Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, the issue I want to treat with you, continuing with our study of comparing Islam and Christianity, the Crusades, a monument to myth. The Crusades, a monument to myth, because there are so many myths surrounding the nature of the Crusades that are still rampant today.

Our own president tried to remind us that indeed all the atrocities that Islam is committing in the Middle East now and Syria and Iraq, especially ISIS, that is the Islamic state in the Levant, they are butchering Christians right and left. They're slaughtering fellow Muslims. They're slaughtering communities that have been in the region for centuries, millennia even. And our president tried to compare what's going on there with what happened in the Crusades with ostensibly Christians in the name of Christ committing atrocities.

Well, let's treat of this subject today, the Crusades, a monument to myth, because there are so many myths surrounding the Crusades. In 1999, which was the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade, a band of Protestants from all the major liberal denominations set out from Germany on what can only be described as an apology tour for the Crusades. They called it a reconciliation walk, taking one of the routes followed by the Crusaders, which culminated in their arrival in the Holy Land. These marchers were issued t-shirts with the message, We Apologize, emblazoned across the front in Arabic.

Their official statement read, in part, and I quote from it, 900 years ago, our forefathers carried the name of Jesus Christ in battle all across the Middle East. Fueled by fear, greed, and hatred, the Crusaders lifted the banner of the cross above your people. On the anniversary of the First Crusade, we wished to retrace the footsteps of the Crusaders in apology for their deeds. We deeply regret the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by our predecessors. We renounce greed, hatred, and fear, and condemn all violence done in the name of Jesus Christ.

Unquote. There was much breast-beating and weeping and self-loathing along the way by these people. If members of the party encountered Muslims, for example, they would hand out plastic olive branches along with copies of their apologetic statement. And finally then, at the culmination, at the service of repentance and reconciliation held in Jerusalem, they declared this, there is now no reason why Muslims and Christians cannot reconcile and move forward from grievances of the past to peaceful relations in the future. Unquote.

Really? I must ask. I must ask. Is this really true? Islam is all about grievances of the past and hatred they never forget.

See the Quran, dear listener, and the history of Islam. Perhaps they could inform Al-Qaeda, or ISIL, or any of the metastasizing cancers of Islam spreading all over the world of this so-called fact. Most Muslims look at pathetic creatures like these apologists, who understand neither history nor theology, and they hold them in contempt, not love and respect. It is precisely attitudes like this manifest in the West that give Muslims a green light to do what they're doing all across Syria, and Iraq today, and that's behead to burn and crucify Christians.

All they see in behavior like reconciliation walks is weakness in the first instance and justification for the retribution that they visit upon Christians in the second instance. Yet, ironically, dear listener, you must understand this. It is this very behavior on the part of Muslims in the 11th century, which prompted the Crusades in the first place. True to form, as we have observed from our study of Muslim theology and history, the Quran and the life of Muhammad give license for Muslims to lie to, kill, and cheat non-Muslims. This was the rule followed by the generation following Muhammad.

It was the rule at the time of the Crusades, and it is the rule of those who attacked us on 9-11. And I submit to you, it is the rule of those who now consider themselves at war with us in the religion of Islam, even though we in the West do not see us at war. Oh, Islam does. In fact, the Muslim East we see now raging all across the Muslim Middle East. They are definitely at war with us.

They consider it to be so. Well, since the Crusades are so often a point of appeal, not only from Muslims to justify their actions today, but also the basis of appeal for those in the West who hate themselves and all for which we stand, well, it is worthwhile then to examine the myths that have grown up around the Crusades and look at the facts, dear listener. Five myths I want to treat with you today. The first myth of the Crusades. War-mongering Christians launched the Crusades against the peaceful Muslim people.

That's the first myth we must dispel. And that is that somehow war-mongering Christians launched the Crusades against a peaceful Muslim people. The Crusades are often portrayed as having been precipitated in some kind of historical vacuum, right? Where nothing preceded them but the barbaric, benighted actions of a mob of dark ages white men who were probably also racist, homophobic, and sexist. Somehow the Muslims there had always been there and they were entitled to remain there despite the intrusions of these white barbarians from the West.

Oh, Thomas Fuller, an English historian, typifies many of this. Thomas Fuller said, and I quote, the Crusades were all the popes doing. History will prove that they were the sewer of Christianity and that they were an attempt to deprive the Muslims of their lawful possession of Palestine. Unquote. The lawful possession of Palestine by the Muslims.

This is an important expression that reveals a basic presupposition and that is that Muslims had a lawful possession of Palestine. I could have given you many quotes that try to breastbeat and apologize for the Crusades and that epitomize this myth somehow that war mongering Christians launched the Crusades against the peaceful Muslim people. But I gave you this one because of this important expression. That is that somehow the Muslims had a lawful possession of Palestine.

