::There is no way that you can interpret the New Testament so as to suport the idea of a Holy War by the church. THat, like the Inquisition, is antichristian.
When the Roman Empire fell the duty to keep secular order consequently fell upon the Church -- like it or not. It wasn't a matter of finding New Testament precedent for accepting this responsibility, it was just a fact that they faced and saw no alternative to accepting. Unless there are obvious and explicit warnings against the Church not to pick up these responsibilities -- that is, unless the Bill of Rights fell out of the sky like many think the Bible did, instead of being the logical fruit of years and years of trial and error experience -- then you're criticizing people who cannot be blameworthy. You may as well criticize God for not providing the Bill of Rights directly following the book of Revelation. If you're going to search the Scriptures looking for support either way, you're going to have to contend with the fact that Christ's apostles carried swords, that he did not tell the Roman soldier that his job was inhernetly evil, and that he said render to Caesar what is Caesars. Concerning that last point, the office Caesar held was both political and religious, so although Jesus went on to say render to God what is God's, and obviously did not aknowledge Caesar's religious status, well, neither did he deny a proper view of God in the religious order by Caesar would negate religious implications of his political office.
::The wars against Hitler and Ben Laden were secular, political actions and were, thus, appropriate - they were not the church.
Aye, I'll repeat one more time and again... actually, no I won't; I reponded to Josh at length about this, so take a deep breath and, if you have the time, try to slowly digest what I wrote to him, what I'm actually saying.
::The Inquisition (and similar activities by the Protestant church) are significant because they were sponsered by the church. based on church tradition. The very people consdeed infallible by the Catholic church gave it their stamp of approval. That is significat. It's not something you can just ignore.
They didn't give their stamp to the abuses.
Good day...
