Curse Rodney Stark and all of his overly inflammatory language!!! I want to see one documented study, or one audio recording of a priest telling a confessor he must walk barefoot to the holy lands. Such hyperbole should not be tolerated among Christians, we must have facts, facts, facts, and preferable facts with audio and video documentation.
Just kidding, I’m going to have to check out some of Stark’s stuff, I like authors who speak plainly, even if it contains some hyperbole. Anyone got a good starting point when reading Stark?
Last note, this reminds me of a talk by Douglas Wilson concerning Education where his main point was that it matters who writes the history books and what their worldview is. After 19 years in varying public school institutions I had never been taught anything concerning Islam’s pre-crusade aggressions – I suspect it was because the author’s of the history books had an axe to grind.

Robin, I recommend Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome
.

Robin,
Just what axe do you think the people behind what you encountered “in varying public school institutions” had to grind? If the institutions were as varied as you suggest, I have a hard time imagining them grinding the same axe the same way.
Peace,
Randy Gabrielse

Just as a clarification. I am not saying, nor was Wilson, that we should slant history to make Christianity look good, just that we present the truth objectively and not all historians can be trusted to do that. One of his opening lines was that he was getting sick and tired of being required by atheists (Hitchens probably) to make excuses for the Salem Witch Trials and Inquisition as terrible evils foisted upon the world by religion when those ordeals resulted in the deaths of approximately 33 and 3,000 people respectively, while organized, militant atheism under Mao and Stalin alone was responsible for 75,000,000 to 100,000,00 deaths through genocide and Dawkins and Hitchens were never required to provide an apologetic for those genocides.
His broader point was that historians systematically over-hype some historical events (Crusades, Salem, Inquisitions) and under-hype or completely ignore other episodes that conflict with their worldview (atheistic genocides, Islamic aggression)
** And before you protest and say that it was a communist state, not atheism, responsible for those deaths let me reply that the communist state was empowered by the militant atheism and the state carried out the acts, just like ‘Christian’ states derived their power from teh misplaced beliefs of their subjects and the states authorized and allowed the other actions.

I’m not sure what lesson we’re supposed to draw here. I’ve heard some conservatives try to defend the crusades, at least the First Crusade, as “Christian” on the basis of Stark’s arguments. Obviously, this feeds into the whole “Islam is an inherently violent religion” meme one hears from some sectors of the Christian religious right. OTOH, one could draw the New Atheist conclusion that religion is simply inherently violent. But if what Stark is really saying is that the reasons for the Crusades were complex, that might be a helpful, though not novel, perspective (so long as he also recognizes that the reasons for the expansion of Islam were equally complex).
Captcha: Giamatti krapp. Hmmm. Is there a new movie about the Crusades featuring Paul Giamatti as Pope Urban?

Randy,
It doesn’t have to be the people in the institutions, just the people who wrote the textbooks – most teachers just read the text and parrot it back. All we have to do is look to Texas right now and see that the person deciding the curriculum matters, whether it is glossing over the Slave trade or the communist genocides, the person determining the curriculum, politician or author, makes a difference, and as a parent you have to ask yourself, is “Houghton-Mifflin sufficient, or is Howard Zinn more accurate, or should I go with Rodney Stark” the asnwer to that question matters.

Though I’m not without prejudice, I wanted to mention that anyone who wants to read the rest of the interview can do so here: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Crusades-for-Christ
And Robin, in discussing this interview with some folks, it has been pretty striking how few people know that the Crusades took place within a broader narrative of aggression and counter-aggression going back for centuries before.
As for hyperbole, I would check out Stark’s book, and then the books he references, such as those of Riley-Smith. Riley-Smith is not without detractors, but he does the deep archival work that Stark’s book is based upon. Documentary evidence is usually lacking in interviews like this.

I am with Dopderbeck, I don’t know what lesson we’re to draw from this article. Here’s what I’ll say: there are few wars where the reasons why they were fought (corporately and individually) are singular and simple. Saying that it was purely about money, or purely about religion is foolish- life, world-views, and people is just more complex than a singular view of the crusades allows.

“It doesn’t have to be the people in the institutions, just the people who wrote the textbooks – most teachers just read the text and parrot it back.”
For some reason, I am recalling an episode of Cheers. Carla the waitress hears the tale of Ted Danson’s female conquests in lurid detail. After which, she notes:
“Wait… He took off his socks???”
To which:
Your history teachers read to you? Mine just played the Howard Zinn videos that came with the textbook.
@Joshua Wooden
You answered your own question, slugger.

Robin, “one audio recording of a priest telling a confessor he must walk barefoot to the holy lands”
Are you suggesting you want audio/video documentation of events from the Middle Ages?

Kevin S.,
Read to me is probably incorrect. They just had us read the text and answer the questions in the text. In 2 or 3 classes in my entire education was there an attempt to bring materials into the discussion from outside the assigned text, the only one that was really good at it was a socialist history professor I had – she really did put in the work to put kids in touch with primary/secondary sources.

Travis,
I think we want a time travel machine (but be sure not to interfere).
I found Gerald of Wales “Journey Through Wales” quite fascinating as a window on this era (and on Wales). (Only peripherally related)

Travis,
As we have discussed recently regarding his other sociological work survey data is clearly insufficient and prone to manipulation, so I would assume that written historical documents are at least as unreliable as modern random sampling – therefore yes, I require an audio recording of a confession from the middle ages – anything less simply cannot meet the standard we have required from Stark’s previous claims.
All this is obviously tongue in cheek. I am fine with both historical and social-scientific research methods; what matters much more to me is the identity and trustworthiness of the researcher.

If there’s a “lesson” here it is probably this one: that the Crusades have been used to bash Christians and Christianity without a clear grasp of the complexities of the Crusades.

