Christians are often accused of spreading Christianity in violent ways (crusades, Inquisition). How are we supposed to defend our beliefs?
Discussion
51 comments
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The abuse or misuse of a belief does not invalidate the truth of that belief.
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Christians and Christianity aren’t the same thing any more than the death of 100 million people in the last century can be pinned on atheists in general.
If someone wants to criticize Christians, it works both way. Let’s see them criticize what Jesus taught instead.
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Those who spread “Christianity” that way are not Christians to begin with! Catholics maybe but not true Christians!
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Most of these accusations are nonsense.
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We apologize for mistakes and errors done because of corruption in the church and misinterpreted scripture by corrupted leaders. We are sorry that teachings of our Lord Jesus was twisted for purpose of personal gain and power gain. And then after this sincere APOLOGY, even though it wasn’t our fault and those people were not Christians, people will listen to the true teachings of Jesus and the Gospel much more likely. I believe humility and humble admitting errors and big mistakes of the past is the way to respond to this.
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The Crusades and Inquisitions were the fruit of Rome, not biblical Christianity.
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Those were not true christians.
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The Crusades (1095-1291) were a series of European Catholic campaigns into the Middle East, fought during the Middle Ages. They were the military responses made by Catholics, from western Europe to the Pope’s pleas to re-capture the Holy Land from Islamic influence. The First Crusade created new Latin states in the Holy Land. Subsequent crusades were less successful except when they attacked Byzantium. Other medieval movements against heretics and infidels were also called crusades. The crusades ended with the Islamic recapture of all the Holy Land in 1291, when the last city controlled by crusaders, Acre, fell.
The crusades comprise a major chapter of Medieval History. Extending over three centuries, they attracted every social class in western Europe. Kings and commoners, barons and bishops, knights and commoners—even teenagers—all participated in these expeditions to the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The motives of the crusaders were numerous: some sought riches; many sought adventure; most were moved by faith alone. Historians stress the central role of religious fervor, while mentioning as well the socio-economic factors crucial in enticing larger contingents. For example, crusaders often were fulfilling their feudal obligations. There were strong links between the papal reforms, the social necessity of violence and the exploitation of this inherent revivalistic imagination of the age of the Papacy.
The crusades failed to achieve the permanent control of the Holy Land. However, their influence was wide and deep. Much of the crusading fervor carried over to the successful fights against the Moors (Muslims) in Spain and the pagan Slavs in eastern Europe. Politically the crusades weakened the decrepit Byzantine Empire, but temporarily kept the Muslims away from it. The First Crusade strengthened the moral leadership of the papacy in Europe, but the failures of the later crusades weakened both the crusading ideal and respect for the papacy Contact with the East widened the scope of the Europeans, ended their isolation, and exposed them to an rich civilization. The economic effects of the crusades were modest, but they did reopen of the eastern Mediterranean to Western commerce, which itself had an effect on the rise of great cities such as Venice and the emergence of a money economy in the West.
The crusaders derived their name from the Latin word for “cross”—crux. A crusader went to the Holy Land with a cross of cloth sewn over his breast; when he returned, he had a similar cross for his back. Originally called to repel the Islamic forces that controlled Jerusalem, the crusades evolved into a form of political decree called by the Papacy for political, social or economic reasons. The campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe are also sometimes called crusades. Lastly, military actions within Christendom against heretical and schismatic groups are sometimes called a crusade. Thus a crusade in most general terms was a directive of war issued by the Pope to all Rome-friendly nations against forces, whether Muslim, pagan or Eastern Orthodox, which were hostile to the Papacy.
The crusades in the Holy Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms. The fourth crusade resulted in a very damaged relationship between Greek and Latin Christendom. Islamic expansion into remained a threat for centuries, with crusading orders establishing strongholds to protect Mediterranean islands.
On the other hand, the crusades in southern Spain were militarily successful, eventually leading to the end of Islamic power in the region in 1492. The Teutonic knights expanded Christian domains in Eastern Europe, and the Albigensian Crusade, achieved its goal of destroying heretics in France.
