Republican fundamentalists are fuming about the media again. What happened this time? Did David Letterman say “damn”? Did Janet Jackson show the other nipple?
No, this time the Republican fundamentalists are running away from a relatively honest depiction of a brutal historical truth: The Christian Crusades of the Dark Ages were a barbaric and senseless slaughter.
Leaders of the Republican religious fringe are fuming at the coming release of Kingdom of Heaven – an action movie that is set during one of the Crusades. They are outraged that the film refuses to comply with the Christian revisionist history of the Crusades.
The sin of Kingdom of Heaven, according to Christian film reviewer Bob Waliszewski, is that the film does not depict the Crusaders as righteous, morally-pure, holy warriors fighting in the name of God against the Muslim spawn of Satan. Instead, Kingdom of Heaven accurately portrays the armies of crusaders as rag-tag opportunists who are motivated by selfish instincts.
The truth of the Crusades is actually more terrible than anything depicted in Kingdom of Heaven. In truth, the Crusades included immense slaughters of Jews in Europe. The Crusaders pillaged, raped and destroyed entire Christian cities before they ever got to Muslim territory. The Crusaders engaged in torture, killing, and even cannibalism against non-military inhabitants of the Middle East. The Crusades were awful.
“This is not how Christians I know see each other,” Waliszewski complains. Well, tough. I’m not saying that most modern Christians are the moral equivalent of the terrible Crusaders of medieval times. However, the Crusades are an important and illustrative part of Christian history that should no more be denied that the Nazi Holocaust should be denied. When Waliszewski complains about the truth being told, he is morally equivalent to a neo-Nazi Holocaust denier.
Of course, the real battle that Waliszewski and his fellow fundamentalists are truly concerned about is the current campaign of the far right wing of the Republican Party to overthrow American democracy and replace it with a theocratic regime that is devoted to granting power to certain extremist Christian sects. This radical Christian fringe wants to wage a new Crusade against their evil enemies, and they want to use nuclear weapons to do so, fully expecting that in doing so, they will bring about the end of the world as we know it. These American fanatics are devoted to the idea that they are going to take part in a global Holy War which will be so bloody as to make all previous wars, even the Crusades, look like picnics.
These fundamentalists don’t want Americans to see Kingdom of Heaven because they want to preserve the illusion that Christianity is a pure force of good, even when it wages violence against its opponents. These fundamentalists oppose anyone who dares to confront their lies with truth.
If you’re looking for a bit of the truth about the Crusades, watching an adventure movie really isn’t the best way to do it. I suggest, as a starter, that you take a peek at a documentary entitled The Crusades – available on DVD. Then, do some reading on the historical echoes of The Crusades in current events with Karen Armstrong’s book Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact On Today’s World. Defy the fundamentalists and do better than a Hollywood version of an education about the Crusades.
Well, good to know someone decided to create a film about it around these times. The number of nasty Christians throughout history…
The right-wing Christian fundementalists don’t LIKE the movie? Well, no shit, Ya THINK? After all this movie dares to tell the actual historical truth…and God/Godess knows we can’t have any of that, now can we? Hell, the Iranian Shiites still have a contract on that one author (His name eludes me right now–Anyone?) who dared to write something THEY didn’t like…Guess our Zealots want to get in on the act, too. Actually, if anybody still believes the myth about George Washington and the cherry tree, let me tell you that this was written in a reading primer in the 1820′s by a minister who never even MET George Washington…and my historical research leads me to believe that, were he alive today, he MIGHT aspire to the position of President…of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. (My kind of people…) The Neocons don’t want you to know the truth…they want you to toe the party line and swallow the propaganda and disinformation (a careful web of lies built upon a slender strand of truth)…Eventually, if successful, they might even get you to believe that two plus two equals seven and aren’t you lucky to line in such a society…
I remember the chill that I felt when I saw the trailer during a movie earlier this year — I thought, way ta go! This’ll get the Muslims’ beards in a twist. Glad to hear that it’s a homegrown fundamentalist group instead.
Mike, I think you mean Salman Rushdie. Seems gods (or beleifs in same) are veeerrry fragile. Look to close and they break.
Oh yes, God needs a bunch of nutty American funamentalists to protect him? Omnipotent, my ass.
Just to set the record straight, the Iranians took the bounty off Salman Rushdie’s head years ago.
