The Crusader Culture

During the Crusades, various European Christian armies marched across the continent to battle against the Muslims. Along the way, they encountered many Jewish and Muslim communities. Wanting everyone to come to Jesus, the Christian soldiers gave everyone they met the opportunity to convert to Christianity. Beautiful, noble, and even an absolutely Scriptural idea; Jesus Himself had said that God loved the world so much that He had sent His Son for everyone in it. He too wants people to come to know Jesus. So the basic idea wasn’t crazy at all. Not even a little bit.

It was a simple process, really. When the Christians came upon a non-Christian city, they demanded surrender; if none was given, they would attack.  Upon conquering the city, Christian soldiers would take the survivors who hadn’t been killed in battle and give them a simple choice: Convert to Christianity…or die on the spot. Many devout Jews and Muslims chose death. For those who did choose to convert, it’s probably safe to say that it likely didn’t feel like a warm-fuzzy altar-call moment. It wasn’t so much about the conviction of sin or the power of the Gospel or the love of the Saviour or the softening of the heart by the Holy Spirit…it was probably a little more about the blade being held to their throat. 

Thankfully, we have moved past the days of “convert or else.” No longer does the Church maintain that “us verses them” mentality, where the noble Christians stand against a wicked pagan world, tirelessly defending the Gospel against the advances of demonic men. We no longer attempt to force people into our camp, requiring them to obey our Scriptures, even if they don’t mean it. We don’t make threats or push agendas upon an unbelieving world. We have come a long way, baby!

And everyone in agreement said, “Amen.”

Except, hold on, wait a minute, there’s something about that last part that doesn’t sound quite right…

Because while we have certainly abandoned the violent and deadly tactics of the Crusaders, there is still something that sounds alarmingly familiar when we look at how the followers of Jesus sometimes connect with the world around us today…

A knife to the throat of a pagan has been replaced by threats of economic boycotts against national retailers who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” The days of violently marching on Jerusalem are over, but there is still an angry Christian outcry every time someone tries to take the Ten Commandments down from a courthouse. We don’t try to force change by the edge of a blade, but we do try to force the world to obey our morals by trying to get laws passed that will make the world follow Christian values. Although, thankfully, much less violent, the Crusader mentality – “us verses them” - persists.

Isn’t this just crazy backwards? Isn’t our focus on the wrong thing? Why are we getting angry at an non-Christian world…for acting like a non-Christian world? That’s not to say that we need to embrace or accept all that happens in silence, but I can’t get frustrated with non-Christians when they act in ways that are inconsistent with God’s Word…because they don’t believe in God’s Word yet! Why would they want to follow it? I sure didn’t before I got saved. I’ll bet all the money in my pockets that you didn’t, either.

Trying to force the world to jump through our hoops and do things our way when they aren’t yet in relationship with Jesus is like trying to teach a 3-year old to drive a car. You can’t get mad at the kid - he’s just not there yet. Too often, what we’re really doing is raging at the world for being the world, and this is something that Jesus never did.

While living in purity and staying separate from the world’s corruption, Jesus managed to find a way to both fully and lovingly engage the culture, while challenging it at the same time. He had no problem calling people on their sin, and had no problem pushing people to be better, but we see in the heart of Christ an underlying motivation behind all of it:

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mt 9:36)

It was that same compassion that cried out from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23:34) We can hate what people sometimes do, and dispute what they value, but we must always remember that there is a truth that they have not yet embraced. I lived a different way before I embraced it, and so did you. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to condemn others for something that I also did, pre-Jesus.

Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it (Jn 3:17). All judgments about the world’s actions, and any consequences to be given to the world belong in His hands alone, not the Church’s (Rev 20:13). We can stand for righteousness and certainly make our opinions known, but to think of people without Jesus as our enemies who can be bullied into our belief system is an incredible departure from the heart of Jesus, as well as a usurping of His God-given authority.

We are clearly called to live differently from any ungodly values that surround us (2Co 6:16-17), but there is nothing in the life of Jesus that teaches us that the crowds were an enemy to be fought. My job is not to force people to obey God’s righteous standard; my job is represent the life and character of Jesus everywhere, and to always tell my story of what the Good News did for me. If I do this well, anointed by the Spirit, then it won’t be a matter of having to force people to be obedient to something that they don’t believe in. If I do this well, they are going to see the Jesus that I know and want to live His way.

We are interested in genuine life conversion, not just insincere and forced righteous actions at the point of a knife, or a boycott, or a political rally. We need to focus on the root, and not the symptoms. All of us lived differently at one point or another; we found our way to Jesus, and everything else changed from there.