Humans have engaged in all manner of atrocities, and despite the horrors of the past century, we see repeatedly—across earlier centuries as well—how easily cruelty can be normalized, ritualized, and justified. The human capacity for harm is ancient. What is especially sobering, though, is how often major institutions—including major religions—can make cruelty feel righteous.
Many historical atrocities have occurred under the banner of religion, especially when religious identity fused with conquest, state power, or tribal domination. Charlemagne’s campaigns against the Saxons (772–804 CE), for example, fused military conquest with coerced Christianization; forced conversion was backed by severe legal penalties, and there were episodes of mass killing in the course of suppressing Saxon resistance, most notably the Massacre of Verden in 782, where 4,500 Saxon prisoners were reportedly executed in a single day.
The Crusades (1095–1291) likewise included mass slaughter justified in explicitly religious terms: the Rhineland massacres of 1096 saw the destruction of Jewish communities in Speyer, Worms, and Mainz by crusader mobs, and the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099 ended with the indiscriminate mass killing of Muslims and Jews within the city walls.
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)—driven in significant part by religious divisions between Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire, became one of the most devastating catastrophes in European history. Ending with the Peace of Westphalia, the conflict resulted in deaths in the millions, decimating up to a third of the population in some German territories, many due to famine and disease rather than battlefield combat, and leaving a legacy of psychological trauma and social ruin.
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)—driven in significant part by religious divisions between Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire, became one of the most devastating catastrophes in European history. Ending with the Peace of Westphalia, the conflict resulted in deaths in the millions, decimating up to a third of the population in some German territories, many due to famine and disease rather than battlefield combat, and leaving a legacy of psychological trauma and social ruin.
The Spanish Inquisition (established in 1478 and lasting until 1834) created a terrifying machinery of coercion and intimidation, with religious motives explicitly invoked; the exact numbers are debated by historians, but the core point is not: it was a system designed to enforce conformity (targeting Jewish conversos and later Protestants) through fear, punishment, and (in many cases) execution.
Colonial movements in more recent centuries often deployed religious language—“civilization,” “salvation,” missionary uplift—as moral cover for economic extraction and domination. The Congo Free State terror under Leopold II (1885–1908) is one of the most infamous examples of colonial exploitation and brutality, resulting in the deaths of millions through forced labor and systemic violence.
Colonial movements in more recent centuries often deployed religious language—“civilization,” “salvation,” missionary uplift—as moral cover for economic extraction and domination. The Congo Free State terror under Leopold II (1885–1908) is one of the most infamous examples of colonial exploitation and brutality, resulting in the deaths of millions through forced labor and systemic violence.
The transatlantic slave trade and slavery (spanning roughly the 16th to the 19th centuries) were likewise justified by many religious leaders and institutions in their own time (often citing the biblical “Curse of Ham” as a theological rationale), even as other religious figures became central to abolitionist movements. The point is not that religion uniquely causes exploitation, but that it has repeatedly been recruited to sanctify it.
The same pattern appears in Canadian history. “Christianization” was one motive—alongside state assimilationist policy—behind the Residential School system (which operated federally from 1883 until the last school closed in 1996). In this system, more than 150,000 Indigenous children passed through church-run, state-funded institutions characterized by coercion, cultural destruction, and extensive abuse, with many children dying and records often incomplete.
Of course, in human history, violence and atrocity have occurred without religion, and secular ideologies have also justified horrors. But it is very clear that religions have not been reliably protective against the worst destructive drives of humanity. Worse, religious certainty has often been deployed to justify abuse, discrimination, and war—to lend the aura of sacred duty to actions that would otherwise look like what they are: cruelty, domination, and theft.
The same pattern appears in Canadian history. “Christianization” was one motive—alongside state assimilationist policy—behind the Residential School system (which operated federally from 1883 until the last school closed in 1996). In this system, more than 150,000 Indigenous children passed through church-run, state-funded institutions characterized by coercion, cultural destruction, and extensive abuse, with many children dying and records often incomplete.
The Spanish conquest of the Americas (beginning in 1492 and intensifying with Cortés's campaign against the Aztecs in 1519) similarly involved catastrophic Indigenous death and cultural devastation. While infectious disease accounted for much of the mortality, religious institutions were at best entangled with the colonial project and at worst active participants in its dehumanization, often reading the Requerimiento—a demand for submission to the Pope and Crown—to uncomprehending Indigenous populations before launching attacks.
Of course, in human history, violence and atrocity have occurred without religion, and secular ideologies have also justified horrors. But it is very clear that religions have not been reliably protective against the worst destructive drives of humanity. Worse, religious certainty has often been deployed to justify abuse, discrimination, and war—to lend the aura of sacred duty to actions that would otherwise look like what they are: cruelty, domination, and theft.
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