The priests and bishops in the UK sent people to burn, the highest priest in the land, the Archbishop of Canterbury very willingly went first.

These new powers allowed the bishops to arrest and imprison all preachers of heresy, all schoolmasters infected with heresy, and all owners and writers of heretical books. On refusal to abjure (solemnly renounce) or relapse after abjuration, the heretic could be handed over to civil officers, to be taken to a high place before the people and there be burnt, so that their punishment might strike fear in the hearts and minds of others. In April, 1399, William Sawyer was convicted of heresy and put to penance by his bishop. He was again arrested on 12 February 1400, as a relapsed heretic and was convicted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sawyer was burnt on 2 March, eight days before the power to inflict such punishment was granted. There is a long list of those burnt, or hanged and burnt, between 1414 and 1506.

– Blasphemy ecclesiastical offences, Wikipedia

The Archbishop of Canterbury sentenced a man to burn to death 8 days before a law was brought in to do that in 1400. Apparently, so long as the law allows it, burning a heretic is a Christian thing to do. Its the thing that the highest Christian in England would wish to do. This is 1400 years after Christ was born. Try to think of a time in 1400 years, in the year 3400. Star Trek is 2200 – 2400. Do you think we will have figured out that burning people is wrong by then? Would it have been more Christian if the Archbishop had just sent him to a gas chamber (had it been available) and burnt the body afterwords? Do we think that the Archbishop of Canterbury went to heaven?

Burning people is not compatible with Christianity, you don’t need to be a Christian to know that. If the head of your Christian church does things that don’t comply with the faith he claims to preach then your church has failed. The church should willingly disband itself. If the head of your church burns people 1000 years after the religion arrived, they clearly have not learnt what Christianity is, nor can they ever. If the church truly were run by Christians they would know this.

From this I conclude that the Church of England is not run by Christians. This is just one example. This alone should be enough to prevent anyone who fully reads the teachings of Christ from attending a church. If you want to be Christian, love thy neighbour, help the poor and don’t burn people. You don’t need a church. Everything that is done in current day countries that still send people to death for heresy and blasphemy is no different to our own countries. It’s not the faith that’s the problem, its the people in power abusing the faith.

Richard Dawkins argues in ‘The God Delusion’ that religion gives those in power an easy way to justify their killing. But I disagree that that is the main problem. Stalin and Mao had no need for religion to do what they did, dictators will use what ever is the easiest tool to carry out their job. They don’t need religion but if it’s around they’ll use it. Getting people to rely on ‘faith’ and belief in a magical God will make people more gullible and that part of religion I agree should be looked at critically. I fully support secularism and religion should not have a part of the state, but dictators find a way even if there is no religion. For control they need intimidation, corruption and hypnotism (The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy), if they don’t have religion for hypnotism they use patriotism instead. The teachings of Jesus were explicitly set out to avoid the creation of future dictators. Not having religion won’t stop dictators, but the teachings of Jesus are designed to stop them. Religion isn’t perfect, its mixed up with spirituality and faith, but also amongst the dirt there are the words the provide the solution to dictators. Even if the words Jesus spoke get twisted and abused, its up to us to understand the teachings of non-violence and love and slowly weaken the power of violence that dictators want to use.