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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and

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faith. And today, we want to take up the most misunderstood, distorted time in the history

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of Christianity and Islam, the relation between the two, and that is the Crusades.

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Islam is increasingly more and more in our headlines, in our daily lives, whether it's

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the Somalis in Minnesota, or whether it's Mayor Mamdani in New York, or whether it's Iran

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in the Middle East. In general, we are coming in increasing conflict with the religion of

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Islam. And at the center of that relationship is a period when perhaps the Christian West

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was coming closest to defeating and beating back the aggressive nature of Islam. And that

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was during the period of the Crusades. So, so many misconceptions about them. So today, I

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wanted to begin to address those. And our title today is The Crusades, Brutal Holy War Against

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Islam, or a War of Resolve and Redemption. Those are the two perspectives that we can take.

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Were the Crusades a Brutal Holy War Against Islam, or were they wars of resolve and redemption?

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The History of Religion author Karen Armstrong characterizes the West's efforts in the Crusades

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as a brutal holy war against Islam. And she blames the hostility between Christianity and Islam

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on Christianity, a religion with what she says is a long record of intolerance, inquisition,

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crusade, and persecution. While she says that Islam is, and I quote, a far more tolerant faith than

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Christianity. And the Quran is a pluralistic scripture, which sees all rightly guided faiths

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as coming from God. Muslims are innocent bystanders, according to her, victims of the Crusades.

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Now, this is a prevalent view. This is the view that obtains in general her opinion. Ms. Armstrong,

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opinion represents most opinions on the Crusades today. When seen through the eyes of people who

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lived it, however, the Crusades become understandable without excusing its excesses, that is. And there

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were excesses on both sides. So, unforgivable to the progressive is that although he did not,

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the medieval man should have behaved like a good progressive, right? Therefore, he's judged because

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the medieval man was not a good progressive. Richard the Lionhearted, for example, one of the great kings

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of England. I love Richard the Lionhearted. He was noble and brave and swaggering. He was brutal and he

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was honest. He was passionate. He was deeply religious. He was coarsely male, too. He would have

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belched and swore and drank and he would have smelled worse than any husband after two weeks hunting.

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None of these qualities, of course, fit the progressive picture. Very offensive to a militant

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feminist like Ms. Armstrong. No, it's the pencil-necked, man-bun, skinny-jean soy boy that she favors.

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Not a man like Richard the Lionhearted. But against this, we maintain that the Crusades were a war of

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resolve and redemption, not a brutal holy war against Islam. No. So, let's examine the causes of

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the Crusades, shall we? That will give us a sense for why the Crusades were launched in the first place.

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A very different day, a very different time. And we must be willing to put ourselves in their shoes

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before we judge them, okay? So, one of the causes, the first cause that we have here for

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the Crusades. Number one, the Crusades were launched as a response to prior Muslim aggression.

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This is foundational to understanding the Crusades, which point is rarely, if ever, brought up.

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The Crusades were launched as a response to prior Muslim aggression. The first crusade, launched in

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AD 1096, was a delayed response to the prior invasion of Muslims into Christian lands. Christians of the

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East, in Byzantium, bore the brunt of brutality and conquest. For centuries, the West heard reports of

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these strange militant Bedouins coming from Arabia, who were sweeping through the lands of the Bible.

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And gradually, these vague reports clarified into an accurate picture of the Arab Saracens,

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with a strange new religion at the time. And that new religion was cobbled from Christianity and

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Judaism and, frankly, the paganism of Arabia. But the Christian West was slow, very slow, to respond

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to the desperate need of her Eastern brothers. There were deep divisions between the Patriarch of

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Constantinople and the Pope of Rome over who had authority over whom. And in the meantime, in all

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the bickering, why Islam conquered on and on and on. There were widening doctrinal and worship differences

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between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the distances between Rome and

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Constantinople as well, made close communication very difficult. Only with difficulty, the passage of

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centuries when Islam conquered the Middle East, and Egypt, and North Africa, and Spain, and Byzantium, all did

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the Byzantine Emperor, finally, the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, who ruled from AD 1081 to 1118. Finally,

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Emperor Alexius I swallowed his pride, and he appealed to the West for help. And Pope Urban II, who was

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at the time Pope in Rome, he roused the West from sleep to launch the first crusade. So, do not lose sight

