Christianity and
the Murder RateStrange thing about the relationship between religion (specifically Christianity)and murder...
...for the most part the relationship runs in reverse of what you might think...
...at least if you use church attendance as your measure of "religious."
Consider these facts:
Church Attendance Rank
Murder Rate
#1 Louisiana
twice the U.S. average
#2 U.S. Bible Belt
significantly higher than U.S. average
#3 United States
base line for comparison
#4 Britain
1/6 that of the United States
#5 France
1/7 that of the United States
#6 Australia
1/5 that of the United States
#7 Sweden
1/5 that of the United States
#8 Japan
1/5 that of the United States
With the exception of possibly Italy, Belgium, and Ireland,there are few advanced nations that have high rates of church attendance and low rates of murder. (In the latter case, of course, you have to discount decades of war between Protestants and Catholics.)Note that Japan and Switzerland, where Christianity hardly exists, have some of the lowest murder rates.
Interestingly, Japan is also known for very violent media — specifically, comic books — so it's hard to blame this on the media.
Does all this mean that religion — primarily Christianity — causes violence?
No, as Steve Chapman so clearly points out in his recent Slate article (where I stole most of the above data), relationships don't necessary mean causal relationships.
So what does this mean?
First, I have no doubt that Christianity has done tremendous good...
...kept families together
...provided strength and consolation for many people during difficult times
...inspired charitable organizations and causes
...pacified anger and in the process kept quite a few people alive
At the same time we are also faced with the clear reverse relationship between church attendance in most countries and murder—especially in the United States.
Since Christianity espouses peace, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek...
...and assuming that church attendance doesn't somehow work against these central Christian concepts...
...we must look for other related (or reversely-related) factors.
Here are some factors that, statistically, tend to be reversely related to church attendance:
- educational level
- economic status
- social tolerance (acceptance of people that are "different")
- liberal viewpoints
Makes you wonder about some things, doesn't it?
PS: Since many have asked, it is this type of article that got the response from a couple of my former newspaper editors mentioned in an earlier column, "I don't care if it is true, we can't print it; our readers won't like it and we'll lose subscriptions."