Yes, because otherwise, that appearance in the Bridget Jones movie would be really dumb. And no one say anything sarcastic about it being dumb anyway, because Colin Firth is my future husband, and I won’t hear anything bad about him.
Thanks, Sarge, I couldn’t remember his name to save my life…or his, for that matter..And thank you, Anonymous, I hadn’t heard about that. Unfortunately none of them, Islamic or Christian, can handle the inconsistancies of their system of beliefs being pointed out to them…just as they’re unable-or unwilling-to look at the actual historical truth. And they certainly don’t want YOU to. What’s Jack Nicholson’s famous line in “A Few Good Men”? “YEW CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”…or so they think…or hope…
I consider it odd that, when their interpretation of the Bible gets opposed by scientific facts, the fundamentalists will attempt to force science to fit their interpretation, not the other way around.
You’d think, if they really believed in a god and such, they’d try as hard as possible to be right rather than just insisting they are and keeping their fingers crossed.
One would also hope, HareTrinity, that the basic message in all these religions wouldn’t be missed by its practitioners: Love your God, Love your fellow human beings, Love yourself. They always miss the essemtial message, and would rather get caught up in the mythology and the trappings (also called the Dogma). Speaking of which, I saw a neat bumper sticker: “Sorry, but my Kharma ran over your Dogma”
I don’t think I have ever run into such a moronic and and massively confused group such as you who’ve posted to this article and wrote this article. Christians are not the only ones opposed to this historically innacurate portrayal of the Crusaders and muslims in this film. Muslims are also. Do some real research if “Ya can handle the truth”.
How about if “Ya” cite a source, Anonymous.
This article cites two. You cite none. Are we just supposed to have faith that you’re telling the truth?
Do some research moron.
Read a history book instead Mike Moores tripe
“So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression–an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.
“Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity–and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion–has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.
“With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. 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 old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as 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.
“That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be consumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
“Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were not just a front for darker designs.
“During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to “store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt.” They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love.
“Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.”
You know, it would be very, very useful for you to provide the source that you quote so extensively.
In the article above, I provide two sources. One is a history book. One of a few that I’ve read on the subject.
The fact is that the first Crusade was called against Constantinople, which was a political, theological and economic rival to Rome, but not a direct, imminent military threat as you suggest. The truth is that wars of Christian against Christian were of a much greater threat to Europe than any skirmishes that were taking place with Islam from the East.
And what did these Crusaders that you depict as pious, self-sacrificing and God-loving do before they ever got anywhere even close to the muslim lands? They killed huge numbers of European Jews first. Then, they savaged a couple of Christian cities. When they reached muslim cities, they behaved even more badly.
That you can seriously call such a bloody rampage a “holy mission” tells me where you’re coming from.
Pro-war propaganda, ancient or modern, has very little to do with the real motivations for war, and with what actually happens once the war begins. George W. Bush’s prisons of torture and claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ought to remind you of that.
“The fact is that the first Crusade was called against Constantinople, which was a political, theological and economic rival to Rome, but not a direct, imminent military threat as you suggest. The truth is that wars of Christian against Christian were of a much greater threat to Europe than any skirmishes that were taking place with Islam from the East.”
I think you need to get your facts straight. The first crusade had nothing whatever to do with Constantinople. In point of historical fact, the first crusade was called exclusively to deal with the Muslim invasion of the Christian Empire. The 4th Crusade is the one that was called to deal with Muslim incursion into Constantinople, but ended up by sacking Constantinople in 1204, and demonstrating Roman Rivalry against Constantinople. This crusade ended up solidifying the Schism between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, even though the parties that were guilty of this horrible breach of faith were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. I am Citing “Christ the King, Lord of History” by Anne Carroll for some of this, but with regards to the 4th Crusade sacking Constantinople, and this being the solidifying matter of the Schism I cite from “The Orthodox Church,” by Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia.
Also, another important point of historical fact that is missed, even though it is in the news as recently as the past year, is how the Patriarchate of Constantinople has fared under Muslim Domination. First of all, the greatest Church of Eastern Christianity had been converted into a mosque, and then a museum, and has yet to be restored to its rightful owners. I speak of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), which belongs by right to the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Secondly, the Christian population of Constantinople has been decimated by the Muslim Domination in Asia Minor (Turkey). There are relatively few Christians left.
