In the name of God

Not for the first time, I have received a question that pains me greatly.

What excuse do you have for the atrocities committed in your name, in the name of your faith? How can you talk so much about love when history clearly shows the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch burnings? What about the Cathar Crusade? The persecution of Galileo? Christians sometimes will try to tell me that things have changed, but then how do you explain websites like God Hates Fags, or the KKK and their claims that only white people can be Christians? What about the murder of doctors who preform abortions? How is this loving?

How can I excuse that which is inexcusable? How can I condone that which I condemn? Not all who claim to follow me do, indeed, many who cry my name practice hatred, when I teach love. Remember this, you must be on your guard against false religious teachers, who come to you dressed up as sheep but are really greedy wolves. You can tell them by their fruit. Do you pick a bunch of grapes from a thorn-bush or figs from a clump of thistles? Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree is incapable of producing bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and burnt. So you may know men by their fruit. It is not everyone who keeps saying to me 'Lord, Lord' who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the man who actually does my Heavenly Father's will. In 'that day' many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we preach in your name, didn't we cast out devils in your name, and do many great things in your name?' Then I shall tell them plainly, 'I have never known you. Go away from me, you have worked on the side of evil!'

When Jerry Falwell spoke, and claimed that the attacks of evil men upon innocents were my Father's doing, I wept. When Fred Phelps claimed that I hate my own children, I raged. When Adolf Hitler killed millions in my name, I despaired.

The evil committed by men in my name is not evil committed by me. It is an abomination. To these men who do evil in my name, I will say, 'you serpent's brood, how can you say anything good out of your evil hearts?' For a man's words depend on what fills his heart. A good man gives out good - from the goodness stored in his heart; a bad man gives out evil - from his store of evil. I tell you that men will have to answer at the day of judgment for every careless word they utter - for it is your words that will acquit you, and your words that will condemn you.