?It takes some stretching to understand what motivated these people?
Often the Indians tried to adapt even going as far as learning to wear the whiteman?s clothing, adapting his language and educational requirements and finally converting to his religion. Alas it was to no avail as the Trail of Tears became a reality as they were pushed out to new lands so that theirs could become ours.
?It takes some stretching to understand what motivated these people?
The Slave owner taught his poor ignorant religious neighbors that they were the promised people so that they would war with him. Let?s see; how long ago were these vestiges still going on here in America?
?It takes some stretching to understand what motivated these people?
Any side that has the power can whip up the motivation to excuse their power grabs. During the Crusades both sides were wielding the Power back and forth against each other. It?s the nature of the present powerful.

Scot (#14) — well, yeah, I feared that’s where this was going.
I think it does us contemporary Christians no good at all, none whatsoever, to try to “rehabilitate” the Crusades. “Christianity” deserves to be bashed and bashed good over the Crusades. (I put “Christianity” in scare quotes here because we are really talking about “Christendom,” not following Jesus.)
Even if there is some truth to the argument that the Crusades in part were understandable responses to Islamic militancy (an argument I’m not really willing to concede in such a simplistic form), there can be no doubt, none whatsoever, that there were religious, economic and political motivations for the Crusades on the “Christian” side that all contemporary Christians should consider reprehensible. And that doesn’t even begin to get into how the Crusading wars were carried out — should we talk about the pogroms the Crusaders carried out against Jews at various times?
No. The Crusades, all things considered, are a dark, bloody blot on Church history.

Dopderbeck @16, I half-agree with you. I am not at all fond of efforts to “rehabilitate” Christianity from its own past, either. However, I half-disagree, too. Many people use the Crusades, Inquisition, and Salem Witch Trials as tromp cards that Christianity does more harm then good, and is more likely the source of tyranny than love and charity. Some of my friends have just said “the Crusades” as a response for why Christianity should be disregarded. A similar argument is used against American for the dropping of the American bombs. Terrible: yes. Wrong: yes. The lesser of two evils? I don’t know- debatable. It’s not so cut-and-dry, and I don’t like people bringing up historical events to prove their points when they don’t have a firm grasp of the historical events they’re using as support. So again, I agree, and I disagree.

Dopderbeck @16
Thank you. Thank you very much.
That is all.

David,
I got Stark’s book to give it a read to see what he is arguing. I suspect it’s more nuanced than what I said, but I’ll see. He’s famous for being a contrarian, and most will admit he’s usually onto something. It’s not so much about rehabilitating Christianity but about explaining the “both/and” issues. That’s what I’m seeing… but I want to read him. I’ve got Riley-Smith, too.

…while organized, militant atheism under Mao and Stalin alone was responsible for 75,000,000 to 100,000,00 deaths through genocide…

Slight typo. You mean, “organized, militant Communism“.

@dopderbeck -
It seems you will find any reason/excuse possible to criticize “Conservative” Christians. Unfortunately, I find little of what you say very edifying. If you’re looking for a liberal Christian blog, I’d check out God’s Politics. I’m sure you’d find a lot of resonance with Jim Wallis and bashing people you disagree with.

danderson- hold on a second. You don’t need to say things like that. Jesuscreed isn’t exactly the most “Conservative” blog itself. What did dopderbeck say that ticked you off- nothing he said was bashing anybody. As a born-and-raised conservative in a pretty fundamentalist area of the U.S., I gotta say- you don’t have to “find” reasons to criticize conservative Christianity- they tend to fall in your lap. I’m not even a liberal, either.

danderson,
Unacceptable. We don’t dismiss people on this blog with derision. David Opderbeck is one of the finest conversationalists I’ve ever been around, and what you say of him simply isn’t fair to him or to the civility of this blog. Opderbeck, like most of us, is an evangelical who has only “friendly fire” when it comes to evangelicalism.
I agree with David Opderbeck that the Crusades are embarrassing.

Okay, I apologize. Sorry if I offended anyone. But I have to say that I’ve read his material before and I think it is close to inflammatory on occasion.

Ray Ingles,
No, I mean militant atheism. Let’s be clear about the crusades. It wasn’t priests and bishops leading the charge, it was princes, and kings, and lords…it was the recognized governments at the time. Those noblemen were induced to go because of the religious leaders of the time, but it was King Richard riding off to war, the legal king of England. If we are going to place the wars fought by heads of state at the feet of the church because it was religious doctrine that (1) put those kings in power (2) necessitated obedience from their subjects and (3) incited the kings to fight against the muslims, then you have to admit that atheism, as a tool of communist states, was every bit as deadly as religion, as a tool of midieval states.

@danderson — yes, I feel strongly about some things, and sometimes speak too sharply. I learned as a litigator to “go for the jugular,” and I admit I have a hard time sometimes curbing that instinct. Mea culpa.
Here’s part of where I’m coming from. I was in a Sunday morning church service once during which a famous guest speaker gave a talk on the evils of Islam. (I think I recognize your name — were you there for that?) It was one of the most awful things I’d ever seen in a church, full of horrible distortions and half-truths. The final slide of the presentation was a picture of Mother Theresa next to a picture of Osama bin Laden — with the comment that MT is what you get with Christianity and ObL is what you get with Islam. The takeaway had nothing to do with love or evangelism — it was all about fear and war and politics. People ate it up. And I got in lots of trouble for criticizing it.
If I have one overriding passion for the evangelical Church, it’s that we grow out of accepting such distortions and half-truths. If that makes me a “liberal,” then call me a “liberal” — I’m too old to worry about such labels anymore.
Anyway, I think there are very few evangelicals who would defend the crusades.

Just to clarify
Crusade Participants Ruler of Guiding Beliefs
Sigurd I Norway Feudalism/Christianity
Louis VII France Feudalism/Christianity
Conrad III Germany Feudalism/Christianity
Alfonso I Portugal Feudalism/Christianity
Phillip II France Feudalism/Christianity
Richard I England Feudalism/Christianity
Genocide Initiators Ruler of Guiding Beliefs
Chariman Mao China Communism/Atheism
Josef Stalin USSR Communism/Atheism
Christianity supported the feudal states and undoubtedly led to the crusades, but in just the same way, the communism that carried out the genocides was a direct byproduct of the atheism. Without the militant atheism they instituted they would have achieved such dominance, continued in their power for so long, or hopefully seen their subjects as such human excrement to be exterminated by the millions.
If Christianity must bear the guilt for the sins of Christians; atheism must bear the guilt for the sins of atheists.

