Crusades: Good or Bad?

[Proteus_MST]

True ... to say that Muhammed would be an example to follow would, nowadays, be as morally problematic as saying: Lets guide ourselves by the morality of the old testament

[Elok]

Which lots of people do, yes, and for the record, I am not one of them. That's crazy talk. The Orthodox approach to any given OT scripture is, "Hmm. How can this be viewed as a metaphor for Jesus"? I'm cool with that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In the sense that He created an entirely apolitical Church, yes. As for the Third, you're using your deity's name as an expletive here. It's like if I said "the dog made an Imran on the rug," only you're doing it with God.

Apolitical my ass! Everything Jesus did was political. He was deliberately upending the social order - equality was highly political sentiment. Christians who believe Jesus was apolitical are, IMO, getting the entire project wrong.

Also, it'd make no sense to say the dog did a Jesus on the rug (well, unless it looked like Jesus). But exclaiming Jesus Christ is more like exclaiming Holy ****... which is likely what Jesus would have said if you came to him saying that . I'm fine with it.

No, I'm saying that (quick Wiki check) Deuteronomy is believed to have its roots in texts from the eighth century BC, and modified up through the sixth. You're using "at the time" to refer to incidents more than a thousand years apart. It's like if future historians noted that the Holocaust "was typical of its time period" by pointing to Spain in the late 1400s. Actually, twice as bad as that; there's only 450 years between those two. Deuteronomy and early Islam are similar in that they involve partially civilized Semitic tribesmen, but you needn't lump them and everything between together.

You are missing the forest for the trees again. In the ancient world not much with how to deal with your enemies had changed from 800 BC to 600 AD. People still utterly destroyed other civilizations - Rome salted Carthage for instance. And especially wasn't much better in the Arab peninsula. Muhammed transcended a lot of what Arabs did in the age. As the early Christians transcended what Mediterranean people were doing in their age, even though hardly ANYONE would want to follow Paul's example (on slavery, women, etc) in 2015.

[Imran Siddiqui]

if Jesus and Paul and everybody else in early Xianity had spent the bulk of their time invading, killing and enslaving, I might very well note that they had interesting ideas or were ahead of their time in many ways or what-have-you, but I would never dream of treating them as examples to follow. Or even of identifying with their teachings.

As mentioned in my previous post, saying Paul is an example to follow is morally troublesome. A lot of folks in my, mainline Protestant, church do not think Paul should be read at all. And I constantly hear - I follow Jesus, not Paul. That is missing the point, IMO. For his time and era, Paul was very advanced and one has to see what is behind the arguments he's making, even the ones we consider morally repugnant.

Let's just say that Paul is held in similar contempt among some church goers as you appear to have for Muhammed.

[Ellestar]

And a book that says the opposite.

It's a fact of life that Crusaders and their ancestors, and their offspring for that matter, forgot to steal a technology of Bathhouses from Ancient Rome. So yeah, they should have been about as stinking as Mongol Hordes.

[Elok]

Jesus didn't say "make everybody equal." You're thinking of Che Guevara. Jesus said "render unto Caesar," "My Kingdom is not of this world" and "if you would be perfect, go and sell all you have, and give to the poor, and come follow Me." Which almost nobody does these days because it's extremely difficult in practice--it demands the effective abandonment of earthly ties, not their simple rearrangement. We settle for what little asceticism we can handle while still living a normal life.

Christian morals are not without political implications, but the faith is not primarily about political or even social change. He didn't overthrow the Romans, or even the Temple hierarchy. He became man, taught us the way (no part of which involved a blueprint for utopia), died and rose from the dead. Attempts to create Heaven on earth are dangerous as a distraction, and as an invitation to hubris, theocracy, corruption and cynicism. Revelation does not end with all the Christians beating up the Beast and setting things right. We get our asses kicked before Jesus bails us out.

Or so I think. As always, we simply will not find any common ground on this.

[N35t0r]

For the record, I thoroughly enjoy these debates.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Jesus didn't say "make everybody equal."

Of course he did. As Paul states in Galatians (paraphrasing), there is neither slave nor free, man or woman, Greek nor Jew, but all are one in Christ Jesus. You can see it in who is included in Jesus's ministry - the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes - All are welcome, equally and without preference.

Jesus said "render unto Caesar," "My Kingdom is not of this world" and "if you would be perfect, go and sell all you have, and give to the poor, and come follow Me." Which almost nobody does these days because it's extremely difficult in practice--it demands the effective abandonment of earthly ties, not their simple rearrangement. We settle for what little asceticism we can handle while still living a normal life.

