Posted November 27, 2018
About those Christian Crusaders that loaded their weaponry
to RE-TAKE the Holy Land from Muslim invading conquerors. Closer to the truth
than lying Multicultural Leftists and Muslim Apologists.
My only criticism I have is Geri Ungurean’s source downplays
the Antisemitism of the Crusaders. That’s a bit surprising considering Ms.
Ungurean is a Messianic Jew (i.e. a Jew that has accepted Christ as Lord and
Savior).
Not deviate too much from this otherwise awesome post, my
take is the Crusaders were Antisemites largely because the Church had spent
centuries calling Jews Christ-Killers which if you read your Bible is a bit of
a stretch. The Pharisee/Sadducee ruling class empowered by the Roman government
feared any Jewish movement that might be a threat to their station in life
under Roman rule. The Jewish population on the other hand reviled Roman rule;
hence many Jewish Messianic and Rebellion Movements (of which as far as Christians
concerned was the Messianic Movement of Christian Redemption in Christ).
But as Gentiles became the dominating group over the Jewish
Christians, Jew-hatred began to be taught even though pre-Resurrection Jesus
was raised under Jewish traditions and every single person among the Twelve
Apostles was Jewish.
The Jewish perspective of Jew-hatred Medieval propaganda HERE.
JRH 11/27/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks to keep my blogging habit flowing:
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The CRUSADES: The TRUTH About
Islam and Why Christendom FINALLY Pushed Back
NOVEMBER 27, 2018
The devil is a liar.
We know this because God told us this in His Holy Word.
Satan is the father of lies. He is a master of deception and the author
of confusion.
Through the centuries, history has been rewritten with the
help of the evil one. If you asked the typical person on the street about the
Crusades, most of them would begin to disparage Christianity and speak of
‘horrors’ committed against Muslims.
Do you remember when Obama spoke of Christian
aggression during the Crusades?
Watch Dinesh Desouza’s comments at the 4:27 mark in this
video:
I would encourage the reader to print this article out.
I am using a piece from thenewamerican.com to dispel the lies which have
been perpetrated throughout the centuries about the Crusades.
This article is rather long. For those who would rather
watch a video concerning truth about the Crusades, I will insert a link for
that at the end of this piece.
From thenewamerican.com
The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam,
born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim
Moors are on the march.
Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic
realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old
Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq
fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell
in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came
the year 711 and the Moors’ invasion of Europe, as they crossed the Strait of
Gibraltar and entered Visigothic Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). And the new
continent brought new successes to Islam. Conquering the Iberian Peninsula by 718,
the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France) and worked
their way northward. And now, in 732, they are approaching Tours, a mere 126
miles from Paris.
The Moorish leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is supremely
confident of success. He is in the vanguard of the first Muslim crusade, and
his civilization has enjoyed rapidity and scope of conquest heretofore unseen
in world history. He is at the head of an enormous army, replete with heavy
cavalry, and views the Europeans as mere barbarians. In contrast, the
barbarians facing him are all on foot, a tremendous disadvantage. The only
thing the Frankish and Burgundian European forces have going for them is their
leader, Charles of Herstal, grandfather of Charlemagne. He is a brilliant military
tactician who, after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken
16-year streak of victories.
And this record will remain unblemished. Outnumbered by
perhaps as much as 2 to 1 on a battlefield between the cities of Tours and
Poitier, Charles routs the Moorish forces, stopping the Muslim advance into
Europe cold. It becomes known as the Battle of Tours (or Poitier), and many
historians consider it one of the great turning points in world history. By
their lights, Charles is a man who saved Western Civilization, a hero who well
deserves the moniker the battle earned him: Martellus. We thus now know him as
Charles Martel, which translates into Charles the Hammer.
The Gathering Threat in the East
While the Hammer saved Gaul, the Muslims would not stop
hammering Christendom — and it would be the better part of four centuries
before Europe would again hammer back. This brings us to the late 11th century
and perhaps the best-known events of medieval history: the Crusades.
Ah, the Crusades. Along with the Galileo affair and the
Spanish Inquisition (both partially to largely misunderstood), they have become
a metaphor for Christian “intolerance.” And this characterization figures
prominently in the hate-the-West-first crowd’s repertoire and imbues everything,
from movies such as 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven to school
curricula to politicians’ pronouncements. In fact, it’s sometimes peddled so
reflexively that the criticism descends into the ridiculous, such as when Bill
Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University and, writes Chair of the History
Department at Saint Louis University Thomas Madden, “recounted (and
embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in
1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered
in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing
of Jews was not explained.)” Why, indeed. Yet, it is the not-so-ridiculous, the
fable accepted as fact, that does the most damage. Madden addresses this in his
piece, “The Real History of the Crusades,” writing:
Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The
Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by
power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been
the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history
of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A
breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the
peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving
it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for
example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the
Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted
by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.