It's the dominant presupposition underlying almost all of the myths of the Crusades that somehow mystically soon after the creation of the Garden of Eden, God gave the land of Palestine in perpetuity to Muslim Arabs. Oh, but on its face, of course, this is absurd. Every historical effect has a historical cause that is a precedent which motivates contemporary actions and the Crusades have their precedent which motivated contemporary action as well. So it is with the Muslims in Palestine and North Africa and Spain. So it is with the launching of the Crusades.

The Crusades were launched in a historical context. What the manipulators of history today wish to hide is how Muslims came into possession of Palestine in the first place precisely because it puts into question the lawful nature of it from our quote. If Islam had come into possession of the lands and the people and the culture that the Crusaders sought to redeem in the way that Christianity originally conquered them, they might have an argument for lawful possession of Palestine. How did Christianity's founder, Jesus Christ, authorize the promulgation of his gospel? I quote for you now from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ.

And Jesus came and said to them, that is to his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, forcing them to convert in the name of Allah and his prophet Muhammad. Is that what Jesus said? No. Jesus said baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

That's a sacrament. Baptizing is a sacrament as well as the Lord's Supper is sacrament. And then teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Teaching them the preaching and teaching of the word is what Christ inculcated in his disciples. In short, dear listener, word and sacrament is how Christ conquered the lands that the Muslims overran in North Africa and Europe and Palestine and Spain, for that matter as well.

Word and sacrament is how Christ conquered still today. Not even then, but still today. Christianity spread by word and sacrament. That is baptism and the Lord's Supper, teaching and preaching, while Islam spreads by wounds and sacrilege, if I can put it that way.

Word and sacrament for Christians, wounds and sacrilege, for Muslims, what few people realize, progressives refuse to acknowledge, is that the lands to which the Crusaders went had been previously conquered by Muslims via wounds and sacrilege, not word and sacrament, whose presence had previously been occupied primarily by Christians who had conquered by peaceful, persuasive means, that is, word and sacrament. Perhaps history will judge fairly eventually which religion has legitimate claim to lawful possession of Palestine.

Soon after the ascension of Christ, the faith spread throughout the known world, that is, the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean basin. It was done not by violence by the religion, but rather in the face of violence done to the religion as it spread by word and sacrament. The Roman Empire mercilessly persecuted Christianity, but it continued to spread, and it was done by the relatively obscure preaching of the church from the 1st to the 6th century. And then soon after the death of Muhammad, however, Islam spread throughout the known world, that is, the Christian world in the Mediterranean basin.

And it spread not by violence to the religion, but rather by violence done by the religion as it spread by wounds and sacrilege, not word and sacrament. Muhammad died in 632 AD. His father-in-law, Abu Bakir, established an early caliphate then, and Muhammad conquered the Arabian Peninsula in his lifetime. But then in 633, the Muslims came sweeping out of the Arabian Peninsula, led by Abu Bakir, and they conquered Syria and Iraq. By what?

By what means? By word and sacrament as Christians had done peacefully? No, they conquered by wounds and sacrilege. That is, by the sword, the edge of the sword. They conquered Palestine over a 10-year period, defeating large Byzantine armies.

And then they finally conquered Jerusalem in AD 638 under Omar, the third caliph from in the caliphate of Islam. And then between 644 and 680, Muslims conquered Egypt, all of North Africa, Sicily, Rhodes, Sardinia, and then finally their furthest reach way into Spain. And along the way, they followed the example of Muhammad, as we have seen. They burned infidels. Muhammad burned a synagogue of Jews who had insulted him.

They beheaded infidels, even as Muhammad did this regularly after his return from Medina. And they crucified infidels, too. This was done to Christians as Muhammad denied that Christ was crucified. Muhammad taught that this blasphemous error must be visited upon those kafir, that is, those unbelievers who believed that Christ was crucified. And so he went about crucifying Christians, even as faithful Muslims are doing all over the world today.

Two Christians at the time of the First Crusade then. This is background for you. This is context for you. Context for the Crusades. At the time of the First Crusade, Pope Urban II had called upon the Christian princes of Europe to come to the aid of their brothers in the East, who were experiencing then a fresh round of this kind of violence under a new convert and conqueror to Islam, that is, the Seljuk Turks.

They had been converted by the Arabs recently. The Seljuk Turks had been converted to Islam and then in turn turned around and conquered the Arab empire and established a Turkish caliphate. And I quote then from one historian, he quotes Rodney Stark, is who I quote here, in God's Battalions. Now, this is one book that you should buy, by the way, one book that really tells the truth about the Crusades. Rodney Stark's book, God's Battalions.