Dopderbeck,
I don’t want to defend the crusades. When my children (1 y.o. and 2 y.o.) go to school I want them to be taught the brutal truth about the crusades. And when they are in high school I want them to hear all of the bloody details, every last nightmarish bit, because I want them to be horrified at the misery of the human condition and what sin can lead men to do (maybe not every detail, but as much as is appropriate) but I don’t want them to just get the whitewashed version where the Muslims were just sitting there minding their own business for 500 years and all of the sudden Christians just show up with swords for no good reason.
I want to give them all of the data. If nothing else it shows that even when you think you have a just reason (Islamic aggression, or Pre-emptive strike more recently) to go to war, the outcome can make you as much or more of a monster (those progroms you spoke of, Abu Ghraib) than the one you thought was evil in the first place.

I read and reviewed the book last October. Click here.
Stark says the prevailing wisdom is this:
“During the Crusades, and expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam.” (8)
This is the thesis the book addresses. I think Stark does a convincing case of demonstrating this is not true. Christians were motivated by religious passion not imperialism. Islam was hardly tolerant peaceful. He categorically does not justify or legitimize the crusades.
He also takes aim that the meme that the crusades have been a festering sore spot in the Muslim world since they occurred. He shows that this meme developed in the 19th Century as an extension of the Enlightenment project to cast all things Christian as backward and evil.
The title “God’s Battalions” is a bit of tease, which some who do not pay attention will assume Stark is legitimizing the Crusaders as God’s Battalions. He is not. He stating their perception of themselves and that counters the thesis statement above.
Again, the book is no way a justification of the Crusades. It is an attempt to understand the Christian/Muslim conflict in context.

danderson, thanks.
Let me make a suggestion: the best way to get dopderbeck to address things in the manner you approve is to address him in that manner, and even say things like “I’m a bit irritated and want to be more civil so if I…” that sort of thing calms us all down.

Prevailing wisdom: The crusades were the product of inchoate evil.
Secondary conclusion: Present day Christianity is the fruition of the crusades, what with George W. Bush and Dobson and all.
Stark’s response: That’s a pretty stupid way to view history.
Me: Yep.
Also, I never seem to get these ironically relevant Captchas. This one is “torneys finger”. Where do I sign up to get more ironically relevant Captchas?

I think that before we accept Stark’s thesis, we should add a couple more crusades to the factual record: the Albigensian Crusade (against French heretics in the early 13th century) and the Prussian Crusade (against pagan Old Prussians in the 13th century, foreshadowed by Charlemagne’s Saxon Wars several centuries before).
It would appear that during the Crusades period, Western Catholic Christianity was in violent conflict with not just Islam, but with Eastern Orthodox Christianity (the sack of Constantinople), heretical Christians, Jews (pogroms) and pagans. This implies a rather broad and indiscriminate religious hostility.
I would further point out that Islam’s advance against Western Christianity was halted at the Battle of Toulouse (721), several centuries before. Palestine (the main focus of the Crusades) had been under Muslim rule since the 7th century. Whilst the claim may be made that they were defending their Eastern Orthodox brethren, this claim is undercut (i) by the geographical disconnect with where they were actually attacking Islam (Palestine, not Asia Minor) & (ii) the fact that they themselves sacked Constantinople.

The thesis of Robin’s tendentious ‘clarification’ in #27 is easily refuted.
The crusades were wars against other religions (Islam, heretical Christianity & Paganism), called by their apex religious leader (the Pope). Feudalism played no significant part in the decision.
The famines under Stalin and Mao were the result of Communist policies and principles. Atheism does not appear to have informed these policies and principles in any major or direct manner.
I would further point out that if we are going to blame Atheism for Communism, an equal case can be made for blaming Christianity for the violence of Christian Fascists and Christian Right-wing Juntas in 20th Century Europe and Latin America.

Robin – Hrafn’s made some relevant points, but there are other considerations, too. Hitler used the virulent anti-Semitic streak that ran through much of European Protestantism to carry out the Holocaust. (Which, BTW, killed up to 17 million people – around six million Jews were killed, but Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and plenty of other political and religious opponents were killed as well. His pseudo-scientific racism – based on creationism and a rejection of Darwinian evolution, BTW – targeted a lot more than Jews.) He didn’t kill as many people as Mao and Stalin… but he didn’t rule as many people.
Of course, Hitler had access to better killing technology than those in the Crusades, and there were more people for him to kill because of other technology. Read up on the Albigensian crusade, and ask yourself if these people would have hesitated to use nuclear weapons, had they been available.
You know what the key factor was that led to the majority of the killing in Stalin and Mao’s regimes? They explicitly rejected neo-Darwinian evolution and embraced (and enforced) Lysenkoism instead. The resulting crop failures when reality failed to match up to “worker’s science” killed a huge fraction – possibly the majority – of the millions who died under those regimes.
Ironically, the people under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would have been better off if their leaders had accepted neo-Darwinian evolution. Considering how many people today claim that evolution is central to atheism, it’s particularly ironic… and tragic.