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of this fact, dear listener. Islam did not appear in the lands it now subjugates. That's Syria, Palestine,

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Egypt, North Africa, Turkey. Islam did not appear with a wave of a wand from a magic fairy. No, Islam

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gained these lands by conquering with the sword, by offering the pagans of the land the option,

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convert or die. That is the basic deal that's offered to the pagan, convert or die. But the people

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of the book, that is the Bible, that would be Jews and Christians, they were required to pay the

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jizra, as it's called, that is the poll tax, and then come under the pact of Omar, as it's called,

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which is a brutal subjugating deal that's offered, if you will, the pact of Omar, and we'll cover that

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in the future. Well, the crusades were launched as a response to prior Muslim aggression. Always keep

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that in mind. The crusades were launched as a response to prior Muslim aggression. Well, the

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second reason for the crusade, the second reason for the crusades, okay, persecution of Christians,

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persecution of Christians in the holy lands had increased. Yes, there had always been some

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persecution in the holy lands for pilgrims who were visiting from the West. But under a new regime,

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persecution of Christians in the holy lands had increased. And that new regime, the nemesis,

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remember this name, the ascendancy of the Seljuk Turks, the ascendancy of the Seljuk Turks, very brutal

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people. The Seljuk Turks had recently swept into these lands from the steppes of Asia, defeating the

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Byzantine emperor Romanus IV at the Battle of Manzakurt in AD 1071. Now, that's a lot of historical fact

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in detail, but I encourage you to unpack it because it's very significant in our relationship with Islam

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and very important for understanding why the crusades were launched, the Seljuk Turks. This

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defeat at Manzakurt in 1071 left all of Turkey open to conquest. And the Muslim Seljuk Turks conquered

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Jerusalem finally in 1077, subjecting the people to fresh persecutions, okay? Germain to the crusades

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is that they also persecuted Christian pilgrims who flocked to Jerusalem from all over the world.

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Understand this, dear listener. Their property of the pilgrims would be stolen by petty Turkish emirs

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soldiers who behaved like brigands. Pilgrims would be kidnapped and held for ransom, even as the Taliban

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does today, like the missionaries held for ransom in Afghanistan. Or pilgrims traveling from the West

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would be killed or tortured at the whim of a local official. No pilgrim was safe from the predatory

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greed and bloodlust of the Turkish followers of the religion of peace. Keep in mind, dear listener,

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the importance of religious pilgrimage in these days. And the historian, Dr. Madden, in his concise

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history of the crusades, puts it this way, and I quote, from a distance, the crusades do look like

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great armies organized and directed by the church against the enemies of Christ. But from within

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the ranks, it was a very different picture. Each crusader took a pilgrim's vow to reach the Holy

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Sepulchre. The crusader was a pilgrim first and foremost. Keep that in mind. The crusader was a pilgrim

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first and foremost. The oath he swore was to God, not to the Pope or any other man, unquote, from Dr.

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Madden in his concise history of the crusades. So, to the medieval pilgrim, Jerusalem was a holy city

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where biblical kings like David and Solomon ruled, where prophets preached and were martyred, where our

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Lord himself ministered and was crucified, and where the apostles preached and were martyred. So, in the

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holy city were shrines and churches and relics and bones of the saints on every corner, where miracles

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were being performed and where the Lord would return. This was the mindset, if you will, of the

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medieval pilgrim who journeyed to Jerusalem during this period. Those of you in our audience today

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who are LDS, for example, you Latter-day Saints, imagine for a moment if Osama bin Laden conquered the

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city of Nauvoo, turning the temple into a mosque or the temple in Salt Lake City in its precincts,

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and stopped you from going there. How would you feel? Multiply this religious feeling, and you might

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grasp the motivation of the crusader. His faith was being persecuted and destroyed in the land of its

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birth. This is why the crusader swore an oath and was given a red cross to sew upon his cloak, and he

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would therefore be called the Crucisignati. Crucisignati, that is, the crusader, a man signed by the cross.

