...The Cathar religion arose in Languedoc (Occitania), now incorporated into southern France. Whether it is conceptualized as a Christian heresy or a version of Manichaeanism, there can be no doubt that this was an intensely popular religious movement. The Catholic Church decided to wipe out the Cathars in an armed crusade. The fighting went on for twenty years and included such incidents as the massacre of 20,000 Cathars - the entire population of Béziers and its surrounding villages - on July 22, 1209. By the end, the Cathars were no more.

The Czech Hussites earned the condemnation of the Church in 1415 for adherence to doctrines that the Church called heresy, and which historians call proto-Protestant. They successfully defended an independent Czech Hussite state against large Catholic armies for twenty years, before agreeing to strike a compromise with the Church. Large numbers of devoted Hussites rejected the political compromise. Many were killed in battle with a combined Czech/Catholic army near Prague on May 30, 1434. Surviving “Warriors of God” were eliminated in a series of small battles, captures, and hangings.

On February 5, 1597, Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided to crush Christianity in Japan. He considered the rapid increase, geographic concentration, and intense devotion of Christians to be threats to the state. The newly introduced religion had over 300,000 adherents, of whom between 5,000 and 6,000 were executed, many by crucifixion. Christianity as a movement was eliminated from Japan.

I could multiply examples of large populations united by intense religious commitment that have been crushed by the state power. Not obliterated – remnants of Japanese Christianity survived underground, for example – but crushed to the point where a movement no longer existed.

I am certainly not defending the morality of Hideyoshi’s actions, or the crushing of the Cathars, Hussites, or Zanj. I am simply pointing out that popular religious movements can be forcibly destroyed...