Based upon what you all have said about the book, I appreciate Stark?s attempt to place the crusades into an historical context of previous conflict between Islam and Christendom.
Here is what I find fascinating in this conversation and Stark?s book.
?What is overlooked about the Crusaders, and the knights and nobility of the 10th century and thereabouts, is that they were very bloody-minded. They had been raised since infancy to devote themselves to fighting. They were very sinful. They particularly were into coveting wives. and they were very religious.?
So, within the confines of their own culture and world view, they were very religious AND very immoral (at least by our present standards and most interpretations of the teachings of Jesus).
Some would also say that in current expressions of Christianity there is often a disconnect between religious faith and morality, although in very different cultural terms than the medieval period.
What does this say about Christianity as a religion? As a cultural influence? And as a source of morality? There are those (such as Jacques Maritain) who have argued that despite all the human weakness and personal sinfulness within the church, the church is the institution that has preserved historic Christian truth and has shaped Western civilization. However, when I read comments like those above describing Stark?s argument, I find it difficult to view medieval Christendom as having any connection with faith in Jesus whatever. I have a similar problem with current charismania and Christianinsanity (please bear with my hyperbole here ? I?m becoming emotive).
So, what was so ?Christian? about Christendom? I?m also trying to process this in the light of the previous discussion regarding Stark?s book What Americans Really Believe. I wish there was a simple way of distinguishing between those who are guided by genuine faith in Jesus and those who are using Jesus as a form of supernatural magic to control outcomes.

Hfran #32, #33
Stark directly addresses these issues in the book.
First, yes Christians participated in all the violence you describe. But why? Because there was something inherent in Christianity that made them violent while their neighbors were peace loving tolerant paragons of virtue? Or because this was the of the world at the time and Christians had failed to rise above it? The Christian debunkers argue the former when the second is much closer to the truth.
As to the Muslims ruling the area since 721, Stark analyzes this claim with some detail. In my book review linked in #29 I wrote:
“Stark begins by exploring characterizations of Muslim culture at that time. He notes that Muslim conquest was accomplished largely through small but superior Arab forces that set up military occupation in regions they conquered. By treaty, regions officially become Muslim. Yet in most regions it was 250 years before 50% of the population became Muslim. Furthermore, the historical record shows that most of the great advances in science and other intellectual pursuits, came from the dhimmi, the people under the ?protection? of the Muslim rulers ? in most cases Eastern Christians. The Muslims had the works of the Greeks but tended to treat writings on science, for example, much like the Qur?an ? something to which all observations must be made to conform, not as foundations for future exploration and revision. He relates the treatment of Christians and Jews at the hand of Muslim leaders.”
I’d really invite you to read the book. Whether you agree with all his conclusions, I think he presents a considerable challenge to the popular narrative.

“Yet in most regions it was 250 years before 50% of the population became Muslim.”
So what? By the time of the First Crusade, Palestine had been in Muslim hands for 450 years — longer than it had been in Christian hands before that, and easily long enough to be majority Muslim (assuming, as a first approximation, 100% Christian to start with and that 250 years is a ‘half life’ it would have been 70% Muslim by then).
Does Stark ‘relate’ the treatment of Jews by the crusaders, or the treatment of Jews and Muslims in post-Islamic Sicily or Palestine in this period?
I am not arguing that many others of that time were not violent, nor making any argument at all regarding dhimmi or science, what I am arguing with is the ‘Islam had it coming’ troupe.

#34 Ray
“Hitler used the virulent anti-Semitic streak that ran through much of European Protestantism …”
So you are saying ethnic/religious bigotry is something unique in history to Christian societies? That we have never really witnessed this until Christianity came on the scene?
Yes, Hitler exploited the human bigotry available to him. But the question is, was this bigotry something uniquely caused by Christian influences or was it an expression of human nature as yet unbridled by Christian influences?
The Stalin and Mao led societies based on the logical extension of the collectivist wing of Enlightenment/Modernist thought. Society, separated from the religion and superstition of the past, and led by benevolent enlightened reason, would take humanity to ever higher states of being. Screw the idea of each human being valued as being in the image of God. All must be sacrificed for the common good and the forward march of human progress. As has been demonstrated, these radical makeovers are always led by people who are neither as benevolent or enlightened as advertised. Christians would call this human depravity and finiteness. Thus the need to respect the each individuals value and the need for decentralized power.
Hitler was of a similar vein, though the Nazis added a mystical occult element to the mix.

Hrafn: “By the time of the First Crusade, Palestine had been in Muslim hands for 450 years”
Then why didn’t the crusades happen 450 years earlier? Perhaps there was no “need”. Trade routes remained open. Pilgrims had extended periods of access to Jerusalem and Islamic armies had not marched to within striking distance of Constantinople. When that situation changed however….
another remarkably on-topic captcha: “be bazaar”

From what I have read, there does not appear to be any evidence that the “need” was circumstances in the Levant, but rather social pressures in Western Europe, ‘needing’ a culturally-acceptable outlet.

If the “need” was the threat to Constantinople, then surely the Crusaders would have attacked Asia Minor not the Levant.

Hrafn, the issue fo “need” depends, in part, on how willing we are to accept that western europe was responding to a plea from Byzantium.
As for the direction of the military assault: Any military strategist wil tell you that the way to get at an enemy isn’t necessary by attacking the “obvious” target. Sometimes going “around the other way” or “striking him where he is weak” is a very effective approach. There is also, of course, the fact that such massive timescales between departing europe and arriving in the east meant that numerous unforseen circumstances would lead to diversions from the original plan. Which, it seems, is exactly what happened when the advanced elements from the west arrived in Byzantium to link up with the Eastern forces.
However, in spite of this, I agree with you that internal european issues also contributed. As with most wars (just look at WWI) the exact causes can be nigh on impossible to nail down to a happy or convenient set. And often what motivates leaders is not what motivates soldiers.

Michael (#29) — I’ve never heard that narrative. I confess that the only book I’ve ever really read on the Crusades is Thomas Asbridge’s The First Crusade. I read it a number of years ago, but it struck me as a pretty well balanced reading of the motives underlying the First Crusade, particularly of the religious milieu of medieval Catholicism and how the hope of winning indulgences motivated the feudal lords who financed and carried out the military campaigns. And I haven’t read Stark’s book so I can’t comment directly on it.
What I’m trying to highlight is the way in which these different readings of history are used in our contemporary setting in the West, which is obviously fraught with respect to relations with Islam. Both historically and today, it seems to me we should all agree that the issues are huge and almost intractably complex. It truly breaks my heart, from a missional perspective, when these things are portrayed as black-and-white, Christianity-vs-Islam, inevitably-violent-clash-of-culture fashion. (I’m not saying Stark does this; but I’ve certainly seen Stark’s basic argument used in support of this meme).
BTW a truly superb Christian / religious organization that deals with these issues: The Institute for Global Engagement.
hmm…”nutshell indicates.”

