against Hitler, King in Birmingham jail, hospices, and the majority of aid work in the poorest regions today. That does not cancel the harm; it complicates a one-sided story.
"But what about…"
Religion causes most wars.
Historians of conflict find religion to be a primary factor in a minority of recorded wars. The deadliest regimes of the twentieth century were explicitly atheistic. The common ingredient is power, not belief.
Christians are hypocrites.
Some are. The rest are people who admit they fall short of a standard they still believe is true. A hospital full of sick people is not an argument against medicine.
I'd never join an institution like that.
Fair. But local churches are mostly ordinary people feeding neighbours and sitting with the grieving. Judge the nearest one by visiting it, not by its worst headline.
Scripture
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs.
Matthew 23:27
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 7:21
Go deeper
- —If the church hurt you, that is not a debate topic. Find someone safe and say it out loud.
Where this came from
We're not experts — these are the sources we used while researching this page. Read them yourself, keep digging, and hold us to them.
- [1]Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Cosmological, Teleological, Moral and Evil entries
Peer-reviewed statements of the arguments and their strongest objections.
- [2]Gary Habermas — minimal facts research on the resurrection
The survey of critical scholarship behind the resurrection material.
- [3]Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, and Daniel Wallace, Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
Both sides of the manuscript-reliability debate; the skeptical case is read directly.
- [4]Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Josephus, Antiquities 18.63 and 20.200 — Perseus / Loeb texts
The non-Christian ancient references to Jesus and the early church.