My point was that an extreme belief system in any religious faith...extreme meaning that it smothers the secular part of life...is dangerous.
OK, I can accept that. If I mischaracterized your comment please accept my apology.
DC Patriot,
Thanks for responding and being open and willing to discuss this topic, because I believe it needs to the be the subject of her next book: the big failure of most christians to truly live out their faith, as opposed to simply having a nominal faith.
The examples you cited were all of people who, I would suggest, rather than following Christianity to an extreme, hijacked the term Christianity, and misused it for their own personal ends.
Koresh and Jones were obviously on power trips. They broke every single commandment of the New Testament, and disregarded (sadly, so did their followers) all of Paul's, Peter's and John's warnings to be on the guard against false prophets and spreaders of evil teachings.
As for Henry VIII, he was just into having a lot of wives, supposedly so he could get a son, and the Catholic Church stood in the way. I suppose he also liked the idea of having all that church income go to HIM rather than to Rome.
I think that's the key: when evil things have been done in the name of Christianity, it is by people who are most definitely NOT 'extreme' or fundamentalist Christians, but who are people seeking after some worldly and decidedly un-christian goal.
Whereas, as my coptic friends have told me, a good muslim is one who neglects his religion; a devoutly religious muslim IS a terrorist, by definition, and in practice.