How do you explain the crusades?

[coleraine]

How do you explain the crusades, being 100% truthful, to someone? The person in question has a bias against the church for what it calls “genocide”, or “mass murder”. And they hardly ever mention the fact that the Muslim armies were the aggressor. So, a simple “good vs. bad” argument does not work here. What would you have to say to get this person to see through the lies, but using only historical fact?

 

[SimonArizona]

How do you explain the crusades, being 100% truthful, to someone? The person in question has a bias against the church for what it calls “genocide”, or “mass murder”. And they hardly ever mention the fact that the Muslim armies were the aggressor. So, a simple “good vs. bad” argument does not work here. What would you have to say to get this person to see through the lies, but using only historical fact?

I usually say, “If it wasn’t for the Holy League of Crusaders, you would be worshipping Mohammed today.” Somebody had to stop the Muslim aggression, and the Lord helped the Christians to win many battles including Lepanto, thee naval battle, where the Christians prayed for a change of wind and it happened.

Few like war, and few realize a valid defense is not only holy, but a duty.

However, the Crusaders did get out of hand and they killed Jews and Christians also.

Check out the Battle for Malta where 700 Catholic soldiers defeated 40,000 Muslim Turks

 

[Danuska]

How do you explain that among the disciples chosen by Jesus, all of whom saw his miracles and heard Him preach, one was able still to betray Him for a very little sum of money?

 

[patrick457]

I usually say, “If it wasn’t for the Holy League of Crusaders, you would be worshipping Mohammed today.” Somebody had to stop the Muslim aggression, and the Lord helped the Christians to win many battles including Lepanto, thee naval battle, where the Christians prayed for a change of wind and it happened.

Few like war, and few realize a valid defense is not only holy, but a duty.

However, the Crusaders did get out of hand and they killed Jews and Christians also.

Check out the Battle for Malta where 700 Catholic soldiers defeated 40,000 Muslim Turks

Quite agree with this, but to nitpick on one of your statements:

“you would be worshipping Mohammed today.” Shouldn’t this be Allah? Last time I checked, Muhammad is not exactly ‘worshipped’ in Islam (He is merely THE prophet, not equivalent to God); unless you’re using ‘worship’ in the sense of ‘high respect’ or ‘veneration’ (but then again, criticism of Muhammad is at times equated with blasphemy in some areas)?

 

[thistle]

How do you explain that among the disciples chosen by Jesus, all of whom saw his miracles and heard Him preach, one was able still to betray Him for a very little sum of money?

What does this have to do with the crusades?

 

[CentralFLJames]

How do you explain the crusades, being 100% truthful, to someone?

I don’t understand the question. What is the person objecting to that history has lied about the Christians being defenders of their nations and given a positive spin to the Mohammedans who were so treacherous that they even hired themselves out as mercenaries to Christian armies just to kill competing Muslim sects and enemies?

James

 

[MonkeyTape]

How do you explain the crusades, being 100% truthful, to someone? The person in question has a bias against the church for what it calls “genocide”, or “mass murder”. And they hardly ever mention the fact that the Muslim armies were the aggressor. So, a simple “good vs. bad” argument does not work here. What would you have to say to get this person to see through the lies, but using only historical fact?

If they do not mention the aggression of the Muslim armies then be sure you do.

Remind them that the near east and North Africa were all Christian lands before the Islamic invasions. Remind them of the advances as far as the northern borders of Spain in the west and, I understand, as far as the Volga river and Greece in the east.

This does not excuse the behavior of *SOME *of the individuals involved in the Crusades. Some people were less interested in defending Christendom and more interested in power for themselves - though some just needed money to pay for their men, food, and material and made some very bad and immoral decisions in the process.

The point is that there are often bad people involved in otherwise good endeavors. A charity may do good work and be hampered by an employee who steals cash for instance, does that make the charity itself bad? Likewise the Catholic Church organized a resistance to the great aggression of Islam, that some leaders within that movement were bad men does not make the thing itself bad.

If they counter that the Church did not do enough to stop it, they may have a point, but we are all human and have weaknesses. When faced with difficult decisions either some of what is our best comes out or possibly some of our worst. In short this does not make the Church as a whole wrong.

 

[Soutane]

When does the next crusade start? The original crusades were defensive in nature as shall be the next one.

