The Crusades and today

[Online_Knight]

I have been doing a lot of studying on the Crusades lately and it has got me thinking…

How should we Christians look upon the Crusades? I know the popular thing today is to be embarrassed about it and attack the participants and the people who called for them but why should we? Why shouldn’t we crusade today?

Any thoughts would be welcome.

 

[Metaron]

I have been doing a lot of studying on the Crusades lately and it has got me thinking…

How should we Christians look upon the Crusades? I know the popular thing today is to be embarrassed about it and attack the participants and the people who called for them but why should we? Why shouldn’t we crusade today?

Any thoughts would be welcome.

The Crusades, to begin with, were a very good Idea. The byzantines should be exceedingly glad. Although the idea of Crusade is a noble and good one, some of the Christian soldiers became just as vile as the Muslim armies, and committed evil acts against some non-Muslims. If it was not for the Crusades, though, we wouldn’t be having this conversation; Europe would have fallen to the Muslims, especially the Moors, and Catholicism would have been exstinguished almost completely. So, over all, even though the Crusaders have a bad stigma, most of them were not the atrocious monsters that everyone says they were-- although their definately were atrocities committed.

Saladin, after his taking of Jerusalem and capture of a piece of the True Cross of Christ, took it in it’s reliquary, and dragged it through the muddy streets of Jerusalem. Later it was recaptured by the Christians, though, thankfully.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I have been doing a lot of studying on the Crusades lately and it has got me thinking…

How should we Christians look upon the Crusades? I know the popular thing today is to be embarrassed about it and attack the participants and the people who called for them but why should we? Why shouldn’t we crusade today?

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Whenever you study history, understand the mindset of the people of those times. The Crusades were 1000 years ago, so it would be foolish for us to judge the people who participated in them, with a 21st century mindset.

The Crusades at first were called as a defense against the Muslims, who were slaughtering and prohibiting Christians from going into the Holy Land. Also, understand, that by the 10th Century, the Moors had already conquered most of the Middle East, Spain and were within 200 miles of Paris. If not for Martel’s victory, France would’ve been lost. So, Christan’s in the West had already experienced the brutal oppressiveness of the Muslims, before the first Crusade was ever called. When Pope Urban II called for the Crusades to free the Holy Land, it was seen as a defense of Christianity and of the land of Christian heritage.

However, as in all wars, evils were committed, and eventually, those fighting the wars became no better than the enemy they were fighting, when it came to humane treatment of people’s they conquered.

We should learn from wars past, but for the most part, we have not.

Jim

 

[mdgspencer]

One question is, which conqueror has the the right to a country? The Moslems ruled over the Holy Land because they conquered it several hundred years before the Crusades. From this point of view, the Christians simply took it back. Is several hundred years enough time to the rightful rulers of a country? I don’t know. Still, if the Germans had won World War II, would they be the rightful rulers over the lands they occupied after several hundred years?
I find it rather amusing to hear the Moslems say the Christians were wrong to conquer the Holy Land, when that is exactly what the Moslems had done themselves several hundred years before. The only thing that I can see, is they are angry simply because they lost.