And I quote now from Stark. He says, in his letter, Emperor Alexius Komnemnus, this was the emperor who appealed to Pope Urban II to have the Catholic West come and support the Orthodox East in their fight against Islam, against the Seljuk Turks who were overwhelming them at every point. Emperor Alexis Komnemnus detailed gruesome tortures of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land and desecrations of churches and altars and baptismal fonts.

Should Constantinople fall to the Turks, Stark goes on to say, not only would thousands more Christians be murdered and tortured and raped, but also the most holy relics of the Savior gathered over the centuries would be lost, Komnemnus said. Therefore, in the name of God, we implore you to bring this city all faithful soldiers of Christ. In your coming, you will find your reward in heaven. If you do not come, God will condemn you. Unquote.

From a letter that Emperor Komnemnus wrote to Pope Urban II in the West, in the Catholic West. Wow. Therefore, the Crusades, they were launched for these reasons then, not to slaughter Muslims and conquer territory, but rather to come to the aid of Western pilgrims being slaughtered. Number two, to come to the aid of besieged Constantinople. And then thirdly, both Alexis Komnemnus and Pope Urban II hoped that it would reunite the churches of the East and the West, which had been divided in A.D. 1076.

This, dear listener, is the context for the launching of the Crusades, not the myths that you hear that bloodthirsty Westerners were salivating at slaughtering Muslims and conquering territory. That is not the case. Well, another myth. Another myth of the Crusades. Myth number two, the Christian Crusaders were really motivated by lust and greed for conquesting colonies.

Oh, another myth, dear listener. Since the advent of Marxism, you must understand the intellectual context for this myth. The advent of Marxism, with Karl Marx composing Das Kapital, it is fashionable now to attribute economic motives as the primary motives for all of history. It's no less true of the Crusades as of any other period of history. And one such Marxist economist a man named Hans-Eberhard Mayer postulates that the Crusades alleviated a severe financial squeeze on Europe's knightly class, who at this time had a pool of surplus sons, as he puts it, owing to the feudal practice of primogeniture.

Primogeniture, of course, is that most all of the inheritance goes to the eldest son, and all the other sons get a smaller pittance and have to go and fend for themselves. Karen Armstrong, in fact, calls the Crusader kingdoms our first colonies. Karen Armstrong is another sympathetic author whose book on the Crusades has been very popular, especially among progressives and those sympathetic to this reading of the Crusades. But we must say, not so. The economic, the Marxist motive, economic motive for the launching of the Crusades is indeed a myth, been proven a myth by many, many.

And I would once again urge you to pick up Rodney Stark's book, God's Battalions, because he helps to deflate that myth. One very creative historian, I love this guy, a guy named Jonathan Riley Smith, has analyzed the extensive financial records of the monasteries. Now, this was in a day before banks, understand. You must understand that finances and so forth were handled in those days, not by banks, but by monks and monasteries who were considered to be trustworthy. In fact, the Templars were the first large-scale bankers all across Europe, weren't they?

They handled the funding of the Crusades, and they found that, in fact, sending a son, Riley Smith finds that in the Middle Ages, under the feudal system, sending a son on the crusade was rather a very expensive proposition. Not only did a son who was going perhaps as a knight not only need armor and arms and horses, two-thirds were the war horses, two-thirds plus support for them, and servants. In fact, Riley Smith documents that of the 15,000 knights that went on the first crusade equaled an entourage of 100,000. All the rest of those 85,000 persons were support for these 15,000 knights, a very expensive proposition.

And then they also needed a treasure chest, out of which this knight, this son would pay things like wages, and forage, and food, and incidentals, as we would call them today. And as Stark says in God's Battalions, and I quote him, most crusaders also needed funds to sustain their families and estates while they were away in the east. The best estimate is that a typical crusader needed to raise at least four or five times his annual income before he could even set forth. This reveals the absurdity, says Stark.

This reveals the absurdity of all claims that the crusaders were mostly landless younger sons, since it would have been cheaper for families to have kept such sons at home and provided them an adequate inheritance. Unquote. There goes the myth that the Marxist myth that the crusaders had a financial motive in going east and going to the holy land, to Palestine, to conquer it and to protect Christians there. Instead, we find that crusaders were motivated by genuine religious principle, take their own confessions on their face.

They said they were going for Christ, they were going for the church, they were going to relieve their brothers and sisters in the east. This is what they said, and this is what we must take at face value. Secondly, crusaders were motivated by a desire to serve penance as well, that is, to in some measure atone for their sins. And thirdly, crusaders were motivated by a desire to serve the larger church. They too hoped that they could come to the aid of their brothers and sisters in the orthodox church in the east.

Moderns today fail to understand the realities of the feudal period too, don't they? This is called provincialism. When you have such a narrow view of your own values, your own world, your own day and time that you cannot see beyond your own circumstances and at least project yourself under the thinking, adopt the values at least provisionally of those you're studying so that you can sympathize with their point of view.

