The history of the Crusades offers evangelicals one of the most profound warnings from church history. Whenever the church has focused on evangelism and preaching the gospel, her influence has increased. When she has sought power by political, cultural, or military activism, she has damaged or spoiled her testimony. This is not merely historical trivia but speaks directly to the question of how the church ought to engage with political power in our own day. The Crusades represent perhaps the clearest instance in which Christianity and the state were formally united in violent enterprise, and the consequences remain legible nearly a millennium later.
Historical Context Before the Crusading Ideal
Prior to the eleventh century, a distinct boundary separated the responsibilities of civil authority from those of the church. This understanding emerged from Scripture itself, particularly passages that distinguish between earthly kingdoms and the kingdom of Christ. Christians engaged in war primarily to support the state and achieve political objectives, often believing their service was good in the eyes of God, but notably the church did not initiate war. The state protected the nation and maintained peace while the church focused on its spiritual mission. This separation reflected the New Testament teaching that the church's warfare was spiritual, not carnal. The Byzantine Empire and Western European kingdoms carried the burden of military defense. Christians served in these armies, but the church itself remained a spiritual institution, preaching repentance, administering sacraments, and caring for souls rather than commanding armies or reclaiming territory in Christ's name.
The Shift That Transformed Church History
The turning point arrived in 1095 at the Council of Clermont when Pope Urban II preached what would become the First Crusade. His appeal marked an unprecedented moment in church history where he declared that Christ commanded the campaign and remission of sins would be granted for those going thither. He exhorted knights and footmen, rich and poor, to strive to help expel what he called a wicked race from Christian lands. This sermon was likely the first time in church history that war was proclaimed as an instrument for advancing the interests of Christ's church. Christianity was militarized in a whole new way. Three fundamental shifts occurred with the emergence of the crusading ideal. Military force began to be viewed as a legitimate tool to advance the church and the cause of Christ rather than solely to defend the state. Spiritual rewards for violence were introduced through promises of remission of sins for those who died fighting, effectively commodifying forgiveness and conflating martial service with spiritual obedience. For the first time, ecclesiastical authority directly initiated military campaigns, transforming the church from a spiritual community into a political-military power center.
The Consequences and Damage Done to Christ's Name
The results speak for themselves in the historical record. Between 1096 and 1229, five major crusades were mounted. Jerusalem was captured in 1099 with hundreds of thousands killed, including the terrible massacre of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants by crusader forces. The Fourth Crusade between 1200 and 1204 went so far as to attack Constantinople, a Christian city, destroying art, stealing artifacts, and establishing the Latin Empire there, which was a wound that severed East-West relations permanently. Most tragically, the Crusades implanted a violent image of Christianity and the West in the minds of Islamic people that persists to this day. What a betrayal of the Christ, who poured out His life on the cross, enduring injustice and making peace, to identify Him with the slaughter of political enemies. The irony remains profound since Islam initiated wars against Christian lands and continued aggressive warfare against the West for centuries after the Crusades ended. Yet today many Muslims view Christianity as inherently violent and project their conviction that religion and state should be united onto the West as if Christianity and the state were still united there.
Theological Problems with the Crusading Model
The idea that Christians can use the sword to advance their cause might seem justified by certain Old Testament passages such as Psalm 72:11, Psalm 2:8–9, and Psalm 110:5–6. To use these verses to justify violence in behalf of Christianity misses their true meaning since they point to the spiritual extension of Christ's kingdom in history and to final judgment at the end of history rather than human military campaigns. The non-violent message of Christ is clear from the New Testament writings. Believers are instructed to bless those who persecute them and repay no one evil for evil. They are told never to avenge themselves but leave it to the wrath of God. The armor of God was given for standing against the schemes of the devil since we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers over this present darkness. The church's warfare targets sin and spiritual strongholds, not physical enemies. When the church mistakes political enemies for spiritual foes, it abandons the very method Christ ordained for His kingdom's advance, which is truth joined by love and self-sacrifice.
The Children's Crusades as Absurdist Warning
Perhaps nothing illustrates the distortion of the crusading ideal more than the Children's Crusade of 1212. Whether literally composed of children or landless peasants called children, this movement was never officially sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. Participants left France hoping to recover the lost cross of Christ, yet none ever reached Jerusalem. Thousands ended up as slaves or cheap laborers in Italy. Biblically, there is no precedent for a church engaging in military action or marching against Muslims. There is no reason for a church to venerate physical objects or claim to be doing God's work searching for relics. There is certainly no cause to send children into harm's way since Jesus showed love to children and expects parents to rear them according to God's truth. The Children's Crusade represents the logical endpoint of the crusading mentality where the church abandons its spiritual mission for physical quests and absurdity and tragedy follow.
Application for Contemporary Political Engagement
The Crusades provide a mirror for contemporary evangelical political activists seeking to reshape society through governmental power. Those who seek temporal victories through governmental power risk repeating the same errors that plagued the medieval church. Today's evangelical political activists seem unaware of how much their methodology parallels liberal Christians at the start of the twentieth century. Both emphasize temporal issues at the expense of eternal values and preach politically conservative versions of the old social gospel by emphasizing social and cultural concerns above spiritual ones. That kind of thinking fosters the view that government is either our ally if it supports our special agenda or our enemy if it remains opposed or unresponsive to our voice. The political strategy becomes the focus of everything, as if the spiritual fortunes of God's people rise or fall depending on who is in office. Throughout Protestant history, those segments of the visible church that turned their attention to social and political issues have compromised sound doctrine and quickly declined in influence. The British theologian Robert L. Ottree captured this insight at Oxford over a century ago when he noted that the prophets did not as a rule take part in political life or demand political reforms despite their ardent zeal for social reform. They desired better men rather than better institutions.
Return to Spiritual Calling
The Crusades failed permanently to restore Christian control of Jerusalem, but they succeeded brilliantly in damaging Christianity's reputation, strengthening papal power over Europe, weakening the Byzantine Empire, and implanting a violent image of Christ that Muslims still hold today. Most importantly, the history of the Crusades teaches us to recognize the great damage done to Christ by these wars. As Christians, we must seek always to advance Christ's cause through truth joined by love and self-sacrifice, not through violence. The church remains spiritually powerful precisely because she refuses to take up the sword. She advances not by political victory but by faithful proclamation of the gospel. No human government can ultimately advance or thwart God's kingdom, and the worst despotic government cannot halt the spread of God's Word. When the church remembers her spiritual calling, she finds influence through preaching the gospel. When she seeks temporal power through politics, she loses everything.
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