Perhaps unsurprisingly, a Daily Telegraph writer is less than impressed with the notion that there could be a Christian problem with religious violence per se, not just Muslim versions of it.

Responding to my piece on 'Re-evangelising the religion of death' (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5470 [1]), Damian Thompson (editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, who is proud to inform his blog readers that The Church Times once described him as a "blood-crazed ferret") seems to think that the Crusades were mainly about nice Christians soldiers dealing with nasty Muslim occupiers. Plus he tries hard to read something pejorative into a pair of brackets. See: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/july07/stopthecr... [2]

Damian's main ire, however, appears to rest on his belief that "Ekklesia...want us to wear white poppies on Remembrance Sunday because red is frightfully militaristic." This is a rather careless caricature, as we have pointed out before. Actually we want churches to consider making white and red poppies available together, to encourage a recognition that the search for non-violent alternatives and a questioning of the myth of redemptive violence are legitimate ways of honouring those who died in war with the hope they would end it.

[12]This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales License [13]. Although the views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Ekklesia, the article may reflect Ekklesia's values. If you use Ekklesia's news briefings please consider making a donation to sponsor Ekklesia's work here [14].