But what does good history tell us? Madden continues:
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…. 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 [sic] Europe asking them to aid their brothers and
sisters in the East.
[The Crusades] 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
subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
The reality is that in our modern conception — or, really,
misconception — of the word, it is the Muslims who had launched “crusades”
against Christendom. (In the true sense of the word, the Moors couldn’t be
Crusaders, as the term means “those who are marked with a cross,” and the
Muslims just wanted to erase the cross.) And like Martel before them, who
ejected the Moors from most of southern Gaul, and the Spaniards, who — through
what was also a Crusade — would much later wrest back control over Iberia, the
Crusades were an attempt to retake conquered Christian lands. So how can we
describe the view taken by most academics, entertainers, and politicians? Well,
it is the Jihadist view. It is Osama bin Laden’s view. It is a bit like
ignoring all history of WWII until December 8, 1941 — and then damning the
United States for launching unprovoked attacks on Japan.
Christendom Pushes Back
So now the year is 1095. Just as the Muslims had invaded
Europe from the west in the days of Charles the Hammer, now they are pushing
toward it from the east. And just as they had taken the Byzantine lands of the
Mideast and North Africa in the seventh century, they now have seized Anatolia
(most of modern Turkey), thus robbing the Byzantines of the majority of what
they had left. The Muslims are now just a few battles away from moving west
into Greece itself or north into the Balkans — the “back door” of Europe.
Rightfully alarmed and fearing civilizational annihilation, Byzantine emperor
Alexius I in Constantinople reaches out to a rival, Pope Urban II, for aid.
Inspired to act, in November of 1095 the pope addresses the matter at the
Council of Clermont, an event attended by more than 650 clerics and members of
European nobility. On its second-to-last day, he gives a rousing sermon in
which he appeals to the men of Europe to put aside their differences and rally
to the aid of their brothers in the East. Here is an excerpt of the sermon as
presented by the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres:
Your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of
your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been
promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have
attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as
far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called
the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those
Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and
captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If
you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impunity, the faithful of God
will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the
Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to
persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich,
to carry aid promptly to those Christians.
In addition to this call, the pope articulates a second
goal: the liberation of Jerusalem and other Mideast holy sites. The pope’s
words are so moving that those in attendance are inspired to shout, it is said,
“God wills it! God wills it!” The first crusade is born.
Modernity, the Middle Ages, and Myth
Yet, in modern times, much cynicism would be born. People
just can’t believe that these medieval “barbarians” didn’t have ulterior
motives. This brings us to the “ambitious pope” and “rapacious knights” bit,
the 20th-century myths about 11th-century motivations. Let’s examine these one
at a time.
First we have the notion that the Crusaders were
imperialists. This is an understandable perspective for the modern mind, as the
not-too-distant past has been one of a dominant West colonizing a world of
backwaters. Yet this was a recent and relatively short-lived development. Do
you remember how Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi considered the eighth-century
Europeans barbarians? It was no different in the 11th century; Dar al-Islam was
the burgeoning civilization. It was the imperialist force — and this wouldn’t
change for another 600 years.
Next we have two myths that contradict each other; although,
considered individually, they may seem tenable. One is that, despite the Crusaders’
purported religiosity, they were just seeking riches by the sword. The other
myth is, they were so darn religious that they were seeking to convert Muslims
by the sword. It seems unlikely that both could be true, and, as it turns out,
neither is.
Today we like to say “Follow the money.” Well, if you
followed it in the 11th century, it led right back to Europe. The reality is
that most Crusader knights were “first sons,” men who had property and wealth —
much to lose (including their lives) and little to gain. And just as the United
States can drain the public treasury funding Mideast interventions today,
medieval warfare was expensive business. Lords were often forced to sell or
mortgage their lands to fund their Crusading, and many impoverished themselves.
It also doesn’t seem that the average knight entertained visions of becoming
“the man who would be king” in a faraway land, either. As Madden said in an
October 2004 Zenit interview, “Much like a soldier today, the
medieval Crusader was proud to do his duty but longed to return home.”
