How Could Christians Crusade?

[Amelia]

Christianity Today, Week of May 2

Christian History Corner

How Could Christians Crusade?

Why followers of the Prince of Peace waged war.

by Bruce L. Shelley | 05/06/2005

Within Christian circles, the terms crusade and crusader survive as expressions of devout purpose. Near where I live, a Christian high school calls its athletic teams "Crusaders," and several evangelical organizations refer to their ministries as Christian "crusades."

In other circles, however, crusade usually triggers less admiration, more shock. It recalls the violence and cruelty of medieval military expeditions to conquer the Holy Land, all done in the name of Christ and with the blessing of the church.

Many of us, then, not only balk at using the term crusades, we ask, "How could Christians have done such a thing?"

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/118/53.0.html

[Ron Lambert]

The First Crusade accomplished its purpose, defeating the Moslems who had been periodically invading and pillaging Southern Europe as far as Vienna for generations, and liberating the so-called "holy land" from Moslem control. The Christian Crusader armies ruled the holy land for over a century. Then the Moslems managed to expell them.

After that, there was a long series of additional crusades that failed, and it is mainly these futile crusades that gave the idea of crusades a negative connotation in many minds. One of the most ludicrous and also tragic crusades was the "children's crusade," where some simple-minded Pope decided that the previous crusades had failed because the soldiers were not "innocent" enough, so he conceived the idea of sending children as soldiers. Rewards were given to parents who sent their children to fight a man's war. They were slaughtered, of course. Few of them even made it as far as the holy land.

[Guest]

Quote:

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Many of us, then, not only balk at using the term crusades, we ask, "How could Christians have done such a thing?"

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Jer 17:9 and Rom 8:7