 

[rwoehmke]

You might ask this individual if NATO’s presence in Afganistan is justified. The Taliban and el Quida are today’s militant branches of Islam and what is their apparent goal? To convert the world to Islam.

 

[CentralFLJames]

When does the next crusade start? The original crusades were defensive in nature as shall be the next one.

Well, if you listen to the Muslims we are already in one and it started when they made a public declaration of war when in the tradition of Mohammedanism they attacked us without serving public warning on 9/11.

Since there is no longer a Western Christian Empire but only a loose federation of secularized countries bonded less by cultural and religious commonality than by economic necessity, and all with a declining number of true Christians believers I don’t see a true Crusade being possible until the West is forced to convert back to a single ecclesial Christianity again (e.g. Catholicism) by an escalation in dire circumstances. That lack of soladarity means we open the door for Islam to reasert its aggressive tendenceis and force conversion by the sword like they are in African right now.

It’s going to be an “interesting” next 4-10 years to say the least…

James

 

[tm30]

I would state that the Crusades began as a necessary campaign to protect Christians and Christian lands, which gained a life of its own and lost its moral justification when it became a mercenary war that had no Church mandate.

The best comparison would be if the U.S. withdrew from the Middle East, and American vigilante/mercenary groups carried on the battle anyway and committed crimes and atrocities. History might blame “America”, but these groups would be acting outside any U.S. mandate. So such blame would be inaccurate.

 

[larsegarots]

If the crusades were only about Muslim aggression, then why were campaigns also directed against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians and political enemies of the popes?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

How do you explain the crusades, being 100% truthful, to someone?

I don’t.

I simply say that they haven’t gotten all the facts about the Crusades, and point them in the direction of various books they should read.

When faced by a smiling referant (me) who is telling them that they are stupid, though not doing so overtly, they usually wander off gibbering obscenities, in that liberalistic haze that they live in in general anyway.

:shamrock2:

 

[tm30]

Well, if you listen to the Muslims we are already in one and it started when they made a public declaration of war when in the tradition of Mohammedanism they attacked us without serving public warning on 9/11.

Since there is no longer a Western Christian Empire but only a loose federation of secularized countries bonded less by cultural and religious commonality than by economic necessity, and all with a declining number of true Christians believers I don’t see a true Crusade being possible until the West is forced to convert back to a single ecclesial Christianity again (e.g. Catholicism) by an escalation in dire circumstances. That lack of soladarity means we open the door for Islam to reasert its aggressive tendenceis and force conversion by the sword like they are in African right now.

It’s going to be an “interesting” next 4-10 years to say the least…

James

The apparent “conquest” of Islam over Christianity in the modern world has been greatly exaggerated. Certain societies are certainly weaving enough rope to hang themselves (the U.K., for example), but the notion that there will be hoards of Muslim soldiers invading sovereign, Western nations is a little histrionic.
The Church has waged war against anti-Christianism in Europe by preaching against contraception and secularism - these are the open gates to the city which allow for cultural jihad to march right in. It will never be about killing people and conquering nations. If Europe elects to abandon Christianity, Christianity will go elsewhere and evangelize as we have since the start.

Put it this way: anyone who thinks the Church will whip up an army for another crack at the Crusades doesn’t understand the original Crusades in the first place. If the Church wanted another crusade, they would have already called for one in China.

 

[cascherman]

thomasmadden.org/articles.html

Thomas Madden is one of the foremost experts on the Crusades. I find if you inform yourself on the Crusades truthfully you don’t really have to “plan” what you are going to say in order to make it sound good.

Thomas Madden explains the Crusades in a historically accurate and unbiased way.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

thomasmadden.org/articles.html

Oh, thanks for that reference! Good job!

:shamrock2:

 

[CentralFLJames]

If the crusades were only about Muslim aggression, then why were campaigns also directed against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians and political enemies of the popes?

References please.

The popes only gave their assent and promotion to make the routes to the holy lands safe for pilgrims and to reclaim the Christian shrines for pilgrims. They were not directing tactical and strategies of the actual campaigns nor where they responsible for individual King’s knights and princes atrocities who used the Crusades to advance their own private agendas and land grabs. There were many betrayals of armies against each others as fortunes and risks changed.

