"The Anglican church's involvement in colonisation, and Catholic church's Magdelaine Laundries"
Now you are pleading "my brand of religion is better than yours" - sorry doesn't wash - on the contrary, it only underlines the threat all religions pose to our well-being.
They're all mystics, they are all unqualified to rule and the definitive nature of all religions "we are the true Christians - or whatever)" makes them all a menace.
Now - tell me how they are in any way entitled or even qualified to have a say in the running of the state.
"rather than explaining what history can teach us, "
History is made up largely of holy wars - the Church of England was built on the bunt bodies of opponents of Henry VIII new church.
We have had 95 years of ongoing persecution and warfare in Ireland because the British partitioned the country and those left in charge decided to make it a Protestant state.
Leopoled, King of the Belgians massacred up to 10 million Congloese people with the compliance and the blessing of the church
Apartheid South Africa thrived as a terrorist state with the support of the Dutch reformed Church, the Pope blessed bombs going to Abyssinia, and Pope Pius XII ("Hitler's Pope" turned his back on the thousands of Italian Jews being shipped of to the Nazi death camps.   
The Church was a supported of mass murderer Augusto Pinochet in Chile....
Wonder exactly what we should be exhorted to learn from these and many more "lessons of history" - I would have thought, "don't let the bastards anywhere near having a say in the running of any country".
Jim Carroll