“The thrust of the preceding chapters can be summarized very briefly. The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s battalions.”
Rodney Stark
God’s Battalions — pg. 248
(The crusades were,) “armed pilgrimages driven by a holy zeal to recover conquered Christian lands.”
Steven Weidenkopf
Author — The Glory of the Crusades
“Crusading was extremely expensive and more than a few noble families risked bankruptcy in order to take part. They did so for medieval, not modern, reasons. Crusading for them was an act of love and charity by which, like the Good Samaritan, they were aiding their neighbors in distress. Muslim warriors had conquered eastern Christians, taken their lands, and in some cases killed or enslaved them. The Crusader believed it was his duty to right that wrong.”
Thomas Madden
Author — Concise History of the Crusades
“But folks, listen, please. Have you seen the images these (mainly) young men are posting? What do you see in them all? Yes, the cross, prominently displayed on the armor of men slashing and hacking the infidel to pieces. The Crusades were definitionally religious in nature. I know, I know, Rome was quite involved in politics and the like by that time, and very corrupt. No question about it. But, here’s the point: they joined religion to their avarice and thirst for power. They promised eternal life to those who died fighting the infidel! The entire foundation was a fundamental and outright denial of the nature, efficacy, and truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
James White
Baptist Minister
Recently, Dr. James White walked out on a limb regarding the subject of the Crusades only to find that it was being sawed off behind him. White’s “knowledge” of the Crusades was obviously not informed by some of the best most recent scholarship and instead relied on the “I hate the West” chronicles of the Crusades.Briefly, as it pertains to the Crusades, the fact is that Islam was crowding in on Christendom. Islam had been conquering former Christians lands for centuries. Further, the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being slaughtered by the Muslims and the Christian faith was under attack. Christian inhabitants of these formerly Christian lands were being forced to pay the Muslim Jizya. The Christian leaders, in both Church and State, realized that something had to be done. Those noble Crusaders who are our Christian Fathers in the Faith assessed the situation and did what they thought best at that moment in history. Unlike White, I will not fault my Fathers intent all because they didn’t do it just right. (And yes, terrible mistakes were made but you know what … that’s the nature of war.)
During his rant against the Crusaders and the Crusades Dr. White offered up this gem;
“But the fact is these folks are saying the Crusades did not go “far enough.” Far enough in what? Blaspheming Christ? Disparaging the gospel? Promoting hatred? What would you like to see more of, exactly? What would be “far enough”?”
James White
This quote about the Crusades from White is revealed to be as vacuous as it is when one considers, for example, a quote from one of the better known Crusaders, Godfrey of Boullion. When Godfrey of Bouillon captured Jerusalem in the First Crusade they offered to make him king. He refused and said;
“I will not wear a crown of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of thorns.”
Does James White consider this mindset blasphemous?
Allow me to suggest several truths, contra Dr. White;
1.)One can only hold that the Crusades blasphemed Christ if one does not believe in Just War Theory, or in defensive war. The Crusades were clearly Just since they were seeking to protect and defend a helpless Christian people who have been aggressively attacked by the adherents of a religion that hated Christianity.
2.) Contra White’s quote above there is not a thing unbiblical about hatred that is Biblical. Scriptures teaches us to “hate that which is evil and to cling to that which is good.” In point of fact, it would have been hatred against their suffering Christian brothers to not seek to bring them relief by going on Crusade.
3.) Dr. White asked above, “What would supporters of the Crusade liked to have seen more of” and I would answer that I would have liked to have seen even more Islamic lands (formerly Christian lands) conquered by the sword for Christ.
4.) Dr. White also asks “what would be far enough for Crusade action.” I would answer by saying, “far enough would be seeing the nations covered with the Kingdom of Christ as the waters cover the sea.”
It is clear when it comes to understanding the history of the Crusades Dr. James White and I really hold to two vastly different views. Both of those views cannot be Christian. Really, in the end White is giving us the cultural liberal view of Crusade history. This is the view that teaches that white Christian were evil colonizers who raped and pillaged everywhere they set foot. It is the view that the white man is evil and poor downtrodden Muslims were just minding their own business living a happy go lucky life until the Crusaders came along. A good number of cultural liberals like Dr. White are genuinely Christian but they don’t lose the worldview baggage of liberalism when it comes to their understanding of history. People like Dr. White become so submerged in the Enlightenment world and life view that we can’t see that it is inconsistent with the Christian faith.
Honestly, though, after reading the James White thread on X about the Crusades I almost begin to conclude that either I am not a Christian or He is not a Christian or neither of us are Christian because it is difficult to see how we can both be Christian and have convictions that are this radically different when it comes to these kinds of worldview considerations. At the very least one would have to say that if we both are Christians then one of us needs to become more consistent in understanding history from a Christian perspective.
During the course of his X rant James White doubled and tripled down;
“But folks, listen, please. Have you seen the images these (mainly) young men are posting? What do you see in them all? Yes, the cross, prominently displayed on the armor of men slashing and hacking the infidel to pieces. The Crusades were definitionally religious in nature. I know, I know, Rome was quite involved in politics and the like by that time, and very corrupt. No question about it. But, here’s the point: they joined religion to their avarice and thirst for power. They promised eternal life to those who died fighting the infidel! The entire foundation was a fundamental and outright denial of the nature, efficacy, and truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
James White
In response to this outburst we can only note;
1.) Why would anyone have a problem with the soldiers and champions of Christ’s cause killing the infidel who had, as a matter of policy, been enslaving and killing Christians, raping Christian women folk, and turning Christian children into Janissaries?
