Non-Muslim Christian Violence

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:44 pm

Undeniably, Christians have in the past also committed despicable acts in the name of their religion, and in recent history the Serbia conflicts and the Protestant-Catholic Northern-Ireland clashes stand out as examples. Detractors will continue to try to deflect criticism by pointing out such hatred and violence conducted in the name of Christianity. Though it is true that there has been many atrocities committed by misguided Christians (Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch-hunts, and others), do not lose focus on the problem at hand today. Remember all those atrocities are diametrically opposed with Christian scripture and philosophy where the greatest commandment was affirmed by Christ to be:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" [Matt. 22:37-40].

So the basic tenet of the Christian faith is that people are the children of God, created in His image, and are all of value to Him. The basic tenet of Islam is that some people are chosen by God to be Muslim, but the rest are -not- the people of God, and that a Muslims duty is to expedite Allah’s plan for non-believers to be converted …or dispatched to hell! There are three major differences and distinctions that can be drawn between Christian crimes and the acts committed in Islam’s name. The first difference is that the unfortunate events were limited in both time and scope …they had an end. The second distinction is that terrorists acting from Christian cultures always did their vile deeds in violation its scriptural teaching (the words and example of Christ), not in fulfillment of it, as in Muhammad’s Islam. The third dissimilarity is that people from Christian cultures who perform terrorist acts against others are recognized as criminals, not worshiped as heroes.

Shortly after Mohammed's death, the warriors of Islam struck out against Christians with enormous energy. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt -- once the most heavily Christian areas in the world -- quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The Byzantine Empire was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of Western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East. The ‘Crusades’ were the response to that desperate cry.

Due to disinterest, ignorance, and the tendency of Western societies toward excessive self-criticism, misconceptions about the Crusades remain common. Generally portrayed as a series of unprovoked holy wars against Islam, they are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance -- a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western Christian civilization in general. Since September 11, variations of this theme have been used to explain -- even justify -- Muslim terror against the West. Former president Bill Clinton himself, in a speech at Georgetown University, fingered Muslim anger at the Crusades as the "root cause" of the present conflict.

But the truth is that the Crusades were not religiously inspired unprovoked aggressions intended to forcibly convert the non-Christian world. In A Concise History of the Crusades, by renowned medieval historian Thomas F. Madden, the record is set straight. The Crusades, he shows, were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope, nor were they inspired by opportunistic, cold-blooded plundering knights. What they were was a much delayed response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two thirds of what was the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense. The story of the Crusades is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances -- they were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy.

The Crusades did not accomplish their objectives, and unfortunately the end of the medieval Crusades and withdrawal of the Christian forces did not bring an end to Muslim Jihad. Islamic states like Mamluk Egypt continued to expand in size and power, and the Ottoman Turks built the largest and most awesome state in Muslim history. The Ottoman Turks proceeded to not only conquered their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. Under Suleiman the Magnificent the Turks came within a hair's breadth of capturing Vienna, which would have left all of Germany at their mercy. At that point Crusades were no longer waged to rescue Jerusalem, but Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city.

It is often asserted that Crusaders were merely mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a far away land. Recent scholarship has demolished that contrivance. The truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing. It is also often assumed that a central goal of the Crusades was the forced conversion of the Muslim world to Christianity, but nothing could be further from the truth. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims, but those efforts were mostly unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

Although there were undoubtedly opportunist bad-apples in the barrel, the typical Crusade soldier was motivated by the same spirit that drives the US today, the spirit of freedom and self-determination, the desire to live free of the horrors faced by non-Muslims in Muslim lands. They were defending their families, communities, and friends under siege as are we. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. Without the Crusades, Christianity might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into complete extinction.

"When accusing the West of imperialism, Muslims are obsessed with the Christian Crusades but have forgotten their own, much grander Jihad. In fact, they often denounce the Crusades as the cause and starting point of the antagonism between Christianity and Islam. They are putting the cart before the horse. The Jihad is more than four hundred years older than the Crusades". – Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries