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Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who use Christian motivations or goals for their actions. As with other forms of religious terrorism, Christian terrorists have relied on interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case, the Bible. Such groups have cited Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to justify violence and killing or to seek to bring about the "end times" described in the New Testament.

By country

Central African Republic

After the predominantly Muslim Seleka militia took control of the Central African Republic under President Michel Djotodia in 2013, a period of lawlessness and sectarian violence continued. Following warnings of "genocide" by the UN and a controversial intervention force by MISCA, Djotodia resigned. Despite neutral Catherine Samba-Panza being made president, the Anti-balaka Christian militants continued sectarian violence, including reported targeted killings, against Muslim civilians.

Great Britain

The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. Peter Steinfels characterizes this plot as a notable case of religious terrorism.

India

Christian terrorism has appeared in various contiguous states in North-East India. In 2000 John Joseph, a member of India's National Minority Commission, described Christian militancy as rampant in the northeastern states.

Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a rebel group which seeks the secession of Tripura, North-East India, from the country, has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs. The NLFT includes in its aims the forced conversion of all tribespeople in Tripura to Christianity. The NLFT is listed as a terrorist organization in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002. The state government contends that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT. Reports from the state government and Indian media describe activities such as the acquisition by the NLFT of explosives through the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, and threats of killing Hindus celebrating religious festivals. Over 20 Hindus in Tripura were reported killed by the NLFT from 1999 to 2001 for resisting forced conversion to Christianity. According to Hindus in the area, there have also been forced conversions of tribal villagers to Christianity by armed NLFT militants. These forcible conversions, sometimes including the use of "rape as a means of intimidation", have also been noted by academics outside of India. In 2000, the NLFT broke into a temple and gunned down a popular Hindu preacher popularly known as Shanti Kali.

Odisha

In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, accused Radhakant Nayak, chief of a local chapter of World Vision, and a former Rajya Sabha member from Odisha in the Indian National Congress party, of plotting to assassinate him. The Swami also said that World Vision was covertly pumping money into India for religious conversion during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and criticized the activities of Christian missionaries as going against tribal beliefs. In 2008, he was gunned down along with four disciples on the Hindu festive day of Krishna Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men. Later, Maoist terrorist leader Sabyasachi Panda admitted responsibility for the assassination, saying that the Maoists had intervened in the religious dispute on behalf of Christians and Dalits. The non-governmental organization Justice on Trial disputed that there had been Maoist involvement, and quoted the Swami as claiming that Christian missionaries had earlier attacked him eight times.

Nagaland

Nagaland is a Christian majority state in India. Many terrorist incidents have been documented there as a result of an insurgency against the government. This insurgency was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), who has indulged in terrorist activities varying from kidnapping, illegal drug trafficking, extortion, etc. The group has committed religious violence, as a part of NSCN's described mission of forcibly converting the animist Naga to Christianity. Other goals include the formation of a greater Nagaland. There are occasional reports of the NSCN using force to convert locals of neighboring states to Christianity.

Manipur

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland, Issac-Muivah faction (slogan: "Nagaland for Christ"), is accused of carrying out the 1992–1993 ethnic cleansing of Kuki tribes in Manipur, said to have leave over 900 people dead. During that NSCN-IM operation, 350 Kuki villages were driven out and about 100,000 Kukis were turned into refugees.

Lebanon

Maronite Christian militias perpetrated the Karantina and Tel al-Zaatar massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims during Lebanon's 1975–1990 civil war. The 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, which targeted unarmed Palestinian refugees for rape and murder, was considered to be genocide by the United Nations General Assembly. A British photographer present during the incident said that "People who committed the acts of murder that I saw that day were wearing crucifixions and were calling themselves Christians." After the end of the civil war, Christian militias refused to disband, concentrating in the Israeli-occupied south of the country, where they terrorized Muslim and Druze villages and forcefully recruited men and boys from those communities into their groups.

Northern Ireland

Terrorist acts were committed by both Protestants and Catholics during the Troubles and beyond. Some scholars, such as Steve Bruce, a sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, argue that the conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily a religious conflict, its economic and social considerations notwithstanding. Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has also argued that some acts of terrorism were "religious terrorism... – in these cases, Christianity" and that "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant." Others, such as John Hickey, take a more guarded view.

Writing in The Guardian, Susan McKay discussed Protestant religious fundamentalism in connection with the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison, and a reporter on crime and the paramilitaries. She noted that the Red Hand Defenders claimed that they killed Hagan, and described his murderers as fundamentalist Protestants who used terrorism to further their aims. The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches. According to RUC Chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan, loyalist pastors including Clifford Peeples found biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army and various dissident republican groups have carried out terrorist attacks on Protestants. Kenneth Bloomfield compared the IRA border campaign to ethnic cleansing.

