Exodus 20:7 & Ephesians 4:29-32 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the L ORD your God, for the L ORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. (NRSV)

Exodus 20:7 & Ephesians 4:29-32 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Exodus 20:7 & Ephesians 4:29-32 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (RSV)

Evil in the Name of God

Exodus 20:7 (NRSV) You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the L ORD your God, for the L ORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Ezekiel 34:3-5 (NIV) You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

Matthew 23:13 (NIV) Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

Robert Tilton

The Siege & Capture of Jerusalem: Collected Accounts Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off their heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into flames.

The Siege & Capture of Jerusalem: Collected Accounts But these were small matters compared to what happened at the temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted… men rode in blood up to their knees and the bridle reins.

The Siege & Capture of Jerusalem: Collected Accounts Indeed it was a just and splendid judgment of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers, when it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. How the men rejoiced and exulted and sang the ninth chant to the Lord.

When Religion Becomes Evil By Charles Kimball 1. Rigidly Making Absolute Truth Claims 2. Blind Obedience to a Leader 3. Belief in an “Ideal” Time When Religion Rules 4. The End Justifies Any Means 5. Declaration of a Holy War

Blaise Pascal “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”

John Wesley “When I was young I was sure of everything, In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me.”

Ephesians 4:29-32 (RSV) Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Ephesians 4:29-32 (RSV) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NASB) Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NASB) does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Joseph Miles

Evil in the Name of God