Christians Can Be Violent too, Says Critic of Coulter's Anti-Muslim Column

By: E&P Staff Ann Coulter is wrong to imply that Muslims have a monopoly on religious violence, says a letter published today by The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

Letter-writer Peter Messer was responding to Coulter's column of last week, in which she said of Muslims: "Their immediate response to all bad news is mass violence" and "their default mode [is] rioting and setting things on fire" (E&P, Feb. 16).

Messer wrote that Coulter "should consider the history of Christianity. Taking the long view, we can see the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish/Dutch Wars, the 30 Years War, the wars of religion in France, the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the English Civil War, and the long history of anti-Semitic violence.

"Closer to home, she can consider the Christian justifications offered for 250 years of slavery, the cultural genocide waged against Native Americans, various massacres of Indians, anti-immigration riots, anti-abolition riots, the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, the Oklahoma City bombings, and the Atlanta Olympics bombing."

Messer continued: "I should also add that a similar list of acts of generosity by members of both faiths [Christianity and Islam] could also be compiled. As the above should illustrate, no religion has a unique predilection for violence, but extremists of all faiths do."

Coulter's column is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.