Shedding Light On Dark History

What should we call our middle school youth group? Back in the late 80’s the question was raised when the leader decided that the name it had been using for well over a decade was no longer helpful. His argument was along the lines of “we should not be associating our ministry with a dark part of Church history.  The name of the group was Crusaders.  I am not sure what prompted his sudden decision.  He had been in charge of that ministry (no pun intended) for many years.  Now he was determined to make a case to the superiors that a change had to be made.  Not knowing much of that “dark history”, I did not have any real opinions on the matter.  My knowledge of the crusades was limited to the myths of knights pursuing the Holy Grail.

Given the latest Caliphate going on in the middle east, it’s time to clarify the history of the Crusades and teach teenagers what it was really all about. I won’t pretend to be an expert on this, but if some historians are correct, it is a bit of Christian history that we need not be ashamed of.  If they are wrong, we still need to address this with teens so that they don’t grow up believing only the popular perceptions of this bit of history.  The real facts are vital in this matter.  If historian Thomas Madden is correct, we ought to be proud of the Crusades. Madden asserts that “For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.”  Madden believes the Crusades were an “errand of mercy” to rescue Christians from captivity and liberate Jerusalem, not an effort to force convert Muslims to Christianity.  Highlights from Madden’s writing on this can be found at the STR blog.  The whole article it is drawn from is from Christianity Today (subscription required to read it all).

It’s time to teach teens some Church History! Without a grasp of God’s work through the church over time, we are at a great disadvantage when it comes to understanding the world we live in today.