Provincialism rather, the Oxford English Dictionary defines provincialism as narrowness of view or thought, inability to see a thing from another's point of view, a tendency to judge others in history by one's own standards and values without considering those of the times, unquote. There were no standing armies in the Middle Ages, for example. Knights fought wars to protect property, and there were no nation states proper at the time with standing armies. How did you defend yourself? How did you go protect others in other regions?

You sent knights, kings, and princes, and kingdoms, raised their own funds, trained their own men in the form of knights, perhaps with laymen then, who also had bow and arrow perhaps, or fought with swords, sometimes their own farm implements. But this is how wars were fought in the feudal period. The feudal system was one that would have to serve here at as well during the crusades. And oftentimes provincials in our own day and age cannot even for a moment step out of their own worldview to see the worldview of another. This is provincialism at its core.

And I tell you that that progressives are provincials too. Progressives are provincials in that they cannot see, cannot project, adopt the mindset and the heart set of those during this period. Because these are the men that had to fight the battles to defend their, not only their own lands, but defend others. Well, the third myth that we must puncture about the crusades, the third myth, Christians and Jews were better off under Muslim rule than that of Christian princes. Another myth, brother and sister.

It's a favorite myth of modern scholars in particular. Karen Armstrong, for example, says in her book on the crusades, all across the Mediterranean basin, the Muslim armies were looked upon as liberators, not enslavers. The Christian rulers of Byzantium were the real tyrants, unquote, from Karen Armstrong. And there is in some measure truth to this because the Christian communities, especially those who were not Orthodox Christians of the East, did in fact suffer a bit under the rule of Byzantium, which was located, of course, in Constantinople in Asia Minor at the time, which is now Turkey, modern-day Turkey, Islamic to the core.

But as Stark would point out in his book, God's Battalions, and I quote him now, and he says, Tugrul Bey turned his forces north and attacked Armenia, a monophysite kingdom. Now, Tugrul Bey was, of course, one of those Turks who, under his caliphate, helped to conquer much of what was modern Persia and Armenia, as well in the north. And let me go on to quote then Stark in God's Battalions. Now, remember, he's reflecting on the attitude of the locals who were yearning for liberty and freedom from Byzantium because they felt themselves to be persecuted, but listen to what they find instead under Islam.

Tugrul Bey turned his forces north and attacked Armenia, a monophysite kingdom. Monophysites were a sect of Christianity, considered to be heretical by many, that recently had fallen captive to Byzantium and was subject to fierce religious persecution led by Orthodox Byzantine bishops. So, these monophysites were groaning under the persecution of the Orthodox Byzantine bishops. And so, ostensibly, they saw the Tugrul Bey and his Turks, his Muslim Turks, as liberators. I go on to quote now Stark.

Stark goes on to say, given the prevailing bitterness against Byzantium, the Armenian princes offered little resistance, although they surely would have done so had they known what was in store. They thought they were going to be liberated, but instead they came under worse oppression, worse persecution by the Muslims. I go on to quote Stark. Thus, in 1048, while Byzantines were distracted by a revolt at home, the Turks overran the city of Ardzin and massacred the men, raped the women, and took the children into slavery. Unquote.

This is what they found. The grass is always greener in the field adjacent, isn't it? They thought they were going to be liberated, freed under the Turks, under the Muslim Turks, but instead they were massacred, raped, and bound into slavery. Far worse than the treatment under the Byzantines. This happens still today, doesn't it?

Oh, how many people thought that they were going to be liberated from the rule of Saddam Hussein, for example. Dear listener, what has happened instead as ISIL has overrun Iraq? Iraq has found itself under worse rule. Yes, they have gone from the frying pan into the fire. How can we even say today, but we can say today, can we not, that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than it is under ISIL or the Islamic State today?

They're suffering far worse. Christian communities are being eradicated. Christian communities that have been there for millennia, slaughtered, butchered, crucified, burned. Far worse conditions than they had under Saddam Hussein, who actually protected them. Oh, dear listener, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I urge you to come and visit us. We will continue this brief series on the Crusades and conclude with the remaining myths of the crusade, because there are two other important myths that I want to treat with you. But you have seen so far, and you have ammunition now to help treat of these things. And I would just urge you as well, some of my parishioners have urged me to urge you to come and visit us at one of our worship services at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Some of you have been listening to us for perhaps for years, and I just urge you to get that impetus to cross our threshold and come and visit us.

You will find a friendly community, friendly Christian community, with solid worship and preaching and teaching and so forth. So come and visit us at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for further information at 523-0196. Once again, our worship service, 10 a.m. Sunday morning, 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.