Thirdly, the Halki Seminary had been suppressed by the Turkish Government, demonstrating the “religious tolerance” of the Muslim religion.
Fourth, to this day, the Patriarch of Constantinople is not looked upon by the Turkish Government as the Spiritual Leader of the World’s several million Orthodox Christians. He’s looked at as nothing more than a private resident.
There are other examples which have even been in the news that only the deliberately obtuse would have missed. The example of the Christian Missionaries who had gone into a relatively small Muslim country, only to be accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, and sentenced to death. If I could remember the details of this, I’d give them gladly, but it happened a few years back, so I’m a bit fuzzy.
No, the truth of the crusades really did involve the self defense of a Christian Nation which was in danger of being swallowed up by a very militant, and expansionist religious nation. Those freedoms which you enjoy so much? Enjoy them while you can, because if not for the crusades, you would not be enjoying them now. Just look at the modern Muslim nations. That isn’t history, open to interpretation, that is real life, modern fact. Better yet, Why don’t you go there and experience it first hand. Or does leaving the confines of our Barbaric Western Nation scare you?
It is an awfully secure place to poke jabs at those who fight for freedom in the distant past from the comfort of a free country.
In fairness to Islam, and to Muslims that I know personally, there are truly good Muslims who have been inspired to live a life of peace and submission to God as they know him from the pages of the Q’uran. They do not seem to find living side by side with believing Christians to be a major problem and have not tried to kill me or convert me. There is much that is true in Islam, and in their personal relationship to it. But those who are not militantly active don’t seem to have a lot of power to impact those who are.
Also in fairness to the truth, there were great sins committed in the Crusades. The sack of Constantinople and the Sack of Jerusalem being two such points, but the sins of those engaged in the business of war can be attributed to the fact, yes fact, that their adrenalin and survival instinct were in high gear, and perhaps their zeal, while their brains may have been dulled by the exhaustion of travel and of fighting over an extended period of time. In short, these are sins of weakness. These are not unpardonable. In fact, the late Pope John Paul the Great had asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Church, for her overzealous members who had committed these crimes. These crimes, however, did not poison the overall goal of restorative justice for which the Crusades had been called. They did, however, complicate certain realities.
I would remind you of what Jesus said to those who were about to stone the woman who was caught in adultery. “Let the one among you without sin cast the first stone.” And some additional historical research would be extremely useful to you as well. Take care.
“The fact is that the first Crusade was called against Constantinople”
You’re right. That’s a misstatement. What I meant to say is that the first Crusade was called against the wishes of Constantinople. Constantinople’s leaders did not want a rabble of Europeans with weapons passing through their lands, and the First Crusade did briefly lay seige to Constantinople, but nothing much came of that. Stupid omission of a couple words on my part.
However, the rest of what I said was accurate. The Crusaders killed huge numbers of Jews in Europe before they ever even left for the wretched “Holy Land” – the adrenaline of war and exhaustion of travel was no excuse there. The First Crusade also did attack Christian cities in the Middle East, with the leaders not able to tell the difference. It was a stupid, bloody enterprise throughout. There were not “some sins” committed in the Crusades. The whole enterprise was brutal.
As for the “restorative justice” that you say is just fine and dandy, I’ll remind you that Osama Bin Laden has used the same logic to justify his violence. You’ve got very bad company on that regard.
Finally, I think it’s really telling that you are using Jesus’s admonition not to cast the first stone in order to justify the launching of a series of very nasty wars in which not only stones, but spears, arrows, and diseased corpses were thrown. How very twisted of you.
This is just throwing up old anti-Christian propaganda. The fact is that western civilization was saved by the Crusades and that, because of centuries old Muslim persecution of Christians, Jews, Buddhists et al. Western Europe was the last Christian region left in the world. And this was despite the fact that the Middle East was the birth place of Christianity, and that the official religion of the Roman Empire (encompassing Northern Africa, Middle and Eastern Europe, Middle East) was Christianity. Islamic aggression began with Mohamed’s bloody assault on Mecca (at the time a Christian land) and ended in Italy with 2 failed invasions. Heck, the Chinese built 1 of the 7 Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China, to keep out the invading Islamicized Mongel hoards. Those interested can reference http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm
for a brief overview of the Crusades. very eye opening.
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