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In Latin, he was known as the Crucisignati, the crusader. Okay, that was our second reason for the

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crusades. The third reason for the crusades, there was a sincere desire by all to heal the split

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between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Sincere desire to heal the split

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between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now, for centuries, the split

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between the Western Church, centered in Rome with the Pope, and the Eastern Church, centered in

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Constantinople with the Patriarch, had been festering this division. Differences over doctrine and worship

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styles and the division over who had the primacy, either Rome or Constantinople, all of these would

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stress the union to the breaking point. And this split became known as the Great Schism of A.D.

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1054, another crucial point in history, the Great Schism of 1054 between the Eastern Church and the

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Western Church. So, the crusades were one attempt to heal this breach. Understand this, rather than

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division and conflict, the crusades were an attempt to heal this breach in peace. On the side of the

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Eastern Orthodox Church, it was hoped that the Roman Catholic Church would find in salvation of the

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East that its true destiny lay in union with the Eastern Orthodox Church coming under its authority.

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On the side of the Roman Catholic Church, it was hoped that the Eastern Orthodox Church would find in being

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saved by the efforts of the crusaders that its true destiny lay in coming under its authority.

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Those were the expectations. Now, both of these hopes would be in the long run dashed by the realities of

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human nature as it manifested itself in the history of the crusades. But at first, hopes ran very high

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that Jesus' words might be fulfilled, that as Jesus said in John chapter 17, they may be one even as we

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are one. Unquote. But, dear listener, do not neglect that the unity of the Church of Christ came very close to

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being realized in the desperate struggle between the Christian Church and militant, rapacious Islam. Yes.

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Well, the fourth reason for the launching of the crusades, the West had the uneasy feeling

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that it would only be a matter of time before Islam conquered them. Yes, there was this feeling of

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inevitability unless something was done. The West had the uneasy feeling that it would only be a matter

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of time before Islam conquered them. The West found itself in the place of one of the two men in the old

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Zook about the charging bear, right? One stopped to put on his running shoes as the bear began to charge

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them both, and his friend said, why are you putting on running shoes? Don't you know you can't outrun a

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bear? But the man replied, I don't have to outrun the bear, only you. Well, Islam was gobbling up the

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East, but unlike the bear, he was not going to stop with the East. Do you know how unstoppable

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Islam appeared to the West at this time, right? The 11th century, late 11th century. Islam was moving

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ever westward across Anatolia, that is Asia Minor, and moving into Greece and would advance into the

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Balkan Peninsula all the way to the gates of Vienna. Who would stop her? Would the Muslim call to prayer be soon

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heard in the towers of the church in Rome instead of rebels? Unlike today, the people of the 11th century

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Europe had a realistic sense of Islam's ambitions, and they attempted to counter them, albeit a day late

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and a dollar short. The Crusades were also a realistic appraisal of Islam's ambitions to transform

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the entire, what they call, Dar al-Harb, that is the house of war, that would be us, the unconverted,

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to transmit, transform us, the Dar al-Harb, the house of war, into the Dar al-Islam, the house of Islam.

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That was her ambition. So, do not be fooled, dear listener. The ambition of the ancient caliphs of

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Turkey have not changed. One wit from the ambitions of the first missionaries to our shores. We have

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record of the first Muslim missionaries that came to America, and they said, our goal is to conquer

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America. This is from the first Muslim missionaries interviewed by the New York Times in New York City

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in 1920. So, after reviewing these reasons, dear listener, for launching the first crusade,

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it's apparent why we prefer the title, a war of resolve and redemption, rather than a brutal

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holy war against Islam. The word resolved to stand against the rising tide of jihad bearing down on them,

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and it was a war of redemption, since they set out to redeem the city of Jerusalem and their brothers

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who were in Constantinople. So, we must also deal, then, with the myths that have grown up around the

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crusades. Yes, there are many myths that have grown up around the crusades, and I think I have time to

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treat at least one of them right now before we conclude. One of the great myths of the crusades is, number one,

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the crusades were launched by greedy men who calculated that they could plunder the hapless

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Muslims for their gold in their lands, right? The caricature portrayed is of a sword-wielding

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mercenary who cold-heartedly plucks the gold ring from the poor Muslim woman and her children and sends

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it back to a miserly clergyman in Rome who's wringing his hands and exclaiming, more, more,

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right? That's the picture of the greedy men, right, who calculated they could plunder these

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hapless Muslims. Oh, but the reality was quite different. Now, while there were bums among the

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crusaders who raped and murdered and plundered their way to the Holy Land, and the adventurer out only for

