What Every Christian Should Know About the Inquisition

WHAT EVERY CHRISTIAN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THE INQUISITION
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The extra-ordinary attempt by US president Barak Hussein Obama to deflect attention from violent Islamic Jihad by condemning the Inquisition as “evil done in the Name of Jesus Christ”, should make us take a fresh look at the Inquisition:

One of the re-occurring accusations against Christianity is that Christians are responsible for: "The Inquisition!"

Frequently, while trying to love one’s neighbour and share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, Christians receive some tirade against "The Church" and "The Inquisition!" The Inquisition is used as some kind of general-purpose club with which to bludgeon Evangelical Christians.

On one occasion while I was being interviewed on a national secular radio programme, on the publication of my book: Biblical Principles for Africa, the first caller attacked me, and my book, over something that the book doesn't even deal with - she claimed that Christians were responsible for “the Inquisition” which “burned thousands of witches!”

The Anti-Christian Inquisition
When I finally had the chance to respond to this emotional outburst, I had to point out that a vast majority burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition were not witches at all, but Protestant believers. Should one study the court records of the inquisitors it becomes very clear that the inquisitors were by no means Christians at all. They would vindictively condemn to death Christians who believed in, who translated, or who taught, the Holy Scriptures. Often the inquisitors contemptuously tossed the victim’s Bible into the fire to be burned with the martyr.

Anyone who has read Foxes Book of Martyrs, or similar historical records of the cruel persecutions endured by the Waldensians, the Huguenots and other Protestant reformers, will know that the Inquisition was anti-Christian. The Inquisition occurred at a time of blatant corruption, when priesthoods, bishoprics and even papal seats were bought and sold. There were many ungodly men dominating all levels of leadership in the medieval Roman church. Far from the Inquisition being Christians persecuting non-Christians, the reality is that it was the very opposite. The Inquisition was an anti-Christian persecution of Protestant believers. {Note: it is an error to mistake non-Roman-Catholic bible believers Karaites or Messianic for "protestants' because they aren't necessarily protesting anything or anyone by adhering to truths or doctrines that predate Rome's existence.}

The Judas Factor
The church has never been perfect. Even amongst the twelve Apostles there was a Judas Iscariot who betrayed Christ. Yet it would not be fair to make Judas a representative of the twelve Apostles! The total record of the Church needs to be examined, and the good far outweighs the bad. Besides of which the Christian Faith is centered in Christ, not in Christians.

When someone brings up the question of evil perpetrated in God’s Name, we need to first examine whether the people involved were true Christians or not. Our Lord Jesus Christ made it abundantly clear: "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your Name, cast out demons in Your Name and done many wonders in Your Name, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" Matthew 7: 21-23

Our Lord Jesus Christ made it clear that some people are truly part of His Church, the elect, all those who are regenerated by His Holy Spirit. However, not all of those in the larger, visible church are members of the true, invisible Church of Christ. The Lord warned that there would be weeds among the wheat and goats amongst His sheep. Many who claim to be Christians are not Christians at all.

The Historical Facts
When people bring up the Inquisition we need to ask them what they actually know about the Inquisition? Seldom has the individual done any research on the matter at all. The Spanish Inquisition began in the year AD1233. This is almost three hundred years before the Protestant Reformation. So, Protestants had no part in the Inquisition except as victims.

Bible-believing, Evangelical Protestants were often on the receiving end of the Inquisition, tortured and killed for their beliefs. This included tens of thousands of Waldensian Christians tortured and murdered in the most brutal ways and the Lollards of England, the field workers of the Reformation, who were mercilessly persecuted.

The English Reformer, William Tyndale, was burned at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having translated the Bible into the English language.

Protestants were burned at the stake as "heretics" in Spain, Italy, France, England and Scotland. Yet the Dutch Protestants suffered even worse persecutions at the hands of the Catholic Inquisition. Under King Phillip II of Spain, more than 18,000 Protestants were executed in the Netherlands. In an attempt to force them to confess to "heresy", both men and women were mercilessly tortured.

Excommunicating Holland
At that time, Spain was the most powerful country in the world. Holland was occupied by Spain. In 1566 Phillip II issued a proclamation demanding that all his subjects, accept the decrees made by the Council of Trent. Early in 1567, to crush the flourishing Protestant Faith in Holland, Phillip sent in the Duke of Alva, who unleashed a reign of terror upon the Dutch Protestants. In 1568 the Inquisition condemned all three million inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as "heretics".

