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Is Christianity Really the Worst Source of Evil?

Nietzschean atheism is obviously no recipe for peacemaking—not while the Übermenschen are asserting themselves properly on a recalcitrant population of human sheep. And Orwell, Huxley and Lewis, among many others, offer dystopic warnings about atheistic social engineering, from Gattaccan eugenics to Big Brother-ish surveillance to other Weberian nightmares of “efficiency” and “rationality.” So what real atheisms are really being put against Christianity as a way of life and a way of governing life?

Those who would claim the high ground of rational and historical argument ought to sit still for some. And that argument might show—I think it does—Christianity is not inherently hateful or violent. Instead, it would show faithful (rather than token or cynical) adherence to Christianity generally makes a measurable positive difference: in terms of the hospitals and schools and science you mention, as well as leading markers of social and psychological health, such as lasting, happy marriages, high levels of volunteerism—and, one should note, an ethical structure that actually prizes lasting, happy marriages and high levels of volunteerism.

This is a start at an answer, at least. David Martin’s excellent book Does Christianity Cause War? is worth your reading on this question, as is the volume of essays edited by Kenneth Chase and Alan Jacobs, Must Christianity Be Violent?: Reflections on History, Practice, and Theology.