Religious Wars?

It's ridiculous to blame any human violence on a religion whose progenitor was Himself non-violent and taught His followers to love their enemies, bless those who curse them, do good to those who would hate them, and pray for those who would despitefully use and persecute them (Matthew 5:44). The earliest disciples and followers elaborated on His teachings, inspired by His Spirit, and commanded followers not to return evil for evil, nor to be overcome by evil, but rather to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17, 21; 1Thessalonians 5:15; 1Peter 3:9). Jesus would not even allow His followers to use the sword to protect Him when He was taken into custody at night by a vigilante party operating under trumped up and blatantly false charges (Luke 22:50-51).  His primary command was that we are to love each other as He loved us and gave His life for us (John 15:12-13).
We must not blame wars on the Christ of the Bible; rather we must recognize that wars come from the evil that He exposed in the human heart, elaborated on by His half-brother and disciple, James, who stated that wars come from inner desires and lust for power and pleasure (James 4). Wars come from the desire for land, resources and power; certainly not from the love of Christ. And the fact that Christianity could ever be used to promote any form of violence is a testimony to the evil exposed by Christ and more generally in the entire Bible. The Jews, who follow what we call the Old Testament, which is certainly a more violent scripture than the New Testament, are nevertheless one of the least violent and most beneficial people groups on the planet (and strangely, one of the most hated people groups). Even though Jews comprise only .2% of the worlds population, they have been awarded 22.5% of the 900+ Nobel Prizes which  are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in the fields of chemistry, literature, peace activism, physics, and physiology or medicine. This makes sense in light of the fact that the God of the Old Testament is the God Who promised the Messiah, Christ of the New Testament; and even though the psycho-spiritual growth of humans has been slow and violent, we see the Spirit of the Old Testament God in Christ Who lived and preached love as the highest good.  It is irrational to blame Christianity--the teachings of Christ--for the wars and violence of this world. Islam is a different story because Mohammed was a warlord and the Quran tells a different story about God and Christ than the Bible relates. Every true Christian is offended when Christianity is lumped together with Islam in statements blaming "all religions" for the problems of this world. An objective account of Christianity reveals that enormous good has come and continues to be rendered to the human family because of Christ's teachings. The fact that our democracy has emerged in large part from Judeo-Christianity is indisputable. It is in the fulfillment of the Christian religion, not in its eradication, that we will find peace in the human family. Instead of blaming Christians for wars and violence, it would be wiser to encourage them to be better Christians.