Under the courageous leadership of William Prince of Orange, the Dutch Protestants rose up in resistance against the oppression of Catholic Spain. Prince William the Silent and his brave Dutch resistance fighters became the inspiration of Protestants world wide, particularly in England.

Bible Banned
At the Council of Valencia the Bible was placed on The Index of Forbidden Books, in 1229. The papacy viciously persecuted the Waldensians. The hostility of the inquisitors to the Bible is clearly seen in their pronouncements such as in the condemnation of English Bible translator, Professor John Wycliffe of Oxford University: "Pestilent and most wretched John Wycliffe, of damnable memory ... crowned his wickedness by translating the Scriptures into the mother tongue!"

Similarly, the Inquisition condemned the Professor of Prague University, Jan Hus, to be burned alive, for his Reformation works.

Foxes Book of Martyrs records the condemnation of prominent Protestant preacher, Reformer and Bible translator, John Rogers, who was burned at the stake, January 1555. Asked by the inquisitor to recant his beliefs, Rogers replied that what he had preached from the pulpit he would seal now with his blood.

"Then thou art an heretic!" exclaimed the inquisitor.

"That shall be known on the Day of Judgement," replied Rogers.

"Well, I will never pray for you", said his judge.

"I will pray for you", responded Rogers. As he walked to the stake in Smithfield, Rogers sang the Psalms.

On one day in 1519 seven men and women in Coventry were burned alive by the Inquisition for the crime of teaching their children: The Lord’s Prayer, The Ten Commandments and The Apostles Creed - in English!

At his trial, Bishop Ridley was urged to reject his Protestant Faith. His reply: "As for the doctrine which I have taught, my conscience assureth me that it is sound and according to God's Word ... in confirmation thereof I seal the same with my blood."

Blaming the Victims
Anyone attempting to blame Christians for the Inquisition is obviously ignorant of the historical record. It is an utter distortion to blame the victims for the tortures and murders, which were inflicted upon them. So, the next time non-Christians attempt to blame believers for the Inquisition, point out to them that in reality the Inquisition was an anti-Christian persecution of Protestant believers.

"Woe to those who call evil good; and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness..." Isaiah 5:20

(source)

Related:

• Heroic Holland
• Answering Skeptics (book)
• Inquisition of the Netherlands
• Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession
• Deadly Druid Cremation Exposed at Last (relates to Burning At the Stake)

The basic accusation of the Inquisition was that Jews who converted to Christianity were still secretly Jewish.
If we discussed the Crusades, we uncovered the war of the Church against the Muslims in the Middle East. Now we turn to the war of the Church against Muslims in Europe. This war went on for quite some time in fits and starts—from the time the Muslim Moors arrived in Spain in 711. It took a long time for the Christians to vanquish them. The first Muslim stronghold to fall was Toledo in 1085; the last was Granada in 1492.

As the Christian re-conquest gained momentum, Jews in these newly re-conquered Christians territories began to suffer from increasingly harsher persecutions.







(One of the most fascinating and depressing sub-plots of this drama is how many of the major Christian personalities in this story had either Jewish ancestry or were actually Jewish according to Jewish law. In addition to Torquemada-Jewish blood also flowed through the veins of:Frenetically only

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“Whereas, having been informed that in these kingdoms, there were some bad Christians who Judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic faith, the chief cause of which was the communication of Jews with Christians…we ordered the said Jews in all cities, towns, and places in our kingdoms and dominions to separate into Jewries [ghettos] and place apart…hoping by their separation alone to remedy this evil….But we are informed that neither that, not the execution of some of the said Jews…has been sufficient for a complete remedy….Therefore we…resolve to order all the said Jews and Jewesses to quit our kingdoms and never return…by the end of the month of July next, of the present year 1492…if they do not perform and execute the same, and are found to reside in out kingdoms…they incur the penalty of death….We likewise grant permission and authority to said Jews…to export their wealth and property…provided they do not take away gold, silver, money, or other articles prohibited by the laws of kingdom.”

