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Rana
Great Britain
The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches.[6] The 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.[7]
[edit]Northern Ireland
Main article: The Troubles
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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.[8] Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has also argued that some acts of terrorism were "religious terrorism... – in these cases, Christianity".[9]:19-20 Others, such as John Hickey, take a more guarded view.[10] Writing in The Guardian, Susan McKay discussed 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 attributed the murder to a "range of reasons," including "the gangsters didn't like what he wrote". The alleged killers claimed that they killed him for "crimes against the loyalist people".[11]
The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches.[12]
Self-styled pastors[13] Clifford Peeples, previously convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, John Somerville, and their associates, were dubbed by RUC chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan "the demon pastors" – specialising in recounting lurid stories of Catholic savagery towards Protestants, and in finding biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation.[11]
[edit]India
[edit]Tripura and Assam
The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India, has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs.[14] The NLFT is currently proscribed as a terrorist organization in India.[15][16] It is classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, and has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity.[17][18] The insurgency in Nagaland was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), and it is continued today by a faction named "NSCN–Isaac Muivah", which explicitly calls for a "Nagalim for Christ".[19] The state government reports that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT.[17][18][20] In April 2000, the secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested with a large quantity of explosives. He confessed to illegally buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for two years.[20][21] The NLFT has threatened to kill Hindus celebrating the annual five-day religious festival of Durga Puja and other religious celebrations.[22] At least 20 Hindus in Tripura have been killed by the NLFT in two years for resisting forced conversion to Christianity.[23] A leader of the Jamatia tribe, Rampada Jamatia, said that armed NLFT militants were forcibly converting tribal villagers to Christianity, which he said was a serious threat to Hinduism.[23] It is believed that up to 5,000 tribal villagers were converted to Christianity by the NLFT in two years.[23] These forcible conversions to Christianity, sometimes including the use of "rape as a means of intimidation," have also been noted by academics outside of India.[24]
In early 2000, 16 Bengali Hindus were killed by the NLFT at Gourangatilla. On May 20, 2000, the NLFT killed 25 Bengali Hindus at the Bagber refugee camp.[25] In August 2000, a tribal Hindu spiritual leader, Shanti Kali, was shot dead by about ten NLFT guerrillas who said it wanted to convert all people in the state to Christianity.[26] In December 2000, Labh Kumar Jamatia, a religious leader of the state's second largest Hindu group, was kidnapped by the NLFT, and found dead in a forest in Dalak village in southern Tripura. According to police, rebels from the NLFT wanted Jamatia to convert to Christianity, but he refused.[27] A local Marxist tribal leader, Kishore Debbarma, was clubbed to death in Tripura's Sadar (north) by militants belonging to the Biswamohan faction of the NLFT in May 2005.[28] He was dragged away at gunpoint by a group of NLFT militants. His body was found with multiple head injuries in a roadside ditch in the Katabon area.
John Joseph, the Christian representative of the National Minority Commission, stated in 2000 that foreign funds used for Christian terrorism in the northeast are routed through Christians in Kerala.[29]
In Assam in 2009, the Manmasi National Christian Army (MNCA), an extremist group from the Hmar tribe, were charged with forcing Hindus to convert at gunpoint.[30] Seven or more Hmar youths were charged with visiting Bhuvan Pahar, a Hindu village, armed with guns, and pressuring residents to convert to Christianity.[31] They also desecrated temples by painting crosses on the walls with their blood.[31] The Sonai police, along with the 5th Assam Rifles, arrested 13 members of the MNCA, including their commander-in-chief. Guns and ammunition were seized.[31][32]
[edit]Odisha
See also: Religious violence in 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.[33] 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.[34] 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.[35] 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.[36][37] 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.[38][39]
[edit]Norway
Main article: 2011 Norway attacks
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.[40] As a result of his attacks, 151 people were injured, and 77 killed. Hours prior to the events, Breivik released a 1,500 page manifesto detailing that immigrants were undermining Norway's traditional Christian values, and identifying himself as a "Christian crusader".[41] Analyses of his motivations have noted that he did not only display Christian terrorist inclinations, but also had non-religious, right-wing beliefs.[42][43][44] Mark Juergensmeyer and John Mark Reynolds have stated that the events were Christian terrorism,[45][46] whereas Brad Hirschfield has rejected the Christian terrorist label.[47]
[edit]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.[48][49][50][51](p37)[dead link][52]
[edit]Uganda
The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult 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, and forced child labour as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves.[53] A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism,[54][55] 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.[page*needed][56][56][57][58] LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.[54][59][60][dead link][61][62][63]
[edit]United States
See also: Anti-abortion violence in the United States
Ku Klux Klan with a burning cross
The End. Victoriously slaying Catholic influence in the U.S. Illustration by Rev. Branford Clarke from Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty 1926 by Bishop Alma White published by the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, NJ.
Beginning after the Civil War, members of the Protestant-led[64] Ku Klux Klan organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
They were explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a "religious foundation" in Christianity.[65] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first Klansman."[66] Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of prayers and singing of Christian hymns.[67] Many modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, asserting that there is a "war" on to destroy "western Christian civilization."
During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.[68][69][70] A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ.[71] A group called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven."[72][73] The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and immoral, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.[74][75] The Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub, were made by Eric Robert Rudolph; Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist, whereas James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues instead that Rudolph was inspired only in part by religious considerations.[76]
Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.[77] On March 28, 2012, the conspiracy charges were dismissed.[78] 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".[79]
[edit]Peru
Fourteen traditionalist shamans about to form a shamanic school and association were murdered in Peru over a period of several months prior to October 2011. The murders were allegedly committed by, and/or at the behest of, the local mayor and a group of other evangelical Christians. The mayor's brother was known in the area as a matabrujos or witch killer.[80] The Peruvian government continues to investigate.
[edit]Motivation, ideology, and theology
See also: Anti-abortion violence, Christian Patriot movement,*and Christian Identity movement
Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada.
Hail Voltaire
Islamic Mob Destroys Christian Area of Lahore
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