BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — Christians reading the biblical accounts of Jesus' birth are often jolted by King Herod's act of genocide. When told by the wise men of the birth of a Jewish king, Herod ordered all the Jewish infants in Bethlehem slaughtered to eliminate potential rivals, according to the second chapter of Matthew.
Although Jesus escaped the killing, the story continues to shock Christians at Christmas time.
But while historical evidence of Herod's genocide is scant, one researcher says Christians are all too familiar with genocide. In fact, they have been complicit in some of the worst cases of genocide in the last century.
James Waller, professor of psychology at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., said the fusion of Christian beliefs with ethnic and national identities in Germany (1939-45), Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia (1992-95) contributed to genocide in all three countries.
In each case, Waller said, the church provided a theological justification for an “us versus them” mentality. When that happens, he said, Christians may abandon their moral obligation to help persecuted people.
Waller talked about Christians and genocide during a recent human-rights conference at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He also recounted his research in his book “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing,” published in 2002.
The 20th century, dubbed the “Age of Genocide” by some historians, saw more than 60 million people fall victim to state-sponsored killing, with ethnic cleansings and purges in countries such as Germany, Ukraine, Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia — though not all at the hands of Christians or other religious groups.
But Waller said the Christian church was silent, compliant and resigned to mass murder during the Holocaust and incidences of genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia. In Rwanda, where more than 500,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutus in 1994, there is evidence that the worst massacres occurred in churches and mission compounds, Waller said, and that some clergy participated in the killing.
As evidence that Christian intervention can make a difference, Waller pointed to an event in the early stages of the Holocaust. Before Hitler began killing Jews, he gassed hundreds of Germans who had physical or mental disabilities. The church spoke out against Hitler's actions, and the killings stopped. Later, however, when Hitler began killing Jews, the church was silent, Waller said.
After genocide occurs, Waller's research found, the church tends to overstate its degree of victimization or persecution, often retelling the story of genocide in a way that appropriates the victims' suffering. The church often glorifies individual Christian heroes or martyrs, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Germany, taking credit as a group for what is done by an individual.
Although the church typically has made official declarations of contrition in the wake of genocide, Waller said that these lacked any real self-analysis or acceptance of culpability. The church seems to assume that self-critique doesn't matter, he said, because genocide “won't happen again.”
“To what degree can Christian institutions redeem themselves — and the world — by being involved in post-genocidal reconciliation?” Waller asked. Above all, he said, Christian communities should think about what the church did wrong and what it can do differently next time, because, he said, “there will be a next time.”
— Jana Peairson is a writer for Samford University. Greg Warner contributed to this article.