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his fame and fortune, it would be dishonest if we were to ignore the true spirit of most of the men of the

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day. Yes. Now, Pope Urban II, who preached the first crusade, that is, he roused support for it by preaching

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and teaching and going across the West, Pope Urban decreed that the lands recovered from the Turks would be

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restored to Byzantium. Yes, there's no selfishness in that. As, once again, Robert Spencer, in his

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The Idiot's Guide to Islam, an excellent book, by the way, Robert Spencer's book, The Idiot's Guide

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to Islam. He says, and I quote, the Pope saw the Crusades as an act of sacrifice rather than profit,

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unquote. The Crusades were an act of sacrifice rather than profit. Keep that in mind, dear listener.

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For the lords in Europe, crusading was expensive and it was risky. A meta-evil lord did not just sit

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back with a pint of mead and let the good times roll. No. The lord continuously fought to maintain

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his holdings with a staff of knights to defend his interest with a sword on a daily basis, almost as a

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modern landholder must do with a staff of lawyers, right? There's a parallel there. Going on a crusade

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meant selling off much of his inheritance to his own disadvantage. In fact, there were no standing armies

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in those days. Keep this in mind, dear listener. There was no such thing as a standing army in these

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days. The only way that a lord could protect his territory would be by raising up fighters

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for his own interest, and that would be knights. So, the knights were the modern equivalent of an army

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today. And there were no nation-states as we know them today, and there were consequently no standing

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armies or even militias as there would be later. No, it was the knight class who would defend their

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local people and their lords. The vassals underneath the lord would be defended as well by this class of

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knights who were supported and held by the lord. And it would be these knights then that would be

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commissioned to go to Jerusalem to defend the pilgrims as well. So, it must be kept in mind that past works

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on the crusades like Ms. Armstrong's, they were written by irreligious moderns who cannot conceive

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of anyone believing all of that nonsense about religion, being motivated to make such monumental

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sacrifices for God and faith. Oh, there must have been something else at work in the minds of these

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people, people like Ms. Armstrong. Things like profit or greedy gain of lands or a bloodlust driving

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them, well, such attitudes display an ignorance of the spirit of the day, I submit, selling short their

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true heart of a meta-evil man. As Dr. Madden puts it in his Concise History of the Crusades, he says,

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one must remember that they were meta-evil, not modern people. Yes, the idea of historical anachronism

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is at work here. That's a fancy term for failing to understand the life and conditions and

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circumstances of the people you're studying, but rather projecting your own values, your own

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circumstances on them, and then judging them harshly. That's the idea of historical anachronism, which

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people like Ms. Armstrong do. And she should know better being a historian, but no, she does her own

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form of progressive projection of her values onto them and then judging them accordingly.

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Noblemen in the meta-evil period, they were noble because they acted nobly. Men of wealth and

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privilege, they were expected to make sacrifices and to be generous. As Dr. Madden puts it in his

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Concise History again, by expending great wealth, they were storing up treasure where moth and rust

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could not corrupt. By defending the church, they defended all that was good and true in their

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world. In short, most noblemen who joined the crusade did so from a simple and sincere love of

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God, unquote. That's a very important qualification to the crusades. Let me cite that again. As Dr. Madden

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in his book, The Concise History of the Crusades puts it, he said,

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most noblemen who joined the crusade did so from a simple and sincere love of God. So, as we face

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the continuing challenge of Islam in our own day and age, we must keep these perspectives in mind on

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the crusades. And I'll be dealing more with some of the myths of the crusades in our next broadcast

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together. But for now, understand that the crusades were not as they are being portrayed by the

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progressive left today, as they have been for decades now. No, and I urge you to stand against

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the stream and know that indeed, most who joined the crusade did so from a simple and sincere love

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of God. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Now, we meet for

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holy worship on Sunday. We have a sincere love of God as well. And we meet for holy worship on Sunday

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at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And we urge you to cross our

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threshold and visit us. If you haven't been before and you're considering it, perhaps, we would invite

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you to join us and you'll find a warm welcome. And you'll find a church that does indeed preach the

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word of God and loves God sincerely. And you can call us for further information or give us some

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feedback on what you've heard. You can do that at area code 208-523-0196. That's area code 208-523-0196.