Indeed His yoke is at the same time easy yet difficult. However, God is King over this world and it is to Him that our allegiance rests. We are called to repent and follow the path of Christ. That means trying to treat all people with love as Christ loved us and honoring God. Not simply "oh my soul is saved, I'll get into heaven, **** y'all". A faith of simply saving souls is no real faith at all - it's narcissism and far more individualistic than the people of Jesus's time would have even considered.

the faith is not primarily about political or even social change. He didn't overthrow the Romans, or even the Temple hierarchy. He became man, taught us the way (no part of which involved a blueprint for utopia), died and rose from the dead. Attempts to create Heaven on earth are dangerous as a distraction, and as an invitation to hubris, theocracy, corruption and cynicism. Revelation does not end with all the Christians beating up the Beast and setting things right. We get our asses kicked before Jesus bails us out.

It's most definitely about social change. Jesus uphends all the social order and is preaching dangerous, dangerous stuff. Why exactly do you think they crucified him? And the Temple was torn down, exactly as He sad, 40(ish) years after His death. Rome became a Christian state (probably a mistake, but you know...) 300 years after His death. We are not to create Heaven on Earth, because only God can do that - but we can prepare the way. That is the whole point of parousia. The whole point of that passage in Thessalonians that the Rapture folk misread (it's not we leave Earth when Jesus comes again, is that we prepare the way for the coming of the Lord - as John the Baptist did the first time).

[Imran Siddiqui]

For the record, I thoroughly enjoy these debates.

Shut up

[Elok]

Indeed His yolk is at the same time easy yet difficult.

See what happens when you egg this guy on, Nestor?

(more later, busy now, couldn't resist)

[Imran Siddiqui]

That too .

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Good for Turks.

[Elok]

Some thoughts:

The neither slave nor free quote clearly means that Christians are not to be treated differently within the Church depending on social position. Not that those social positions are to be abolished outside the Church itself. As you yourself have already noted, Paul actually spoke in favor of keeping the status quo on slavery and gender issues. "Slaves, be submissive to your masters," and all that (please don't give me Paul-was-a-product-of-his-time immediately after quoting him as an authority). Social ministries, while they clearly exist and are important, are also clearly secondary to actual religion. As when there is a controversy over some widows getting neglected in the distribution: "It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word to serve tables." So they appoint deacons to do it. Spreading the Word takes primacy.

You mention John the Baptist preparing the way. How did he prepare the way? Did he try to reform society? Not even close. He hung out in the desert in a hair shirt, baptizing people and calling for repentance. His main political activity was yelling at Herod for immorality. Herod is afraid to have him killed (until his hand is forced), because JtB is extremely popular with the people. Probably because he doesn't participate in politics, and therefore keeps his moral authority intact. The fools-for-Christ played a similar role in Russia, and probably resembled Jesus more closely than any other figures of the past two millennia. But the FFC were the most out-there of the out-there. They weren't part of society, or the Church hierarchy--they weren't even proper monks. Just men (possibly some women) who acted half-mad and hung around with the riffraff to bear their loads. It was a very rare calling even in a place as God-besotted as Medieval Russia.

That's something the hierarchy can't do, and especially not if it has state connections or meddles in politics. That will inevitably lead to corruption and perversion of the faith, because Christianity asks us to give up essentially everything that makes politics work: pride, greed, ambition, wealth, the use of force, compromises of principle, everything. Christianity calls us to perfection, while the politicians work with an imperfect world. Theocracy has had horrible effects on the faith every time it's been tried. Thankfully less so in Byzantium and Russia than in Rome, because in the East the State was above the Church, but it was still bad. Islam conquered so easily in part because Byzantium's habit of responding to heresy with spears had alienated the whole southeastern corner of the Mediterranean.

In general, I feel you're assuming that the Church has far more power to reform or heal society than it did, does, or ever will have. We can tie up wounds, we can care for orphans and widows, we can protest unjust wars and usurpations of power. But we can't ever make human beings less greedy, stupid, lazy, resentful, ambitious, proud or dishonest than they are by nature. Not against their will and en masse, anyway. If we ever got the power to do such a thing, we would be corrupted by it as surely as anyone else. All we can do is damage control, and provide a small, brief shelter from the insanity for anyone who's looking for it.

[Alexander's Horse]

We need to get Constantinople back - that is a crusade I would join/support, blow up those minarets around the Hagia Sophia.

Next year in Constantinople!

[Elok]

No, the most recent crusade to reach Constantinople was bad enough, thank you.