As for conversion, the Crusaders were warriors, not
missionaries. They had no interest in converting Muslims; in fact, I doubt the
notion ever entered their minds. They viewed the Muslims as enemies of God and
His Church and a threat to Christendom, nothing more, nothing less. Treating
this matter in a piece entitled “The Crusades: separating myth from
reality,” Zenit cited medieval history expert Dr. Franco
Cardini and wrote:
“The Crusades,” says Cardini, “were never ‘religious wars,’
their purpose was not to force conversions or suppress the infidel.” … To
describe the Crusade as a “Holy War” against the Moslems is misleading, says
Cardini: “The real interest in these expeditions, in service of Christian
brethren threatened by Moslems, was the restoration of peace in the East, and
the early stirring of the idea of rescue for distant fellow-Christians.”
Yet, whether or not the Crusades were religious wars, they
certainly flew on the wings of religious faith. And when the Crusaders sought
treasure, it was usually the kind that was stored up in Heaven. As to this
sincerity of belief, Madden has pointed out that Europe is peppered with
thousands of medieval charters in which knights speak of their deepest
motivations, of their desire to do their Christian duty. Then, Professor Rodney
Stark, author of the new book God’s Battalions: The Case for the
Crusades, tells us that while the knights were serious sinners, they were
also serious about becoming more saintly. Anne Godlasky of USA Today quotes
him as stating, “These knights did such terrible things that their confessors
kept saying, ‘I don’t know how you will ever atone for this — why don’t you try
walking to Jerusalem barefoot.’ And they would do it — they took their faith very
seriously.” Moreover, when the Crusaders met with failure, Europeans embraced a
characteristically religious explanation: They blamed their own sinfulness.
Then, seeking to purify themselves, piety movements arose all across their
lands. Perhaps this is why Oxford historian Christopher Tyerman has called the
Crusades “the ultimate manifestation of conviction politics.
”
We should also note that the Crusaders didn’t see themselves
as “Crusaders”; the word wasn’t even originated till the 18th century. They
viewed themselves as pilgrims.
Having said this, it would be naïve to think that all
Crusaders’ worldly endeavors were animated by heavenly thoughts. Some say that
Pope Urban II might have hoped he could regain control over the Eastern Church
after the Great Schism of 1054. It’s also said that Urban and others wanted to
give those militant medieval knights someone to fight besides one another. As
for those on the ground, the Crusades involved a motley multitude encompassing
the regal to the rough-hewn, and it is certain that some among them dreamt of
booty and betterment. Yet is this surprising or unusual? People are complex
beings. Within a group or even an individual’s mind, there are usually multiple
motivations, some noble, some ignoble. Charles the Hammer might have very well
relished the glory won on the battlefield, for all we know. But it would be
silly to think that was his main motivation for fighting the Moors. Likewise,
if the Crusaders were primarily motivated by covetous impulses, it was the most
remarkable of coincidences. For those dark urges then manifested themselves
just when a Christian emperor appealed for aid, just when Europe again seemed
imperiled — and after 400 years of mostly unanswered Muslim conquests.
Into the Mouth of Dar al-Islam
But however great the Europeans’ faith, the first Crusade
was a long shot. The soldiers had to travel on foot and horseback 1,500 miles —
traversing rivers, valleys, and mountains; braving the elements; dealing with
hunger and thirst and whatever unknowns lay ahead — and then defeat entrenched
Muslim forces. And the endeavor had gotten off to a rather inauspicious start:
An unofficial Crusade comprising peasants and low-ranking knights had already
departed — only to be massacred by the Seljuk Turks.
So, now, it is August 15, 1096, and the official Crusader
armies depart from France and Italy. Arriving in Anatolia many months later,
they lay siege to Muslim-occupied Nicea; however, Emperor Alexius I negotiates
with the Turks, has the city delivered to him on June 1, 1097, and then forbids
the Crusaders to enter. They then fight other battles against the Muslims on
the way to their next objective: the great city of Antioch. It is a must-win
scenario; if they do not take it, they cannot move on to Jerusalem. The siege
continues for seven and a half months, during which time the Crusaders are
hungry, tired, cold, and often discouraged; Antioch’s formidable walls seem an
impenetrable barrier. On June 2, 1098, however, they are able to enter the city
with the help of a spy. It is theirs.
