A Catholic responds to Equivocating Crusades and Jihad

[Danno 1,228]

Enough is Enough: The Crusades & The Jihad Are Not Equivalents

by Joe Hargrave

One of the memes – the unconscious, uncritical, lazy thoughts that spreads from person to person like a virus – that has been particularly virulent during this ground-zero mosque controversy is that Christians have no standing to criticize the violence of Islam, given a supposedly violent Christian history. And no one event is more often invoked as an example of Christian hypocrisy than the so-called “Crusades” (so-called, because no one who fought in them called them that).

The latest and most appalling example appears in the NY Times, courtesy of a Nicholas D. Kristof. Among the many absurdities one can find in this column, including definitive claims as to the intentions and desires of Osama bin Laden, Kristof writes,

Remember also that historically, some of the most shocking brutality in the region was justified by the Bible, not the Koran. Crusaders massacred so many men, women and children in parts of Jerusalem that a Christian chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres, described an area ankle-deep in blood. While burning Jews alive, the crusaders sang, “Christ, We Adore Thee.”

What could be more logical, more pertinent, more relevant, than to invoke thousand-year old wartime excesses as proof that Christians have no grounds to criticize Islam?

One can go the route of modern liberal Christianity and make statements about how either a) the Crusades were a “mistake” and never should have occurred, or perhaps b) that while they may have been justified at the time, Christianity has undergone sufficient “reforms” to prevent such things from happening again, while Islam has not.

I totally reject the first notion, and I will explain why I don’t really agree with the second either. But let’s start with the first: that the Crusades were an example of unjustifiable religious violence on the part of Christians, moreover one that can be constantly invoked to equivocate Christianity and Islam as religions that are both prone to violence.

First, the historical facts: a long “train of abuses”, to borrow Jefferson’s phrase, preceded the launching of the First Crusade in 1096. Since its very inception, Islam had waged an unremitting war against Christianity. It conquered and subjugated centuries-old Christian societies in the Middle East and North Africa. After sweeping through France, the Muslim advance was finally checked by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. Following this, Muslim aggression against Christians continued in southern Italy, with the conquest of Sicily in 827. Resistance to these repeated acts of aggression was not characterized as a “crusade”, but simply necessary self-defense.

Over the next centuries, the Seljuq Turks, who converted to Islam, waged war against the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire. At the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks wiped out the Byzantine army, leaving Emperor Alexius Commenus helpless before a relentless and determined foe. Not long after this, he sent envoys to Pope Urban II pleading for military aid. The Council of Clermont was called by the pope in 1095, in which he addressed the clergy, knights, and commoners who had assembled. To the knights especially his words were both reproving and encouraging:

You, the oppressers of children, plunderers of widows; you, guilty of homicide, of sacrilege, robbers of another’s rights; you who await the pay of thieves for the shedding of Christian blood — as vultures smell fetid corpses, so do you sense battles from afar and rush to them eagerly. Verily, this is the worst way, for it is utterly removed from God! if, forsooth, you wish to be mindful of your souls, either lay down the girdle of such knighthood, or advance boldly, as knights of Christ, and rush as quickly as you can to the defence of the Eastern Church. For she it is from whom the joys of your whole salvation have come forth, who poured into your mouths the milk of divine wisdom, who set before you the holy teachings of the Gospels.

What was at stake was nothing less than the preservation of Christianity, and the civilization which had, even if imperfectly, sought to embody its teachings in the world. This was also evidenced by the increasingly hostility to Christians still living in the Levant (the Holy Land), as well as those who went on pilgrimage; in 1009, the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the Chruch of the Holy Sepulcher – in an act the Catholic Encyclopedia rightly calls a “fit of madness” - razed to the ground. This was followed by an even broader campaign against Christianity throughout the Levant, culminating in the destruction of thousands of Christian churches.

Given the scale of the unprovoked and ceaseless attacks, as well as the persecution of Christians within the Holy Land itself, I believe the Crusades were more than justified. When we understand that they were in fact a belated response to centuries of violent Islamic expansion, and not a random and spontaneous act of aggression (like every Muslim assault on Christian territories was), I don’t see how a reasonable person could deny it.

What about the atrocities brought up by Kristof? Here again, we can point to some substantive differences between Islam and Christianity. Violence against, and persecution of Jews was never encouraged, tolerated, or condoned by the Papacy. Christianity did not need a thousand years to “clean up its act” with regard to Jews; in response to the atrocities carried out by soldiers in the crusading armies, Pope Calixtus II issued the bull “Sicut Judaeis” in 1120, which declares, among other things that

[The Jews] ought to suffer no prejudice. We, out of the meekness of Christian piety, and in keeping in the footprints or Our predecessors of happy memory, the Roman Pontiffs Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection.

In other words, when Christians carried out acts of violence against Jews, they were doing so in disobedience to their religion, and their spiritual leaders. This was also the case during the unfortunate sack of Constantinople in 1203, in which Christian turned upon Christian during the Fourth Crusade.