“Yes, Hitler exploited the human bigotry available to him. But the question is, was this bigotry something uniquely caused by Christian influences or was it an expression of human nature as yet unbridled by Christian influences?”
‘Unique causes’ are as rare as unicorns in history, so I will take the liberty of ignoring the demand for uniqueness of cause.
Did “Christian influences” have a significant influence in Nazi bigotry? Given (i) that Martin Luther is one of these “Christian influences”, (ii) that Luther wrote a book that was violently anti-Semitic and (iii) that Hitler is on record as praising these views, then yes.
In the nearly two millennia before WWII, Christianity had done little to ‘bridle’, and much to inflame, anti-Semitism.

hfran #37
“So what? By the time of the First Crusade, Palestine had been in Muslim hands for 450 years — …”
The first crusade was in 1095 … 274 years after 721 … and the last crusade was in 1291.
“… what I am arguing with is the ‘Islam had it coming’ troupe.”
I don’t know where you are getting the impression that this is what Stark is saying or that I’m saying.
Again we have to return to the context of the book. He offers this thesis as the prevailing interpretation of what happened during the crusades:
“During the Crusades, and expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam.” (8)
The whole focus of the book thereafter is “Is this an accurate characterization of the historical events?” One of the key points is that much of the area held by the Muslims was much more akin to a military occupation than a being societies that had converted to Islam. Majorities in many areas were not Muslim and had second class status. Thus, these areas not idyllic communities of Islamic peace and justice that brazen crusaders came to colonize. The prevailing thesis is not supported. To realize this is not an endorsement of the crusader response.
Let me jump to an analogy of the circles I think we run in with this topic (I’ve had this discussion elsewhere and the same pattern emerges). A prevailing historical interpretation emerges that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln because he believed Lincoln was the reincarnation of Nero and wanted to establish a new Roman Empire. Stark protests. Stark marshals the historical record to show there is no evidence for such a narrative and that in fact Booth was a Southern radical who thought he could turn the tide for the South by killing Lincoln. At this point the critics all declare, “See! Stark is justifying Booth’s behavior. How absurd. Why should we pay attention to such a nut?”
You have to keep the thesis of the book present in your mind as you consider his arguments.

And, as Providence would have it, IGE is sponsoring a forum on “Evangelicalism and Islam” later this month. Dang, I wish I could go. IMHO, this is wonderful missional engagement.

“The first crusade was in 1095 … 274 years after 721 … and the last crusade was in 1291.”
721 was the Battle of Toulouse, the high-tide mark of the Islamic invasion of Western Europe — nowhere near Palestine! Jerusalem fell in 638. (sotto: Get a clue.)
“One of the key points is that much of the area held by the Muslims was much more akin to a military occupation than a being societies that had converted to Islam.”
450 years is not a mere “military occupation”, by any stretch of the imagination. If they crusades were to end a military occupation, then why weren’t they directed to western Asia Minor, where the occupation was recent, and there were therefore a majority of Christians under Muslim rule?

(Oh and 1095 is 374 years after 721. Please get a calculator.)

But even ignoring the geographical and mathematical errors, by Stark’s own statement, Palestine should have been majority Muslim after “274 years” (“in most regions it was 250 years before 50% of the population became Muslim”).

“then why weren’t they directed to western Asia Minor, where the occupation was recent, and there were therefore a majority of Christians under Muslim rule”
But the first advanced units of the crusade DID march to Constantinople, where the promised byzantine forces FAILED to link up with them in the manner previously promised (those that did “join” appear to have elected instead to march alone). It was only then that they decided to head east THOUGH Asia Minor, attacking Nicaea and other places along the way.
In any event, the same Empire that occupied the Levant also occupied Asia Minor anyways. You don’t have to run headlong into your enemy’s forward army to get at him. A strategy to head to Jerusalem, even by boat without marching through Turkey would still have made military sense. Especially if easily reinforcable coastal sites could be fortified.

“During the Crusades, and expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam”
I’m not sure you would find any historian that would state the last half of that thesis. Pop culture sure but in academia? Michael, does he cite examples of this from someone somewhere?
Even if that meme is out there, no one, even Stark, would deny the first half of that thesis.
Defending the crusades, even in the form of clarifying what really happened, never ends well. Embrace the stain, denounce it for what it was, and walk away from it.
If anything, the Crusades (and popular Christian support of Hitler, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden against the Soviets, etc) prove how deep our wretchedness runs and the results of what happens when we try to build the Kingdom using the devil’s tools/methods/schema (ephesians 6:11).

Given the chaos of the ‘Peasants Crusade’ and the prominent positions of Normans who had previously attacked Byzantine holdings in the First Crusade, the Byzantine leaderships less-than-warm welcome is hardly surprising.
Whilst the Crusaders may have fought their way through Asia Minor, and by doing so helped the Byzantines along the way, their ultimate goal was always capturing Jerusalem, not freeing the Christians of Asia Minor from Islamic rule.

