700? How about 70?

There were endless pogroms in Europe before the Holocaust, and there were even pogroms after.

Go back 150 years, and you had Christian nations occupying most of the rest of the world – with assorted genocides – and yes, spreading Christianity was a major motivator. In fact the was the Catholic church that divided up the world and told each European country which part of the rest of the world would be their playground.

In the last century the Christian world had WWI, WWII, the holocaust and the nuking of two cities – with clerics and padres on BOTH the German and Allied sides assuring their respective troops that God thought it was peachy-keen. Nothing in the Islamic world compares to it.

(Yes, even the Nazis had military chaplains to assure the troops that they were doing the right thing and could be proud of their work. Nazi soldiers had the words "Gott mit uns" (God with us) on their belt buckles.)

150 years ago Biblical teachings were commonly used to justify slavery and racism. 50 years ago, they were commonly used to support racism and deny civil rights. When Romney was preaching in France (instead of going to Vietnam), his Christian denomination was still teaching that blacks were cursed and inferior.

Christians committed genocide against Muslims in and around Serbia just a few years ago.

There’s the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, with the Christian Militia killing somewhere between 800 and 3500 people – depending on whose numbers you believe – in refugee camps.

Here in Canada there’s The Sons of Freedom, a sect of Doukhobor anarchists, who have protested nude, blown up power pylons, railroad bridges, and set fire to homes.

Currently in India there’s the National Liberation Front of Tripura. Crimes include forcible conversion of tribal cadres/civilians to Christianity.

In Uganda the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters and sex slaves. It’s led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Christian Holy Spirit. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.

And of course there’s northern Ireland.

Or how about America….

Christian Science Monitor: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland’s prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world’s most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

I’m not justifying what happens in the Islamic world – but the Christian world hasn’t been any better until VERY recently – and even then, by taking Christianity out of the picture. As communications technology spread, as secular education spread, and as it became safe to disagree with the clerics, the west became a better place. The Muslim world is going through the same process.

The founding fathers of America get a lot of the credit, thanks to their insisting on separation of church & state. People are free to practice their religion, so long as it doesn’t harm others or break laws. It worked for Christianity (eventually) and it’ll work for Islam.

It might even work for they guy I was responding to above, defending the actions of a Christian committing a massacre against Muslims in Canada.