However in the Islamic hadith, which are narrations considered “supplements” to the Koran, we read,

The [final] Hour will not start, until after the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them. The Jew will hide behind a stone or tree, and the tree will say, `O Muslim! O servant of Allah! This is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’

Could the contrast be more clear? Even the supposedly backwards thoughts of medieval popes are progressive and enlightened compared to what a significant number of Muslims believe today.

As for the bloodletting at Jerusalem, while such individual incidents are certainly regrettable, it was rather common at the time for savagery to follow a long and protracted siege of a city. This doesn’t excuse it, of course, and especially if the men carrying it out are purporting to act in the name of Christ. But we shouldn’t react as if it were some great deviation from the standards of the time, which in themselves greatly deviate from our own.

SNIP>

http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/08/26/enough-is-enough-the-crusades-the-jihad-are-not-equivalents/

[Saddle Bronc 124]

True: Crusades were a reaction to Muslim takeover of formerly-Christian lands by Christians whose "born-again"-ness is questionable (many of them were of Viking descent, and followed some Viking customs), while jihad tends to be more proactive.

[Peikko 1,575]

Isn't it just lucky that the US is a secular state?

[Danno 1,228]

Isn't it just lucky that the US is a secular state?

A State which openly draws it's birth and sustenance from God.

[Peikko 1,575]

A State which openly draws it's birth and sustenance from God.

Sorry Danno, but your little band of merry men would be just as bad as the muslims you so despise if you had your way. I don't expect you to see that because you don't see where the root of these problems lies. Luckily for you, there are enough of us rationalists in the west to stop you and your cronies from establishing a 'christian' state of the USA.

[^_^ 5,021]

...there are enough of us rationalists in the west to stop you and your cronies from establishing a 'christian' state of the USA.

No, there aren't.

[Peikko 1,575]

No, there aren't.

There are in the UK. You might be right about the US - time will tell. Sadly, Danno and his ilk can't learn the real lessons to be learned from this because they sincerely believe that christianity as a credo is better and could never be used as a tool of suppression. Oh, the irony.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Revisionist history from a Catholic bias.

[Peikko 1,575]

Revisionist history from a Catholic bias.

Yes, that too. The Catholics would have a lot to lose if the Vatican lifted its skits and revealed what they are really all about. I read a really interesting piece about Sinaed O'Conner over the weekend, she 'gets' the Catholics. Interesting woman.

[chri'stina 190]

No, there aren't.

Wow, so are you building a bunker for the day of takeover by Christians? Yeah I can see it. As the country has gotten more and more secular and left of center, the smaller group of Christian "extremists" are about to take over. Sure.

[^_^ 5,021]

Wow, so are you building a bunker for the day of takeover by Christians? Yeah I can see it. As the country has gotten more and more secular and left of center, the smaller group of Christian "extremists" are about to take over. Sure.

The country is not getting more left of center. Quite the contrary.

[chri'stina 190]

The country is not getting more left of center. Quite the contrary.

We will see how long that lasts.

[Peikko 1,575]

Wow, so are you building a bunker for the day of takeover by Christians? Yeah I can see it. As the country has gotten more and more secular and left of center, the smaller group of Christian "extremists" are about to take over. Sure.

You're an educated christian, of course that type of backlash seems unlikely.

[chri'stina 190]

I have already spoken up in Christian situations when I think people are letting politics over take their ability to do what Jesus told us to. If a Christian "takeover" was imminent, they would obviously be ignoring the ideas of democracy and free will, both of which I think the Bible supports. And other Christians would speak out against it. I wouldn't just sit by and do nothing. So I think that I could be included in the "rationalists" group?

I can't help but still feel insulted from time to time when words like irrational are used about people like me here because I believe in a spiritual thing and try to follow it in my life. I am not asking anyone to stop saying what they want, but no one likes hearing themselves being talked about as irrational. I actually try not to feel offended, but it doesn't always work. I am not irrational.

[Peikko 1,575]

I have already spoken up in Christian situations when I think people are letting politics over take their ability to do what Jesus told us to. If a Christian "takeover" was imminent, they would obviously be ignoring the ideas of democracy and free will, both of which I think the Bible supports. And other Christians would speak out against it. I wouldn't just sit by and do nothing. So I think that I could be included in the "rationalists" group?

I can't help but still feel insulted from time to time when words like irrational are used about people like me here because I believe in a spiritual thing and try to follow it in my life. I am not asking anyone to stop saying what they want, but no one likes hearing themselves being talked about as irrational. I actually try not to feel offended, but it doesn't always work. I am not irrational.

Labels, labels, oh how they hurt us

I didn't call anyone 'irrational'. I said rationalists are the ones who stop the US (and other secular states) from adopting laws and politics that put a specific religious agenda center stage which is what leads to religious extremism (of all stripes) dictating the lives of others . Rationalists come in all denominations, even muslim

Edited September 13, 2010 by Madame Cleo