this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2026
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“Christian extremists” always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A real Christian extremist would be giving away everything they owned and responding to all violence with pacifism. I think Christofascism usually fits better.
Supply Side Christofascists.
Eh, fascists are a kind of extremist. Every religion has good and bad parts and for some reason when you hear about extremists in the news it's always people who go hard on the bad parts.
As I recently learned: there were people like that, for example Waldians. There policy of forgiveness, giving to the poor and supporting each other didn't sit right with the clergy and nobleman, so they terrorised them and persecuted them e.g. via the Spanish inquisition.
I wish there were more "extremists" that were like that.
Even Jesus said to sell your cloak for a sword, a good Christian shouldn't seek to start conflict but is entirely allowed to defend themselves.
No, he didn’t — at least not in any Biblically recorded passage. And the one time one of his apostles took his metaphors literally and wielded a sword, he was chastised for it.
There’s nothing by Jesus in the Bible stating that a person should defend themselves. There is, however, a command that if someone demands your cloak, to give them your tunic as well, and as far as you are able, to be at peace with those around you.
All the “fight in the name of Christianity” stuff is from Constantine and later.
Luke 22:36. I was directly referencing the Bible. Later when Jesus chastises Simon it's for defying Jesus's will and trying to prevent his arrest. When was the last time you read the Bible?
There are two interpretations here of this passage. We seem to have come down on opposite sides.
The first is that he was calling them to take up literal swords to defend themselves, and that two swords would be enough for the purpose. The later rebuke of Peter was then about him using the sword to defend Jesus instead of himself.
The second, which makes more sense in my view based on how the gospel of Luke is laid out, is that Jesus was speaking figuratively, and when the disciples responded by producing actual swords, he rebuked them with “that’s enough!” This lines up structurally with his interaction with Peter in the garden as far as the literature goes. However, if taken as a recorded literal event, ignoring the structure that Luke used to frame the story, it does raise the question of: why did Jesus allow Peter to take one of the swords with them to the garden?
In my view, that doesn’t overcome the context of the events in Luke’s narrative or align with the events in Matthew, Mark or John, but I can see why others could use it to defend their position — Constantine certainly did; the early church did not.