The Church never condoned the killing of innocents and it was more often mercenaries and non-Catholics who occasionally took it upon themselves to attack other ethnic groups who would not support them or give them quarter and supplies or cooperate. Let’s not forget that apart from farming, serving as a mercenary or serving in the King’s army was one of the principal ways a young man made a living in those days. Some of the European kings and princes were only “Christians” of convenience and were not to be counted on to even show up on the battlefield. The pope had little control over these armies other than to petition the faithful to make donations of money to fund them and to offer his blessings to those who would make pilgrimages or die a martyr liberating Christian lands.

The Orthodox animosity and the sacking of Constantinople is complex with long standing feuds. There was provocation and betrayal, mistrust and disrespect on both sides and the individual field commanders and rulers involved had made independent decisions.

People should thank The Church and the many brave Christian men - often just simple peasants with no weapons or military skills for saving the west from the Islamic horde that was well into Europe. By the time the crusades were started Islamics were routinely sacking European cities and villages and capturing peasants for slavery and using the woman and children (both genders) as hostages or sex slaves. The atrocities and barbaric tortures committed by the Islamics were horrendous. Christians that did not convert were beheaded, or sold as slaves or were used as a cheap source of nitrogen for annealing their swords (by Muslim blacksmiths who would impale them with the red hot metal after pulling the worked metal out of the forges - to let the cooling metal pull the nitrogen from the living flesh as the Christian died in agony).

James

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

…Christians that did not convert were beheaded, or sold as slaves** or were used as a cheap source of nitrogen for annealing their swords (by Muslim blacksmiths who would impale them with the red hot metal after pulling the worked metal out of the forges - to let the cooling metal pull the nitrogen from the living flesh as the Christian died in agony). **(emphasis mine)

James

This is a OLD myth regarding the tempering of “damascus steel” and is utterly without historical or metalurgical basis.

First off, Damascus in Syria was NOT a blade making center–it was a distribution center for a lot of blades–many of them “pattern welded” and then acid etched (strong vinegar) to bring out the unique weld lines.

Second, these so called “damascus blades” were actually from India, and apparently were not even “pattern welded” (which the Celts seemed to be the first to have invented, circa 300 BC) but a form of crude yet effective “crucible steel”, aka “Wootz steel”.

Third, the myth of quenching in the body of a slave seems to be a lay person’s confusion of some smith’s practice of quenching in animal blood–a variation of “brine quench” (salt water solution).

Primary source, Master Bladesmith Jim Hrisoulas of Salamander Armory, author of The Complete Bladesmith and The Master Bladesmith and Forging Damascus Blades, Vols 1 & 2 (Paladin Press

 

[CentralFLJames]

This is a OLD myth regarding the tempering of “damascus steel” and is utterly without historical or metalurgical basis.

First off, Damascus in Syria was NOT a blade making center–it was a distribution center for a lot of blades–many of them “pattern welded” and then acid etched (strong vinegar) to bring out the unique weld lines.

Second, these so called “damascus blades” were actually from India, and apparently were not even “pattern welded” (which the Celts seemed to be the first to have invented, circa 300 BC) but a form of crude yet effective “crucible steel”, aka “Wootz steel”.

Third, the myth of quenching in the body of a slave seems to be a lay person’s confusion of some smith’s practice of quenching in animal blood–a variation of “brine quench” (salt water solution).

Primary source, Master Bladesmith Jim Hrisoulas of Salamander Armory, author of The Complete Bladesmith and The Master Bladesmith and Forging Damascus Blades, Vols 1 & 2 (Paladin Press

I am not so sure the long forgotten source of my remark was in reference to Damascus Twist Steel or to the more probable forged, tempered and annealed steel. In any regard its not all that material to the subject.

The truth was well documented that if one was captured alive by a Mohammedan and refused to renounce Christ and become Muslim, that if one was not of related to a wealthy land owner, royalty or noble family and your family could not pay a huge ransom one was either sold into slavery or killed or further tortured to renounce Christ then killed just out of spite anyway for converting insincerely.

James

 

[larsegarots]

References please.

Here are a couple, provided with a snipet from each that I’ve quoted:

“Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians and political enemies of the popes.[1]” Crusaders were granted an indulgence for past sins.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade

“But in the 1200s, shortly after the beginning of the crusades against the Muslims, wholly European crusades against Christian dissidents were enacted. The first victims were the Albigenses, sometimes called the Cathari, who were centered primarily in southern France. These poor freethinkers doubted the biblical story of Creation, thought that Jesus was an angel instead of God, rejected transubstantiation, and demanded strict celibacy.”
atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blfaq_viol_crusades.htm