How Christian people have framed the meaning of violence within their faith tradition has been a complex process subject to all manner of historical, cultural,

Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians w

The Crusades. The Conquest of the Americas. U.S. Slavery. The Jewish Holocaust. Mention of these events evokes a variety of responses from Christians, including

Focusing on the 4th and 5th centuries, Michael Gaddis explores how various groups employed the language of religious violence to construct their own identities,

"Pulls off the enviable feat of summing up seven centuries of religious warfare in a crisp 309 pages of text."--Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World In t