Norway

In July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik was arrested and charged with terrorism after a car bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting on Utøya island that killed 77 people. Hours prior to the events, Breivik released a 1,500-page manifesto detailing his beliefs that immigrants were undermining Norway's traditional Christian values, and identifying himself as a "Christian crusader" while describing himself as not very religious. Although initial news reports described him as a Christian fundamentalist, subsequent analyses of his motivations have noted that he did not only display Christian terrorist inclinations, but also had non-religious, right-wing beliefs. Mark Juergensmeyer and John Mark Reynolds have stated that the events were Christian terrorism, whereas Brad Hirschfield has rejected the Christian terrorist label.

Romania

Orthodox Christian movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, which have been characterized by Yad Vashem and Stanley G. Payne as anti-semitic and fascist, respectively, were responsible for involvement in the Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.

Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult and guerrilla army, was engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in 2005. It has been accused of using child soldiers and of committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, and using forced child labourers as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves. A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism, it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.

United States

After the American Civil War of 1861–1865, members of the Protestant-led Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burnings, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping. They targeted African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.

Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in part on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. The goals of the KKK included, from an early time onward, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible", and they believed that "Jesus was the first Klansman." From 1915 Klansmen conducted cross-burnings not only to intimidate targets, but also to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the ritual of lighting crosses was steeped in Christian symbolism, including saying prayers and singing Christian hymns. Within Christianity the Klan directed hostilities against Catholics. Modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, detecting a "war" which allegedly aims to destroy "western Christian civilization."

After 1981, members of groups such as the Army of God began attacking abortion clinics and doctors across the United States. A number of terrorist attacks were attributed by Bruce Hoffman to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ. A group called Concerned Christians was deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999; they believed that their deaths would "lead them to heaven".

The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on 31 May 2009 was the belief that abortion is not only immoral, but also a form of murder under "God's law", irrespective of "man's law" in any country, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs. The group supporting Roeder proclaimed that any force used to protect the life of a born child is "legitimate to protect the life of an unborn child", and called on all Christians to "rise up" and "take action" against threats to Christianity and to unborn life. Eric Robert Rudolph carried out the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and on a lesbian nightclub. Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist. James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues that religious considerations inspired Rudolph only in part.

Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group a federal grand jury in Detroit indicted nine of its members on charges of seditious conspiracy to the use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence. On 28 March 2012, the conspiracy charges were dismissed. Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and some "Christian militia" as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component".

Motivation, ideology, and theology

Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threatening, assaulting and murdering doctors, and for bombing their abortion clinics across the United States and Canada.

Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology which asserts that North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.

See also

• Christianism
• Christianity and violence
• Hate groups
• Islamic terrorism
• Jewish religious terrorism
• Religious war
• Sikh extremism
• Zionist political violence

References

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2. Andrew Katz (29 May 2014). "'A Question of Humanity': Witness to the Turning Point In Central African Republic". Time.
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4. Peter Steinfels (5 November 2005). "A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism". New York Times.
5. ^ Radhakrishnan Kuttoor for The Hindu. 10 July 2000 Sections of X'ians torpedoing peace initiative
6. Adam, de Cordier, Titeca, and Vlassenroot (2007). "In the Name of the Father? Christian Militantism in Tripura, Northern Uganda, and Ambon". Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. 30 (11): 963. doi:10.1080/10576100701611288.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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28. The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality.

    Steve Bruce (1986). God Save Ulster. Oxford University Press. p. 249. ISBN 0-19-285217-5. Reviewing the book, David Harkness of The English Historical Review agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious". David Harkness (October 1989). "God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism by Steve Bruce (review)". The English Historical Review. 104 (413). Oxford University Press.
29. Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24011-1.

    "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity"

30. Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain.John Hickey (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem. Gill and Macmillan. p. 67. ISBN 0-7171-1115-6.

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34. Kathryn Gregory for the Council on Foreign Releations. Last updated: March 16, 2010 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) (aka, PIRA, "the provos," Óglaigh na hÉireann) (UK separatists)
35. Revised and Updated Extracts from Sutton's Book, Bear in mind these dead ... An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland 1969–1993, ISBN 0-9514229-4-4
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82. Martin Schönteich and Henri Boshoff (2003). 'Volk' Faith and Fatherland: The Security Threat Posed by the White Right. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. ISBN 1-919913-30-0.

Bibliography

• Mason, Carol. 2002. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement, . Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.
• Al-Khattar, Aref M. Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective. Greenwood. January 2003. ISBN 978-0-275-96923-3

Further reading

• Rodney Stark God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, HarperOne, 2010,

• Christian terrorism
• Anti-abortion violence in the United States
• Religiously motivated violence in the United States
• Christianity and violence