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Now, on what day was the Jewish community sent into exile? August 2, 1492. (the original date was July 31st, but Torquemada extended it by a few days.)This day just happened to be the 9th of Av, the same date as the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem (and many other disasters as we have already seen). On that day the Jews of Spain (some 150,000 - 200,000 people) were forced to abandon their vast possessions and leave. The remainder (around 60,000 though it’s unknown exactly how many) stayed, agreeing to convert.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
The day after the expulsion, August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus left on his famed voyage of discovery. His diary begins:

“In the same month in which their Majesties issued the edit that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month, they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery of the Indies.”

Many people like to speculate that Columbus was of Jewish ancestry, and there is a good case for it. (For those interested, there are a lot of fascinating tidbits about Columbus collected in a book called Christopher Columbus’s Jewish Connection by Jane Francis Amler.) (2) Here are some examples:



Incidentally, Columbus’s voyage was not financed by Isabella selling her jewels as is often stated. The major financiers were two court officials - both Jewish converses - Louis de Santangel, chancellor of the royal household, and Gabriel Sanchez, treasurer of Aragon.

The first letter Columbus sent back from the New World was not to Ferdinand and Isabella, but to Santangel and Sanchez thanking them for their support and telling them what he found.

The voyage of Columbus is a landmark in the Age of Exploration when numerous discoverers opened up the New World. While no other is believed to be Jewish, their discoveries were, to a significant extent, made possible by Jewish inventions or Jewish improvements to existing inventions.

For example, the key tools of navigators—the quadrant and the astral lobe used during this period- were of Jewish manufacture. In fact, the type of quadrant then in use was called “Jacob’s Staff”; it had been invented by Rabbi Levi ben Gershon also known as Gershonides.

The famous atlas that Columbus and the other explorers used was known as the Catalon Atlas. It was the creation of the Cresca Family, Jews from Majorca, Spain. Not only was the Catalon Atlas considered the greatest and most significant collection of maps at the time, it had no competition to speak of. Jews had a virtual monopoly at map making then, culling information from Jewish merchants from all over the known world. Phonetician skilled maritime logistics





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words, "the evils of lucidus meaning "light, bright, clear." shiny ones might be endured in the consideration of the moral
and spiritual advantages which it bestows upon its unfortunate victims adversarial
The two ministers went on to justify it because it removed guilt from the
heathenism of his native land to a country where his mind would be enlightened
by the gospel, and provision made for the salvation of his soul. . . ."In other
words, "the evils of slavery might be endured in the consideration of the moral
and spiritual advantages which it bestows upon its unfortunate victims.
As Senator Barbour's comments reflect, slavery advocates could use the Bible
offensively as well as defensively. One Southerner claimed, for example, that
God had permitted some of the Africans to be "dragged into bondage" so that
they might learn from the experience and then return to Africa taking with them
"the light of civilization, and the blessings of Christianity, to their benighted and
unhappy countrymen." Thus from this "apparent evil" God could bring about
"the utmost possible good. Yet Satan builder of Nation
As the above quotation indicates there was some use made of the concept that slavery was justified because it brought Christianity to the blacks. In the early
nineteenth century, however, such usage was slight; it was not a very important
part of the proslavery argument. More emphasis was placed upon using the Bible
itself as an authority to justify the institution of black slavery.
The substance of the individual biblical sanctions was not as important as the
use made of them. Attacked for the immorality of holding slaves, Southerners
carefully explored the Bible for passages relating to slavery in any manner, and
then used these passages to justify their own slaveholding. Slavery defenders
explicitly argued that since God recognized slavery in Holy Scripture, then by
definition, slavery could not possibly be immoral. The appeal was always to the
literal wording of Scripture, the authority of the Bible; the purpose was always to
discover sanctions for slavery and thus justify their own practice and institution
of black slavery. Such arguments were not an aberration; they were consistent
with the views of a society that was convinced by personal experience and
psychic need of the legitimacy of black slavery. The biblical defense of slavery
was thus a natural outgrowth of the values of that society. Far beyond explotation the Bible is the authority needed but not the blessing Africa has left Africa weve allowed mankind outstanding tragedies in the dominant religions. Facilities and financial markets a globalized humanitarian enterprise in capital . Lodi whatsoever takes place its this planetariums faces only ourselves .