Yet the Crusaders soon find themselves besieged and trapped
in Antioch with the arrival of Muslim relief forces. Nevertheless, they manage
a break-out on June 28, defeat the Turks, and, after a delay caused by
internecine squabbling, move south to Jerusalem in April 1099. Starving after a
long journey, they arrive at the Holy City on June 7 — with only a fraction of
their original forces. Despite this, Jerusalem will not pose the problems of
Antioch, and they capture it on July 15.
The First Crusade successes give Christendom a foothold in
the Mideast for the first time in hundreds of years with the establishment of
four outposts known today as “Crusader states.” They are: the County of Edessa
and the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098; the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
founded in 1099; and the County of Tripoli, founded in 1104. Perhaps the tide
has finally turned in Christendom’s favor.
But it was not to be. It was still a Muslim era, and more
Crusades would be launched in the wake of Islamic triumphs. In fact, there was
a multitude of Crusades — if we include minor ones — lasting until the end of
the 17th century. However, it is customary to identify eight major Crusades,
dating from 1096 through 1270, although this does omit many significant
campaigns.
Great passion for a second Crusade was sparked when the
County of Edessa was overcome by Turks and Kurds in 1144. Led by Kings Louis
VII of France and Conrad III of Germany and advocated by St. Bernard, it was an
utter failure. Most of the Crusaders were killed before even reaching
Jerusalem, the campaign did more harm than good — and Muslim power continued to
grow.
Because of this, Madden writes, “Crusading in the late
twelfth century … became a total war effort.” All are asked to answer the call,
from peasants to patricians, either by devoting blood and treasure to the
defense of Christendom or through prayer, fasting, and alms to make her worthy
of victory. Yet these are the days of the great Muslim leader Saladin, and in
1187 he destroys the Christian forces and takes one Christian city after
another. And, finally, after almost a century of Christian rule, Jerusalem
surrenders on October 2.
The loss of the Holy City inspires the Third Crusade. Led by
storybook figures such as England’s King Richard the Lionheart, German Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa, and France’s King Philip II, it is sometimes called the
Kings’ Crusade. Yet it is no fairytale affair. Frederick’s army quits the
campaign in 1190 after their aged German leader drowns while crossing a river
on horseback, and King Philip leaves after retaking the city of Acre, owing to
continual friction with Richard. Despite this, the English King is undeterred.
Displaying brilliant leadership and tactical skill, he fights his way south, taking
on all comers, and eventually recaptures the Holy Land’s entire coast. Yet the
crown jewel, Jerusalem, eludes his grasp. Believing he would not be able to
hold it (since most Crusaders will be returning home), he must swallow hard and
settle for what he can get: an agreement with Saladin to allow unarmed pilgrims
unfettered access to the city. Richard then returns home and never sees the
Holy Land again, dying from a battle-related wound sustained in Europe in 1199.
While the passion for Crusading remained strong in the 13th
century and the Crusades were greater in scope, funding, and organization, they
were lesser in accomplishment. There would be no more Richard the Lionhearts.
Mideast Christian lands would slowly be overcome. And Jerusalem would never
again be in Crusader hands. In fact, by 1291, the Crusader kingdom had been
wiped off the map.
The Next Crusades Battle: The History Books
Because the Crusades ultimately failed to achieve their
objectives, they are typically viewed as failures. And this brings us to a
common Crusades myth. It’s said that those medieval campaigns are partly to
blame for anti-Western sentiment in today’s Middle East, but this is nonsense.
The reality is, as Madden told Zenit, “If you had asked someone in
the Muslim world about the Crusades in the 18th century he or she would have
known nothing about them.” This only makes sense. Why would the Crusades have
been remembered? From the Muslim perspective, they were just routine victories
— like so many others — events that would just naturally fade into the mists of
time. What in truth is partly to blame for Islamic anti-Western sentiment is
19th-century pro-Western propaganda. That is to say, when England and France
finally started colonizing Arab lands, they wanted to rubber-stamp imperialism.
To this end, they taught Muslims in colonial schools that the Crusades were an
example of an imperialism that brought civilization to a backward Middle East.
And, not surprisingly but tragically, when imperialism was later discredited,
the Crusades would be discredited along with it. Muslims would start using the
false history against the West.
But there are many Crusade myths. For example, some would
characterize the campaigns as anti-Semitic. Yet, while there were two notable
massacres of Jews during the Crusades, there is more to the story — as Madden
also explained in the Zenit interview:
No pope ever called a Crusade against Jews. During the First
Crusade a large band of riffraff, not associated with the main army [the
aforementioned “People’s Crusade”], descended on the towns of the Rhineland and
decided to rob and kill the Jews they found there…. Pope Urban II and
subsequent popes strongly condemned these attacks on Jews. Local bishops and
other clergy and laity attempted to defend the Jews, although with limited
success. Similarly, during the opening phase of the Second Crusade a group of
renegades killed many Jews in Germany before St. Bernard was able to catch up
to them and put a stop to it.