The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thus the Byzantine Empire, until the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries that forced the Byzantines out and saw the area gradually turn Islamic. Calm returned and Christians had generally been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at the Battle of Manzikert, and conquered Jerusalem from the Egyptian Fatimids the same year. They were not friendly to Christian pilgrims, in contrast to how the Fatimids had been, and soon pilgrims came under threat of robbery or even death as they were no longer welcome. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from the west both to the Popes and the Christian monarchs. Nothing meaningful happened. Alexius may have been hoping for money from the Pope for the hiring of mercenaries.
Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to fight for the defense of the Christian East and the protection of pilgrims in a speech made at the Council of Clermont on November 27, 1095. Urban demanded that all internal feuds within Christendom end, threatening excommunication for anyone who continued to bicker internally, and promising an indulgence (less time in purgatory) to anyone who died in the crusade.
This time Europe listened. Those who were there erupted in spontaneous cries of “Deus le vult!” (“God wills it!”) – which would become the watchword of what we now know as the Crusades.
Nothing like this had ever been done, and the Pope himself had no military power and had to count on those who were in positions of power to supply it. While the monarchs of Europe did not get directly involved, it was a series of prominent nobles who answered the call, among the most famous being: the Norman Bohemund of Taranto, former claimant to the Duchy of Apulia, his nephew Tancred, Count Raymond of Toulouse, Duke Godfrey de Bouillon of Lorraine, Duke Hugh of Vermandois (brother of the King of France), Duke Robert of Normandy, and Count Robert of Flanders. The spiritual leader who accompanied them was French Bishop Adhemar du Puy, who was appointed Papal legate.
All that was known at the start was that the forces to participate would meet together in Constantinople, where Alexius had no idea what was being unleashed.
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With apologetics. That is the entire purpose of this field.
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Crusades were an answer to years of Muslim aggression they were purely defensive
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The crusaders and the inquisition were not Christians
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Don’t be fooled when an atheist say no one killed in the name of atheism. History tells us atheists leaders killed millions to spread atheism. Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc.
These guys killed religious people to make their states an atheistic state.
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Most religions have a dark history of using their beliefs politically to control people. Just because bad people use a good thing in the wrong way doesn’t make the Truth a lie. God gave us Truth and Light it can be twisted wrongly for wrong purposes, that isn’t God’s fault it is ours, showing we cannot be trusted with Truth only Jesus Christ is the Way.
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Here is a nice video to help deal with the charge of the Crusades
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The crusades was not a religious movement. It was the answer to the expansion Islamic slave trade.
I would expect atheists or even pagans to answer back against the Islamic push. Rallying behind the Christian God was just systematic.
Unlike Islam, Christianity never called for violence. While some Christians indeed employ violence it’s not Christian doctrine to do so.
Also unlike Islam, for every Christian who partook in violence and slavery etc there were Christians defending the slaves etc.
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I tell them it was not the christians, it was the Catholic church doing this, and the REAL christians were under ground and being persecuted and killed and burned at the stake, and tortured for their faith in Christ.
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By accepting the truth and by separating imperialist or fake christianity from true christianity. Knowing that true Christians have always been persecuted and that the crusades, inquisition and horrendous moments like the Night of Saint Bartholomew’s were not done by Christian’s but by a corrupted leadership in a dark time of our world. Also by accepting that true christianity was corrupted when emperor Constantine made it from being the persecutted church to the official church of the empire that rules and persecutes, thus allowing for much corruption and false teachings.
Catholicism is not Christianity.
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Point of Clarification: the Crusades were initiated by the Catholic Church…NOT Christianity. And anyone who studied those crusades, especially the first 3 (there were 7 I believe), knows that they had nothing to do with spreading the message of the gospel.
Carry on…
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How about the Christians that spread their beliefs peacefully and have been killed for them
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Point out that modern day Christians cannot own the atrocities of the past without modern day atheists owning, Hitler, Stalin, Marx, and all the atrocities throughout history in the name of no GOD
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Crusades where not to spread christianity.
