Analysis Of Kimball's When Religion Become Evil

In June 2016, an LGBT night club in Orlando, Florida was brutally attacked by armed gunman. On that night, forty nine club-goers were devastatingly shot and murdered. According to CNN, authorities claimed it was the nation’s worst terror attack since 9/11. Not only was this a deeply devastating act of hate, but also possibly an act of religious conflict. It has been reported that the shooter was of Islamic faith, and has formerly pledged his allegiance to ISIS. In his religion, being gay is a punishable sin. There is extreme prejudice in muslim culture against the LGBT community. However, regardless of prejudice, Islam is a religion of peace.

This man’s horribly skewed view of his peaceful religion showed the very first of Kimball’s five warning

I was surprised to find it pretty unbiased and informative for both sides of his argument. His first argument is yes, religion can definitely be the root of evil intentions. A prime example is the Orlando shooting mentioned above, Al-Qaida, countless violent attacks on abortion clinics, etc. I feel I hardly need to go into detail because these instances shouldn’t come as a shock. These are acts of terror stemming from religious conflict, and they happen frequently. These instances are all the proof Kimball needs to argue that religion can become evil.

The first of his five warning signs, as mentioned earlier, is absolute truth claims. This sign was extremely obvious in the first article mentioned. It’s easy to lose sight of remembering that the language of God and his teachings are symbolic. They are not to be taken literally. According to Kimball, when people don’t interpret the word of God by taking each 


teaching as an absolute truth, that is the first warning sign of a religion becoming evil. Kimball’s second sign is blind obedience. His argument for this is when a religion

I found this refreshing. He reiterates that all religions advocate peace, and I think we should apply that to our world and use religion as a tool to unite us. Religion has definitely had a horrible reputation, but it should be used as a tool for open dialogue and empowerment. As Kimball states, it can be radical by causing holy wars, forming cults based off absolute truth claims followed by blind obedience by its followers, etc. Religion causes conflict based on entirely different perspectives. But Kimball’s chapter on inclusiveness was also refreshing to me. He points out that religion may at times