2.) If ever there was a classic textbook example of Just War theory supporting war it was the Crusades.
3.) Of course the Crusades were religious in nature. All wars are religious in nature. This is a Captain Obvious assertion. Does Dr, White think that there are wars that are waged that are not religious in nature? Does James know that FDR led sailors and soldiers in singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” on a battle ship once? There has never been a war that wasn’t “religious in nature.”
There’s a good question for Pope White….. is James as outraged by Christians participating in WW II on the side of the Allies as he is by Christian participating in Crusades?
3.) James is surprised that religion often combines avarice and thirst for power with war? If Christians never fought in any righteous war where avarice and thirst for power wasn’t somewhere in the equation Christians really would be pacifists. On the issue of avarice though, keep that opening quote from Dr. Stark above in mind.
4.) All because indulgences were promised and eternal life guaranteed for those who fought does not by itself make the Crusades bad policy in and of themselves. Many times the right thing is done for the wrong reasons.
In the end Dr. White is still not dealing with the reality that the Mooselimbs were seeking to crush the Christian faith and that the Crusades were a godly response against the work of the Christ-hating Muslims waging offensive war against Christian lands.
When Dr. White says these kinds of things I really pray that he keeps popping off. He’s the best advertisement for not being Baptist that currently exists. Indeed, Dr. White seems increasingly to not want to be identified as being Reformed.
“I have less and less interest in the specific moniker ‘Reformed.'”
James White
It would be easy to believe when Dr. White says those kinds of things that he’s just being a tease trying to get the hopes of the Reformed up.
Dr. White however continued his mindless trek into the jejune by offering this gem on the subject of the Crusades;
“The Crusades did not stop the expansion of Islam. In fact, they were not intended to. ”
James White
One would love to know White’s source that the Crusades were not intended to stop the expansion of Islam. Secondly, while they may not have stopped the expansion of Islam they certainly slowed it down for a time. Those Crusader states that were planted and existed for a time are evidence of that as is the fact that the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem. Clearly the Crusaders did more than stop the expansion of Islam but rather reversed it for a season.
Also consider that Ferdinand and Isabella’s crusade did indeed stop the expansion of Islam as the Spanish Royalty kicked the carpet-worshippers out of Spain and stopped the spread in Spain. Charles Martel stopped the spread of Islam. The Polish winged hussars under Jan Sobieski stopped the spread of Islam. Then there was Jean Parisot de Valette — a latter day Crusader — who slowed down the march of the Muslims in his manful resistance with his Hospitallers during the great siege of Malta.
“The words of a wise man’s mouth [are] gracious, But the lips of a fool shall swallow him up.”
Ecclesiastes 10:12 (NKJV)
Jetbrane writes: “There’s a good question for Pope White….. is James as outraged by Christians participating in WW II on the side of the Allies as he is by Christian participating in Crusades?”
You mean that we were in the side of mad murderer Joseph Stalin and that we gave him the eastern half of Europe as booty to kill, enslave and oppress? That we oversaw and organized the end of the British Empire for a divided Europe and a cold war? Such a deal. The only way we could top that would be to open Europe to invading hordes of machete wielding Muslim maniacs who rape our daughters, stab our children, elect them to govern our capital cities, arrest any patriot who tweet dissent, give the invaders free money, free phones, free food have them live in our best hotels free of charge. Oh wait…
I am not a knee-jerk anti-crusadist myself. And yet, I am forced to observe that one’s opinion of crusades can quickly change when they are aimed at people you actually care about.
Like some of the so-called “Northern Crusades” finally began to target Orthodox Christians who did not accept the pope’s authority. Alexander Nevsky became the Russian national hero by fighting against them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Ice
And in the 15th century there were massive attempts to crush the proto-Protestant Czech Hussites (who btw were a good example of “Christian nationalism” in action), but even though they failed miserably, that were given the standard crusader privileges by the pope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars#First_anti-Hussite_crusade
“A firm adherent of the Church of Rome, Sigismund was aided by Pope Martin V, who issued a bull on 17 March 1420 proclaiming a crusade “for the destruction of the Wycliffites, Hussites and all other heretics in Bohemia”.”
And finally, even the Spanish attack on England with the “Great Armada” could be called a crusade, since it sought to overthrow the heretical queen Elizabeth who had been formally dethroned by the pope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada#Background
“Philip was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a subsidy should the Armada make land.[30]”
Of course it is the case, given so many Crusades that one has to distinguish.
The peasants crusade for example was another disaster.
I think that historically, the “Fourth Crusade” was one of the closest precedents for the Nazi Lebensraum project – and by that I mean the sudden grotesque transformation of crusading ideology into a selfish land-grab. Instead of helping Eastern Christians to fight Muslims, the crusaders in 1204 tried to grab the Eastern lands for themselves. And the Nazis, instead of seeking to free Slavic peoples from the Bolshevik yoke, tried to grab the Slavic lands for themselves.