{"id":959,"date":"2015-10-02T23:42:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T23:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=959"},"modified":"2015-10-02T23:57:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T23:57:03","slug":"going-back-to-the-christian-crusades-is-a-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/going-back-to-the-christian-crusades-is-a-farce.html","title":{"rendered":"Going back to the Christian Crusades is a farce"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-960 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/375\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-modern-cusades.png\" alt=\"Back to the Christian Crusades\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" \/>Politicians who try to portray the world in terms of an epic struggle between Western &#8220;modernity&#8221; and Islamic &#8220;medievalism&#8221; will achieve nothing but send us back\u00a0to\u00a0the Christian Crusades.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Defenders of Europe as a Christian continent are incredibly\u00a0naive about their own history.\u00a0And this is why, to quote a great sociologist, history always repeats itself. First as tragedy, second as farce.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tragically, or perhaps farcically, numerous political parties exist in present day Europe that base their entire political vision on a bloodthirsty promise that Islam will be vanquished by a righteous &#8220;Christian&#8221; civilisation in Europe. Invigorated by the disastrous failed War on Terror, which was initiated by George W. Bush who himself claimed to be waging a &#8220;crusade&#8221; with the blessing of God, racist Islamophobic parties thrive in Europe.\u00a0Warning constantly about a conflict in Europe that they one day intend to glorify and fuel, Islamophobic politicians align themselves with whoever kills Muslims around the world, even when the objects of their support\u00a0committed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/2015\/03\/tolerant-christians-vis-vis-evil-islam.html\" target=\"_blank\">worse crimes than the\u00a0self-described &#8220;Islamic&#8221; terrorists<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To them, reverting our times\u00a0back to the Christian Crusades is some kind of fantasy involving blonde princesses and knights in shining armor, because their understanding of the horrific Medieval Europe\u00a0is limited to a smattering of Disney films, pictures of castles and abbeys, and <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2>Those\u00a0who\u00a0cannot comprehend the past have\u00a0no future<\/h2>\n<p>It is my fear that this Islamophobia does not only exist here in Europe but also exists in Russia, and is perhaps at its most ignorant in North America, where pundits and bloggers\u00a0who need not be named campaign endlessly to liquidate the Constitution so they can\u00a0exterminate &#8220;Nazi&#8221; Islam. Such a message has already been promoted with billboard campaigns of hate in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>I was dismayed that Russia&#8217;s Orthodox Church <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiantoday.com\/article\/russian.orthodox.church.supports.putins.holy.war.in.syria.to.protect.christians\/66312.htm\" target=\"_blank\">sanctioned Russia attacking ISIL targets in Syria<\/a>. While I applaud any effort to destroy ISIL (also erroneously called &#8220;the Islamic State&#8221;), and I have advocated the United States (and certainly Russia now) using\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/06\/why-doesnt-the-us-just-carpet-bomb-isil-and-get-it-over-with.html\" target=\"_blank\">much heavier ordnance<\/a> to annihilate\u00a0all\u00a0ISIL-controlled territory, it isn&#8217;t the role of a major church to\u00a0bless combatants, and I see this move as a very dangerous one. I only hope that churches in Western countries, in particular the Roman Catholic Church do not follow such a foolish precedent and become participants in a war like that.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Francis has spoken of ISIL as a grave threat and appealed for the protection of Christians <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cruxnow.com\/church\/2015\/03\/13\/vatican-backs-military-force-to-stop-isis-genocide\/\" target=\"_blank\">using force when needed<\/a>, but he has stopped short of actually blessing\u00a0any particular forces\u00a0in the very complex\u00a0conflict in Syria. There is reason to be worried when a major church gets deeply involved in blessing combatants and encouraging them to kill, which is the stuff of the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n<h2>Clash of civilisations doesn&#8217;t exist<\/h2>\n<p>I would sum this up by saying that one must reject the so-called &#8220;clash of civilisations&#8221; on moral grounds. The Western civilisation is superior to no-one. At the same time, the &#8220;Orthodox civilisation&#8221; of Russia has always been an empire of which Islam was an integral part. Islam is also now an integral part of culture in Europe and perhaps the Americas.<\/p>\n<p>We must accept Muslims, stop provoking their people, and stop promoting the West&#8217;s own crusaders,\u00a0fanatics, reactionaries, hypocrites and defenders of barbarism as some sort of Christian bulwark against\u00a0Islamist militancy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-962 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/375\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png\" alt=\"hjb signature new opaque 2\" width=\"285\" height=\"58\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politicians who try to portray the world in terms of an epic struggle between Western &#8220;modernity&#8221; and Islamic &#8220;medievalism&#8221; will achieve nothing but send us back\u00a0to\u00a0the Christian Crusades. Defenders of Europe as a Christian continent are incredibly\u00a0naive about their own history.\u00a0And this is why, to quote a great sociologist, history always repeats itself. First as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,71,63,37,72,153,67,66,3,70,15,69],"tags":[1195,1197,1198,1194,1193,945,466,611,79,173,175,197,497,1196,1192,1191,411],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-2","category-conflict-resolution","category-futurism-2","category-history","category-international-relations","category-lordre-2","category-middle-east","category-politics-2","category-religious-studies","category-religious-violence","category-us","category-violence","tag-barbarism","tag-christian","tag-christian-crusades","tag-church","tag-clash-of-civilisations","tag-europe","tag-george-w-bush","tag-god","tag-isil","tag-islam","tag-islamic-state","tag-islamophobia","tag-medievalism","tag-middle-ages","tag-orthodox","tag-russian-orthodox-church","tag-war-on-terror"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Going back to the Christian Crusades is a farce - L&#039;Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The endless War on Terror takes us back to the Christian Crusades. 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Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. 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