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The Crusades were not an evangelistic mission to force submission to Christ. It was a retaliation against the Muslims who were killing Jews and Christians.
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The Crusades were not about spreading Christianity but about defending Christians and other non-Muslims from the Muslim scourge that was going on at the time. It was also to protect Christian interests in the holy land and also prevent the spread of Islam into Europe. Regarding the Inquisition, the Roman Catholic Church had morphed into a religio-politico monstrosity at that time and expected everyone in their realm to conform to their religious world view or else. Thank God for the Reformation and the balance of power that it created preventing the religious monopoly of Rome. Am I anti-Catholic? No. I am just against the abuse of power in the name of religion.
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Nothing in the Bible says that Christians should spread christianity by sword. Remember what Jesus Christ said to the apostle Peter when he cut the ear of the soldier trying to defend Him.
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Tell them to get over it… #1 we don’t live in those times… #2 We’ve learned that the gospel is to be preached gracefully not by force because we actually read the Word in it’s context today. #3 if they can’t get over it, ask them to forgive them and to leave it in God’s hands
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As someone said previously, the Crusades were a response to Muslims killing Christians, Catholics, and Jews. They still do what they do, but now we call it “a war against terrorism.” Now everybody fighting them.
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Subsequent to years of debating hateful, vulgar, perverse, atheists…my suggestion is that you politely speak the truth concerning what Jesus Christ has done for mankind and walk away. Plant that seed and allow the Spirit to work where He desires. You can’t save anyone…you cannot coerce an atheist out of Hell nor can you beg them into Heaven…this is war and the Spirit does the fighting, not us…aim true, aim with truth and walk away.
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The atrocities commited in the name of the church were factual, but never by those who love and follow Jesus. For some the church was used as a means to take and hold power, for others groups of thugs were ‘hired’ by the church, and they in turn did the bad things. But make no mistake: The crusades were, overall, a very good thing.
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True Christianity is spread through the preaching of the Word, NOT violence! It’s as the old adage says “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
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read the history
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With the Word of God
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If something
was spread in violent ways it’s obvious it’s not by Christians. -
The crusades were not about spreading Christianity. They were about Defending Christian people from Islam.
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Catholicism does not represent biblical christianity. Comparison to the crusades is false equivalence as is any reference to the dark ages.
It should be noted that Christians were murdered by the catholic church during the dark ages and called “heretics”. -
Well, Jesus did once ask his disciples to carry swords. So we must know that evil is real and sometimes we may need to defend ourselves.
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The inquisition, is terribly confusing to a lot of people who don’t know that Catholics began calling themselves Christians when Constantine had his troops baptized but only as a façade. They went on to slaughter many more questions after that. Also, the Muslims or the Moore’s, killed her share of Christians. The problem is that Christianity is a widely used term and many non-Christian groups use it. There are a lot of religions and people who make the claim for Christianity, but they are basing it on goodness knows what, because it certainly isn’t the Bible . The true Christians ran for their lives, and many were slaughtered. There really is no true confusion
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those were NOT valid Christians! The only valid method is proclamation.
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We shouldn’t be defending christian history because it always falls short of the standard who is Jesus Christ. Instead, defend the STANDARD Himself and bring people to Him.
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The violence was from a time when Christianity was a political empire institution. Jesus asked us to love our enemies not slaughter them.
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uh, Catholicism
is not Christianity -
I would say that true Christians never spread their faith that way. Just sinners who falsely called themselves Christians.
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That was Catholics, not all Christians
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You are right. This will be brought up by some to prove Christianity as false and violent. The best defence is to show biblically that Jesus taught the opposite.
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The Crusades was a purely defensive war to protect Christian brethren.
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Man in his best state is still a filthy rotten sinner.
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Defend with “gentleness and reverence” aware of your dependence on God’s mercy.
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Many people claim Christian and Jesus but aren’t Christian and don’t know Him. If someone does evil and says they are Christian the truth isn’t in them.
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Go to scriptures..show them how our Master did spread the gospel..show them how the apostles did..show them true church history of martyrdom..show them with your life and words
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