God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World
By Cullen Murphy
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, 310 pp.
For many years, I’d desired to familiarize myself with the Roman Catholic church’s infamous Inquisition and have made some progress. I’ve recently checked off a couple of books which focused specifically on the RCC’s persecution of the Cathars/Albigensians (see here) and the Waldensians (see here), and also completed a non-scholarly bookazine, which took a general approach (see here). I still desired to read more about the murderous institution and came across this “unusual” book at our library.
This was an “interesting” read. Author Murphy (historian, journalist, and editor) critiques various aspects of the Roman Catholic Inquisition and proposes that it was the inspiration for oppressive, freedom-limiting regimes and their institutions in modern times, including the Nazis, the U.S.S.R. and even the U.S.A. with, for example, its rounding-up and internment of Japanese citizens during World War II. He suggests the inquisitorial mind-set also ramped-up in this country during the Red Scare (1947-1957), the anti-war student protests of the 1960s, and again following the 9/11/01 attacks.
Murphy provides a lot of interesting details regarding the development of the RC Inquisition bureaucracy (in a decidedly unbureaucratic era) and that alone makes this book worth the read. I see from some google sleuthing that Murphy was raised Roman Catholic, but he’s definitely not an apologist for the RCC. Murphy scoffs at any and all “true believers” who thereby seek to control/eliminate nonconformists as was trailblazed by the Roman Catholic inquisitors of the Medieval era. Hey, I take exception to that generalization! I am a true believer in Jesus Christ, God’s Word, and the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. True believers in Jesus Christ do not seek to control and oppress others, but rather seek to sow the Gospel. Well, over the centuries there admittedly have been misguided Protestants who did support church-state alliance and embraced inquisitorious methods. I got a bit of a chuckle out of unbeliever Murphy’s moralizing regarding the “evils” of the Inquisition and of modern governmental authoritarianism. Even beginner students of Presuppositional Apologetics like myself know it’s ludicrous for atheists to moralize.
While this book has some very good information about the archetype Roman Catholic Inquisition and modern expressions of various types, I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend it.