I find it interesting that Dopderbeck, after taking several strong positions, notes that he’s only ever read one book on the Crusades, by Asbridge. That ought to incline him to suspend judgment rather than render judgment.
All historians of the Crusades over the past 20 or 30 years agree with Stark about the need to junk the “conventional narrative.” The leading ones include Jonathan Riley-Smith and Thomas Madden. Stark is not the outlier here. The conventional anti-Western and anti-Christian Crusade narrative is a crock. Period.
It’s not about “rehabilitating the Crusades.” It’s about being as fair as one can be in rendering historical judgments. And to the person who said something to the effect of “I want children to learn about the Crusades in all their bloody brutality and horror,” I reply, (1) that one of the achievements of recent consensus historical research on the crusades is that they weren’t half as bloody as they have been portrayed in the “conventional narrative” (for instance, the blood flowing in the streets narrative of the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 is false) and (2) just make sure the children also get the real story on the Muslim conquest not so much of Palestine as of the Arabian penninsula and the Persian empire as well as Palestine and Egypt and Asia Minor. It was bloody and brutal. Period.
To those who say, “but what concerns me is the way that the Crusades are used to justify anti-Islam sentiments,” I say, just do good history. The two opposing “sides” were not symmetrical. The huge problem historically for Islam is that it never developed a spiritual/temporal government distinction, so the brutality of the political and military conquest, both eastward and westward was always already both political and religious. That’s the way it was.
The same was NOT true in Christendom. The temporal and spiritual/church and “state” (no real “state” existed) were interrelated by clearly distinguished. Any honest historian has to reckon with that. Which is why assessing the Christian side of the Crusades is complicated.
Which is Stark’s point.
Which is a good point. A true point. And which represents what both secular and religious believer historians agree upon in the last two or three decades of research.

All historians of the Crusades over the past 20 or 30 years agree with Stark about the need to junk the “conventional narrative.” The leading ones include Jonathan Riley-Smith and Thomas Madden. Stark is not the outlier here. The conventional anti-Western and anti-Christian Crusade narrative is a crock. Period.
Fair enough re: the conventional narrative being the popular norm and needing scrapped. Are there academics that support the “conventional” narrative? I’m assuming not since you stated that all historians of the past 20-30 years would junk it.

oops, the first four lines of comment 54 are quoting Phil in 53. sorry for any confusion.

Michael W. Kruse – No, I never said that “…ethnic/religious bigotry is something unique in history to Christian societies[, or t]hat we have never really witnessed this until Christianity came on the scene[.]”
One of the things I was pointing out is that massacres have gotten larger throughout history, because (a) there are more people, and (b) there are more effective ways of killing large numbers of people. Hitler, in a Christian country, managed to outkill the Crusades. I wasn’t claiming that Christianity was the sole cause of the Holocaust. It was a contributing factor, that’s all.

Stalin and Mao led societies based on the logical extension of the collectivist wing of Enlightenment/Modernist thought.

Sure – the “collectivist wing“, as you term it. This has as much necessary connection to atheism in general as the “anti-Semitic wing” of Christianity has to Christianity in general.
In other words, if you want atheism per se to take the blame for Stalin and Mao, then you can’t avoid having Christianity per se take the blame for the Holocaust.
The Crusades – to take a relevant example – had a lot of causes. Christianity played a role – but mostly as a catalyst, accelerating other pressures like economics, politics, etc. Religion alone would not have caused them. Indeed, it’s very hard to find an example of a war caused solely by religion.
The only one I can think of is the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and even that’s kind of indirect. The proximate cause of the killing is the conflict over land, of course. But back when Zionism was getting going, there were serious proposals to set up a new Jewish homeland in South America. Instead – purely for religious reasons – Israel was chosen. And, well, we’ve seen how that’s worked out.

Phil Atley said: All historians of the Crusades over the past 20 or 30 years agree with Stark about the need to junk the “conventional narrative.”
I respond: Well then, whatever you are calling the “conventional narrative” is not the “conventional narrative.” The “conventional narrative” would be whatever “[a]ll historians of the Crusades over the past 20 or 30 years” have been saying for the past 20 or 30 years.
Phil Atley said: they weren’t half as bloody as they have been portrayed in the “conventional narrative”
I respond: setting aside the confusion about what the “conventional narrative” comprises, the phrase “they weren’t half as bloody” isn’t terribly comforting, I’m afraid. The Asbridge book I referenced is chock full of atrocities on both sides.
captcha: archaism 15

Dopderbeck,
Your position in post (57) seems to me to be the direct opposite of your take on the Soul Sort Narrative and ANKOC. In those conversations you were vehement that it didn’t matter that no scholar in the history of the church had framed the debate in the same manner as MacLaren’s caricature because the conventional narrative taught by preachers, or at least heard by congregants, lined up closely with the one in ANKOC.
Now you seem to be saying that it doesn’t matter what has been taught in schools or heard by students, because the “conventional narrative” surrounding the crusades consists of what scholars have been saying for 20-30 years.
I am saying that what I was taught in school, primarily 10-15 years ago is that the Muslims were just sitting around minding their own business when a bunch of blood-crazed Christians showed up and started a massacre without any apparent provocation. That is what I was taught, and I don’t think you have to look very far in our culture to see affirmations of that, just watch THE KINGDOM that came out a couple of years ago. That is the ‘conventional narrative’ that is told about the crusades, and I think Stark’s point is that it doesn’t line up with what scholars in the field believe.
Just because Augustine and Luther and Piper and Sproul don’t teach the chick tract gospel doesn’t mean its not the conventional narrative, and just because Stark and other scholars know a more real version of the history behind the crusades doesn’t mean those truths have permeated our culture’s understanding of it.

Hfran #47
“721 was the Battle of Toulouse, the high-tide mark of the Islamic invasion of Western Europe — nowhere near Palestine! Jerusalem fell in 638. (sotto: Get a clue.)”
#48
“(Oh and 1095 is 374 years after 721. Please get a calculator.)”
My, my. A bit testy today are we?
Yes, I understood that Palestine feel in the decades preceding 721 and that 721 was the high watermark of expansion. I mistakenly thought you were giving this date significance. As I go back and read your comments I see you were calculating from the fall of Palestine. My mistake. As to 374 vs. 274, Yes. In the original draft of my comment I typed 2774 years. Caught the extra 7, missed the errant 2. Sorry, but trying to make comments while staining the deck, assembling new chairs, and running errands, occasionally leads me to error.
“… then why weren’t they directed to western Asia Minor, where the occupation was recent, and there were therefore a majority of Christians under Muslim rule?”
I don’t have the book in front of me but I believe it was in the first crusade that the plane was to team up with other forces to “liberate” western Asia Minor. But upon arrival, the local forces were not prepared or willing to proceed as planned.
I can’t recapitulate an entire book in a series of blog comments. Stark deals directly and forthrightly with every issue you’ve raised in the comments above. I’d really encourage you to read it for yourself. You will get a much better presentation than you will from me trying to remember things and write them on the fly.

