The Enlightenment was the first serious challenge of the Lordship of Jesus over western culture. Historians often approach it as having been a response, primarily, against the Spanish Inquisition, a reign of terror in the name of Jesus that turned many against the church and from identifying with Jesus as Lord.

Spanish Inquisition

In its root meaning, “inquisition” means nothing more than an inquiry into teachings that contradict dogma within the Catholic Church, or an inquiry in territories where Catholicism was the established church. But in its popular usage, an inquisition denotes an era of persecution of non-Catholic people, mainly in Spain, Peru, and Mexico, from 1497 until 1836, when it was officially ended, though the last execution of a heretic in Spain occurred ten years earlier.

Spanish King Ferdinand (who, with Queen Isabella, sponsored Columbus' explorations) petitioned the Vatican to authorize an Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV opposed, but was persuaded through political maneuvering to permit. Experts disagree about how many people were put to death for dissenting from Catholic doctrine. Historians range in their estimates from several thousand to well over 100,000.

There is also wide disagreement about the role torture played in the punishments and confessions, with some claiming it was severe and widespread, while defenders of the church say few instances of torture, and those “not lasting longer than 15 minutes,” can be validated from the historical records. The Inquisition remains the most damaging charge ever laid against Catholicism and, by extension, against Christians in general. Although there is nothing comparable to the Inquisition in Orthodoxy or Protestantism, it is sometimes compared with the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century.

Witch Trials

Outside Catholicism, the only thing comparable to the Inquisitions in post-medieval Christendom is the Salem (Massachusetts) witch trials in 1692. The Salem trials contrast with the Inquisition in that they were carried out by a town and its church, which, being Congregational, was not contractually connected to any other church, communion, or denomination. The persecution lasted nearly a year, with twenty-five executions by burning, and the jailing of several scores of other suspects.

At the end of the Salem persecutions, highly respected Boston Congregational pastor Increase Mather published a plea that there be no more such trials, saying, “It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned.” The statement became a widely quoted slogan that some historians believe inspired the United States constitutional provision that the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty.