Crusades and Jihad {James Willis}

"Here's a response I've been earnestly working out for myself through research to respond to the comparison of modern day Islamic jihadist terror with so called Christian Crusades, as if this is historical justification for jihad, and 'an eye for an eye'. The comparison simply doesn't work if you consider historical facts for the purposes of justification, but ironically the comparison works for enlightening the flaws of jihad.

The Crusades, there were several, were a bad response to the violence of Muslims upon Christian sojourners traveling to the Holy Land, which was used in part as a pretense by Roman Catholic popes at the time to organize a so called holy war to 'defend the faith' and Jerusalem, also in part as a means of establishing an increase in the economic and military power, and the sphere of political influence of the Roman Catholic popes. The Roman Catholic popes at the time, (there were initially more than one at one time) were struggling for power among themselves and with various emperors and kings to rule both church and state. One can argue the 'chick or the egg' theory as to whether or not the economic, military and political power was needed to organize resistance against the Muslim attackers of Christians and infidels, however, that question is still unsettled to this day and ironically is stimulated by the phenomenon of Islamic jihad.

Although the violence of the Muslims attacking Christians in and on the way to the Holy Land was the original trigger for this corruption in the Roman Catholic church, yet there have been at least two major modern responses to this corruption of note:

1- Martin Luther in the Christian Reformation sought to bring visibility within the church, of the corruption within the Roman Catholic church doctrine and practices of the time, and to separate and preserve both the doctrine and practice of the truth as revealed by God through Jesus Christ. Direct evidence of this can be read in Martin Luther's writings, as well as the words of Christ, and of his witness by John in the Gospel of John. When John writes "in the beginning was the Word", John is referring to that which created the universe according to the Greeks - Logos - becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ but that is not all that was revealed through John. Whereas the Roman Catholic church, in error, teaches that salvation is through Jesus Christ but only through the Roman Catholic church sacraments, in contrast Christians  believe not that God became man or part of man as if descending, but that God through Jesus Christ adopted man into Himself through salvation. Further, in providing propitiation to Himself for our sins through Jesus Christ, God invalidated the need for man to attempt atonement for sins by animal sacrifice or by jihad, as a 'way to God'.

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. ( 1 John 2:1 Isaiah 2:1-2 )

2- The United States was founded in part in response to the corruption of church and state known at the time in the Church of England. Although progressive activists would have us believe that the United States consitution  provides for separation of church and state so that church has no influence on state affairs, the founders of the US believed that separation of church and state was the other way round, i.e., that the state has no business regulating and governing the affairs of the church. In this way, men of the church would influence state affairs by being Godly men.

Here's a rough timeline
Muhammad dies 632 AD ->
oldest Quran 790AD, oldest fragments 725AD ->
Hadith (modifies Quran by some, history ongoing) ->
Muslim attacks on Rome and Churches 846, 850, 886-908 AD ->
Crusades 1096-1291AD ->
Martin Luther, reformation 1521 AD ->
United States founding as a nation, 1776 AD->
First Barbary War, Muslim attacks on United States ships with Quran as authority 1801 AD ->
Second Barbary War, Muslim attacks on United States ships with Quran as authority 1815 AD
etc

In contrast to these two corrective measures described above, both the preservation of Christianity apart from the Roman Catholic church (justification is by faith alone, Christ alone, scripture alone, i.e., not dispensed by the Roman Catholic church and sacraments) and the establishment of a Christian nation indivisible, and under God, what we see from those that claim a similarity of current Islamic jihad with the Crusades of the middle ages is simply continued violence upon God's people and other so called infidels. Where is the corrective action on the part of these perpetrators of violence? The corrective action is against those that don't believe in Islam.

Consider, from a global perspective above religion the corrective action of the jihadists appears as backward progress.

However, the perpetrators of jihad would have us believe that their dedication to Allah, intended in part to be atonement on their part for sin and evidence of right living, and to achieve Allah's favor and therefore attainment of paradise, would be gained by their own works for the propitiation of their sin and God's wrath by the sacrifice of Christians and all other so called infidels, like animals at an ancient alter. Only a psychopath will pour gasoline over a captured Jordanian pilot, light him on fire and film him as he screams to death.
Psychopaths that use religion as a cover story are still psychopaths or worse.
Fortunately psychopaths can't ultimately skew the truth of Christ's revelation, only the intentional blindness of the individual to the truth of Christ's revelation will do that, call it voluntary deception.

Further, if someone still claims that the Crusades are justification of Islamic jihad, then they must also acknowledge that the violence perpetrated by Muslims at the founding of Islam hundreds of years before the Crusades, must be owned by the Muslims of today. It works both ways - either human beings make real progress over the mistakes of the past or they will inevitably repeat them.

Instead, Islamic jihad is just one prong of a multi prong attack on diverse cultures different from Islam.
While the news focuses on jihadist terror operations and results, and the filming of captured, tortured, assassinated so called infidels in jihadist videos, the jurisprudence of entire nations are bending under the multicultural pressure of Islamic law fighters that claim, and I paraphrase, "because you offend me, you must change your laws, until they are my laws". This attempt to take over other nations throughout history both through violence and through political change and the resistance of target nations is often veiled in phrases like a "reaction to the expansion of Muslims" or "as a result of the expansion of Islam" to shift the focus to the intolerance of the nation that resists the real goals of jihad from the actors that are trying to bring about change.

Finally, for anyone that compares the Crusades to modern day jihad for justification, note that the comparison brings down the jihadist and the crusader in the argument- both parties used the concept of holy war for the secular purposes of gaining power and influence. Even so, the origin of the Crusades (1096-1291) is based in defensive action albeit with corruption, whereas the origin of jihad is based in offensive action, arguably also with corruption.
James Willis