Analysis: The Spanish Inquisition

Many violent acts that were wrongfully said to have been waged for a just and holy cause had ulterior, corrupt motives behind them that overrode the poor excuse of religion. The Spanish Inquisition’s ruthless and unjust persecution of those who questioned or did not follow Catholicism is commonly cited as one of history’s most despicable examples of violence caused by religious purpose, although that campaign was mostly headed by secular authorities with secular motives (Madden). The Catholic monarchs who called for the Spanish Inquisition sought to use religious persecution to increase terror and conformity among their people, to weaken threatening authorities, alliances, and ideologies, and to increase their absolute royal power (Ryan).

Their claim that they attack innocent people to serve their God grants them a greater moral justification to be excessively violent and take more lives than any other motive. Whereas secular terrorists typically target certain political or ethnic groups, religious terrorists get to annihilate nearly anyone because most do not share their radical religious beliefs (Hoffman 215). Since their victims are not followers of their faith, violent extremists can dehumanize them as being unhuman or unworthy of life, and further diminish ethical restrictions on how much brutality they can inflict (Hoffman 216). Religion was undeniably a major aspect of the violent events discussed in this paragraph, but it would be untruthful to say that the just cause of serving a faith was the primary motivation for causing the incredibly unjust sufferings and deaths resulting from these

The Spanish Inquisition’s goal of mass conversion to Catholicism could have been much more effectively achieved if those in charge of the Inquisition considered one of the most important examples of large-scale evangelization in the Bible: the Pentecost and the beginnings of the Church. Motivated by the intense love of the Holy Spirit instead of contempt for those who had different beliefs, a small number of disciples peacefully preached about Christ, rapidly bringing in converts from all nations that would unite and establish what would soon become one of the world’s most influential and long-lasting powers (New International Version, Acts 2-47). In the present day, Islam is quickly, naturally, and nonviolently growing into an even larger influence in the world, so forceful imposition of the religion through terrorism is unnecessary. So many children are currently being born and raised into Muslim families that Islam will probably become the world’s leading religion, surpassing the prolonged dominance and historical impact of Christianity, within the second half of this century (Lipka). Also, it has never been necessary that a nation’s citizens share the same religion in order for that nation to be unified and prosperous; in fact, many of the greatest empires and nations known in history have been religiously tolerant. These examples include the Persian empire, the Islamic Umayyad and Mughal empires, the