There is a frustrating inconsistency in the way we, as Christians, view the history of our faith…one which I see often, and have experienced myself on several occasions.

You see, I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve heard a reference made in conversation to all of the “horrible things” that have been done “in the name of Christianity.”
Sometimes it’s verbalized by a Christian, who hangs his head slightly, and mumbles with a touch of embarrassment as he concedes that such is indeed the case. Other times, it’s an atheist or agnostic friend, who points somewhat self-righteously to the fact that religion clearly is not an answer if it is capable of being so atrociously perverted and utilized for such unjust ends.

I will not deny that atrocious things have been done in the name—or under the auspices—of Christianity. The Crusades are perhaps the most well known of the abuses perpetrated in the name of the community of faith, but for hundreds of years, Christians and non-Christians alike took part in other practices which have today been criminalized in our society, such as slavery, or the open demonstration of anti-Semitism.

Let’s be a little bit realistic, though. If things which our “modern” society now considers to be horrific have been done in the name of Christianity in the past, is this a reason to vilify the belief system itself? Are atheism or agnosticism better philosophical systems, if we base that judgment strictly on the effect which each system has upon mankind?

What legacy –what lasting imprint on the face of humanity—has been left by atheism?

While this is a question we may not often ask, it is a sobering one to answer, because in truth, atheism has left a bigger trail of human carnage in its wake than Christianity ever has or ever will.

There are the scars left by Hitler’s Third Reich…the legacy of the Nazis…the silent horror of the millions of men, women, and children who lived and died in the hells of Auschwitz, Dachau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

There is the ghastly reality of Russia’s Red Army…the anguish in the tears shed by the tens of thousands of innocent Russian citizens starved to death and brutalized under Stalin’s merciless political regime.

There is the legacy of Mao Zedong, the revolutionary under whose leadership 40 to 70 million Chinese men, women, and children were slaughtered.

There is the brutality of the genocides committed in nations like Burundi, Rwanda, Pakistan, and others…mass murders which have claimed unimaginable numbers of human lives, and left millions more homeless, destitute, maimed, and broken.

Have awful things been done in the name of Christianity? Sadly, yes. And worse things have been done in the name of atheism.

But this is not evidence for the defectiveness of Christianity as a belief system. It is rather a testimony to the brokenness of the human soul and the darkness of the human mind. I grieve for the fact that humanity is so badly broken. But I do not apologize for God...and I am not ashamed to call myself a Christian simply because, in the past, broken humanity has done tragic things in the name of a faith it did not understand.