I wondered if someone would notice the parallel between Stark and McLaren on this re: “conventional.”
What is conventional? The word on the street or the articulations by the pros?

Dopderbeck
In economics, you repeatedly hear the Adam Smith wrote of a free market economy governed by invisible hand, leading to a greater common good. As economic historian Gavin Kennedy has point out (he has a whole blog devoted to this issue) Smith used the “invisible hand” statement just once in The Wealth of Nations. He was discussing how some risk averse merchants were fearful of international so they limited themselves to domestic trade and in so doing, as though led by an invisible hand, ended up benefiting the local economy. Smith did appreciate the coordinating power of markets but he was not a laissez-faire economist and he did not champion the libertarian version of the “invisible hand” we hear today. Kennedy traces its emergence in this capacity to post WWII.
I don’t think this is controversial among economic historians who have read Smith but the invisible hand metaphor is used constantly by some leading economists today. You see it in textbooks. Thus, the conventional wisdom is that Smith advocated laissez-faire under the metaphor of the invisible hand. But those who study the actual historical record give a different story.
Stark is saying the same thing here with the crusades. For those who have dug into the historical record, the common narrative he presents does not hold up. Yet, like the invisible hand, you see it treated as historical fact by influential people in politics, religion, and other fields. Stark’s book walks us through the historical record so we get a better sense of what happened. But showing that the common narrative was wrong does not equate to showing that the crusaders were justified.
Captcha: the snippier

Richard #51
“Michael, does he cite examples of this from someone somewhere?”
Yes. The opening pages of the book gives a cursory evolution of this narrative. He begins with intellectuals in the late 17th Century and shows how elements of the narrative have evolved.
“Even if that meme is out there, no one, even Stark, would deny the first half of that thesis.”
Yes, to some degree Stark is denying, or at least qualifying, this. There were these comments above.
hfran #40
“…but rather social pressures in Western Europe, ‘needing’ a culturally-acceptable outlet.”
Ray #56
“Christianity played a role – but mostly as a catalyst, accelerating other pressures like economics, politics, etc.”
This socio-economic narrative is a 20th Century expansion on the conventional narrative. The case is made by some that religion was merely an excuse for pursing a blood thirsty vision of imperial expansion. Stark references wills, letters, and other data from the time to show that this was not the driving issue (he isn’t saying it had not impact.) The driving issue, at least for the wealthy who are the only ones we have a record for, was a sense of religious duty and calling. The evidence points strongly to the case that these men believed themselves to be on a spiritual quest. They saw themselves as “God’s Battalions” not mercenary forces using religion as pretext for imperialism.

Hrfan #47,
“why weren’t they directed to western Asia Minor, where the occupation was recent, and there were therefore a majority of Christians under Muslim rule?”
They were. The first major action in the First Crusade was the siege of Nicea, which was returned to the Byzantines following a negotiated surrender. The crusaders then marched across Anatolia to Antioch, which had been a Byzantine possession until fairly recently. That was the point at which the Byzantines and Crusaders had their falling out.

One of the examples I do remember Stark talking about was the conquer of Jerusalem by the Christians. When the Christians took Jerusalem from the Muslims they killed everyone in the city. When the Muslims retook Jerusalem they let some of the inhabitants go and sold others into slavery. This is offered as evidence of how the Muslims were more compassionate and civilized than the blood thirsty Christians.
What Stark points to is the “rules of engagement” for these types of battles. When a city was under siege, the attacker would invite the inhabitants to surrender. If they surrender, then you behave much as the Muslims did when they conquered. If the inhabitants refused to surrender, then you killed all the inhabitants. When the Christians attacked Jerusalem, the Muslims did not surrender, thus the destruction. When Muslims attacked Jerusalem the Christians surrendered, thus lives were not taken. In both cases they acted according to the rules of engagement. When Muslims went after other occupied cities and the inhabitants did not surrender, they did just as the Christians did with Jerusalem.
This is just one example of how the historical record has been twisted to support ideological ends. Stark helps us see the events in their context. Again, it in no way justifies the crusades.

Fascinating discussion; and way above my pay grade. Makes my grasp of History look like a lump of swiss cheese dangling by a thread. I’m almost nostalgic over that brief priod of my life when I just belived that history was what I read in my (public) school textbook — black and white, cut and dried. Memorize the “facts” and write them on the test. Then I went to college and university… haven’t had much of a clue since. To be honest, this discussion doesn’t shed a lot of light — only a lot of opinions and intrpretations and in some cases, heat.
Is there anything besides the above that we can access? I doubt it. Does that mean we should stop trying to understand? No. But once we’ve made our best educated guesses about what really happened, we’ve got to move forward based on those and live in the present while embracing the future. Each generation has to make it’s own decisions, hopefully informed by the past and by biblical truth and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with the knowledge that the “history” they “create” will be second-guessed, questioned and debunked by the hisotrians and social critics of the future.
Scott, looking forward to your assesment and comments about the book.