This obviously adds perspective. In every war there are
rogue forces that commit transgressions. Why, the United States had the My Lai
Massacre in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Yet, to echo Madden on this count,
it would be unfair to claim that the goal of American forces was to,
respectively, murder innocent civilians or commit sexual abuse.
There were other Crusader sins as well. In the Second
Crusade, the warriors foolishly attacked Muslim Damascus, which had been an
ally of the Christians. Worse still, the Fourth Crusade saw the sacking of
Constantinople itself — occupied by the very eastern Christians the Crusades
were designed to protect — after the Crusaders helped an imperial claimant gain
the Byzantine throne and then were refused the aid he had promised them as a
quid pro quo. In response, the pope at the time, Innocent III, condemned the
attack (and he had already excommunicated the Crusade). Nevertheless, the
damage was done. The act widened the Great Schism of 1054 to perhaps
irreparable proportions.
Yet, again, perspective is necessary. Medieval armies didn’t
have modern discipline or rules of engagement, and they were, above all,
medieval. You could not have put hundreds of thousands of men in the field
during the course of centuries in that age without writing some dark chapters.
Really, though, you couldn’t do it in the modern age, either.
With all these failures and missteps, we may wonder why
Europeans continued Crusading well beyond the 13th century’s close. We may ask,
was it worth the blood and treasure? Yet the answer boils down to one word:
survival. The threats to Europe mentioned earlier would not remain theoretical.
The Muslims would extinguish the Byzantine Empire — and Constantinople would be
renamed Istanbul. They would cross into the Balkans, and their descendants
would clash with Christians there in the 1990s. The Ottoman Turks would capture
the Italian town of Otranto in 1480, prompting the evacuation of Rome. The
Ottomans would occupy what is now Hungary for 158 years. And, in 1529 and 1683,
they would reach the gates of Vienna.
Yet the tide would finally turn against Dar al-Islam. The
Ottomans would lose the Battle of Vienna in 1683, and, more significantly,
Europe was blossoming. It would outpace the Muslim world technologically, and
in its march toward modernity, the Christian “barbarians” would become the
burgeoning civilization. In fact, they would become dominant enough to forget
how recent their time in the sun is — and how, perhaps, it almost never was.
So, were the Crusades really a failure? Sure, there was no
Charles Martel and Battle of Tours, no Duke of Wellington at Waterloo; there
was no history-changing engagement where we could say, ah, that is where we
slew the dragon or “this was their finest hour.” And they accomplished none of
their stated goals. But the Crusades era might have constituted a “holding
action,” a time when Christendom was pushed toward the abyss and, outweighed
and wobbling, pushed back. Of course, this isn’t the fashionable view. But it
is easy today to characterize those medieval warriors any way we wish; they are
no longer around to defend themselves. But had they not defended the West, we
might not be troubling over the past at all — because we might not have a
present. – source
VIDEO: The
Truth About The Crusades
Brethren, it is important to be able to chronicle the events
leading up to the Crusades. We must attempt to shut down revisionist historians
who present history from a politically correct vantage point.
Truth is truth!! Jesus would have us tell the truth
about events in history regarding His church.
The Left have made Islam and Muslims into “victims.”
Not all Muslims are war lords or terrorists, but many are. Their
prophet Muhammad was the originally war lord and his fundamental followers
continue in his footsteps.
Shalom b’Yeshua
MARANATHA!
______________________
Intro to Ungurean Post on ‘CRUSADES:
The TRUTH’
John R. Houk, Editor
Posted November 27, 2018
_______________________
The CRUSADES: The TRUTH
About Islam and Why Christendom FINALLY Pushed Back
Bio: I am a Jewish Christian who was born-again in 1983.
Yeshua is my life. Writing about Him is my passion. My subject matter varies.
Sometimes I write on Bible Prophecy. Other times on apostasy in the church. And
often times I address the political climate of our country and our world. My
greatest love is writing about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I pray that some
of my articles will fall in the hands of my Jewish people. If you would like to
bless us with a gift, please send to: Geri Ungurean P.O. Box 1031 Savage, MD
20763 Your generosity is most appreciated! Shalom
