Breaking Down President Obama's Point About Christian Crusades and Islamic Extremism

[hrmjustin]

Jay Michaelson

NEW YORK (RNS) The conservative Twitterverse is all riled up because at Thursday's (Feb. 5) National Prayer Breakfast (an event founded and run by the secretive Christian organization known as The Fellowship), President Obama said that Christians, as well as Muslims, have at times committed atrocities. His words:

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

This would seem to be Religious History 101, but it was nonetheless met with shock and awe.

"Hey, American Christians-Obama just threw you under the bus in order to defend Islam," wrote shock jock Michael Graham. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., called the comments "dangerously irresponsible." The Catholic League's Bill Donohue said: "Obama's ignorance is astounding and his comparison is pernicious. The Crusades were a defensive Christian reaction against Muslim madmen of the Middle Ages."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/obama-crusades-islam-_b_6635750.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. Clearly, neither Graham nor Stutzman nor Donohue know the first thing about the crusades

[hrmjustin]

2. No they don't.

[okasha]

3. Michaelson omits a key fact about the Crusades.

They started as Urban's response to a plea for help from the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople. Palestine had previously been Byzantine Christian territory, and its pilgrimage sites had been as accessible to Western Europeans as the rather harrowing journey could make them. Muslim conquest limited access and increased the danger to pilgrims.

That said, the atrocities were horrific, and one of Urban's motives in calling the First Crusade was to get the large and growing population of landless, predatory younger sons out of Europe. Think gang members, sent into the mitary as an alternative to jail. The Crusade changed their location, but not their behavior.