#35 josenmiami
These conversations, for me, call to mind William Webb’s redemptive movement hermeneutic. Scripture does not offer us a fully sanctified church. It tells of the birth of the church that is then placed on a trajectory.
At the time of the NT church there was slavery and the NT accepts it almost matter of factly. But also contained in Scripture is the idea of fictive family and the idea that we are all one in Christ. Over the next few centuries, slaves began to be baptized. Christians began to wrestle with the idea of how one could hold a Christian brother or sister in slavery. By the time of the crusades, slavery had largely vanished from Christian Europe.
The slavery issue re-emerged in the 15th Century as explorers came into contact with Africans and Native-Americans. Were these people human? The Popes and the official church condemned slavery but they had no power to directly stop the nations that were going in this direction. It was determined work by Christians that ultimately ended the European slave trade. It is those same values that have many Christians working against modern forms of slavery. But we evolved to this understanding from seeds planted in Scripture.
Similarly I think you can see some of a “three steps forward, two steps back” kind of redemptive movement in other aspects of life as well.
I think that reality should cause to us consider two things. First, how important it is to understand people of the past in their appropriate context, even when the context appears to us as horrific. Second, it should cause us to speculate on what future generations might look back and say about us in our day. What abhorrent things do we do today that we simply can’t see because we are the inescapable product of our times?

ohw well … I enjoy this blog although I find it impossible to break into these conversations … and I don’t have all day to sit around following these comments anyway. Adieu … it feels like an ivisible cloaking device … (wry smile)

“I don’t have the book in front of me but I believe it was in the first crusade that the plane was to team up with other forces to “liberate” western Asia Minor. But upon arrival, the local forces were not prepared or willing to proceed as planned.”
Rubbish! Pope Urban made it very clear from the beginning that the ultimate goal of the crusade was Jerusalem (see for example The crusades: a history, Jonathan Riley-Smith, 2005, pp 6-8).
Please tell me what these ‘plans’ were, where and when Alexius agreed to them, and where they contain the provision that Normans (particularly Bohemond son of Robert Guiscard), who were recently at war with the Byzantine Empire, should have a significant leadership role.

@Robin and Michael — McClaren was talking about the “conventional narrative” that we hear in our churches. It was clear, at least to me, that he was not talking about professional theologians. And I made that clear in my comments about his book.
If the “conventional narrative” of the Crusades Stark and you guys are talking about is what the common person on the street thinks, then, fine, maybe you have a point. Frankly, I doubt that the average person on the street in American culture has any idea at all what the Crusades were, when they happened, how many there were, what part of the world they were in, or who was involved.
I suspect, then, that Stark is reacting to the supposed “conventional narrative” among cultural elites — i.e., university professors, the secular mainstream media, and so on. Certainly when I’ve heard the “Crusade-rehabilitating” narrative that I’m hearing here, it has been in reaction to views supposedly held by these cultural elites. But if professional historians comprise a key segment of the cultural elites in question, then the fact that all professional historians over the past 20 or 30 years have thought differently seems to me to dramatically undermine the notion of a “conventional narrative” that needs correcting.
In any event, perhaps we can agree that there is some sort of “conventional narrative” among historically uneducated people about the nature of the Crusades. Surely there is some inherent utility in the work of careful professional historians who continue to help flesh out the picture. And perhaps there is some utility in a popularizer like Stark making the fruits of this research available to the “person on the street” who really knows almost nothing about the Crusades.
But, seriously — is this really why Stark’s work here is so important to so many people? Is it really just about popularizing some interesting recent historiography about a complex period in history? Or could it be that the “historically violent Islam” / “clash of cultures” memes are pretty darn attractive to one side of today’s culture wars?

Good article, interesting set of comments. I’ve read many works from Rodney Stark, what a great addition to the field of sociology he is. After reading Max Weber I always thought it was a shame he had never really got to live long enough for a full coverage of Catholic history (or Christian history of the Medieval times if you like) and the sociology of science. Rodney Stark very much fills in much of that void left by Weber.
With respect to the Crusades, he is right. I’ve read some Riley-Smith and Madden and a few others as well – it was a religiously motivated thing, not some real estate adventure to make yourself wealthy. What’s more, the conception that Christians where bloody relative to Muslims back then is completely unfounded – both did plenty of bizarre butchering – for example the rule that you could hold a town siege for a long time but if the people refused to give up and thus you had to charge in, then it was the rule of the day, on both sides, that you get to butcher everyone in the town – to think the Muslims did practice that, that it was only Christians, is easy to demonstrate as completely incorrect.
He is also correct about all that land being Christian and then the Muslims took it over, by force. Its not actually rocket science when you think about it – the Romans had control of the Mediterranean from Spain to the holy land and all of north Africa – it was their “lake”. Then in the 300′s Rome “officially” became “Christian” almost certainly because so much of the population already was Christian, especially among “those who mattered” (the “in” group was pretty big among Romans). As we well know, Christian big wigs like St. Augustine came from and lived in Africa. So how did all that turn into land controlled by Muslims?? War.
Apologize for the Crusades – what is that? If the Muslims came over and took Florida and held it for a good long time – would we have to “apologize” if we killed people in an effort to take it back? I don’t think so. But here rest, in part the difference – the “Christians” did not “crusade” to retrieve just any old real-estate such as Florida – instead they managed to go to the Holy land (thus it would be more like us making a national effort to rescue the mystical land East of Fort Wayne, while leaving just the locals to take back Florida – well, if Fort Wayne had mystical lands east of it anyway). The religious crusade motivation was of course mixed with a slight problem of people visiting the holy land – what would we do today if every Bible Thumper and his brother who visited the Holy Lands each year – and there are a lot of them – where killed off on their visit? This happened to such visitors back then after many years of it not taking place. See, it wasn’t just “Muslims” but in fact the Muslim chaps that ruled the place got taken over by some other Muslim chaps who then started taking the knife to everyone – this lead to massive numbers of Holy Land visitors in a really bad way, if not dead. There is no need to apologize for the Crusades – for one, “we” didn’t do them – people back then did – for two, in light of the times, they were not exactly without some outright justification for their actions.
It is my hope that Rodney Stark will publish a book on the history of the hate towards Christianity and Catholicism in particular – of which, as I understand it, this book had originally been a chapter of. it is way past time and well overdue that scholars start placing a burning light on exactly such issues.
Right on Rodney Stark, right on to you who hosted this.