I’ll be defending the Roman Catholic Church’s deadly Crusade, but only for argument’s sake.
Even though I myself is not Catholic, but as an evangelical Christian I am still directly affected especially when I encounter atheists using the Crusade as weapon to attack the whole Christianity’s credibility.
Also, moderate Muslims use it to justify their extremists’ jihad especially after they are criticized for it. They even cry about being the victims of the Crusade, and book historians fell for it thus sharing false facts to children, including Christians, and feeling guilty about it.
The Truth: Crusade was a response to Islams’s Jihad
After Mohammad, Islam’s founder, died in 632, his followers continued to sow rampage and killing the so called “infidels”, as well as doing robbery, forced conversions, ambush, seizing towns and nations.
Much like what is happening in this present day and age.
The Catholic Pope had had enough of the atrocities. Since the Catholic Church in the 10th or 11th century AD had a lot of power in European states, the church leader urged the kings to organize an army to defend the Moslems’ attacks and recapturing the seized lands.
But the Crusade had excesses
Recapturing the lands seized by the Islamic jihadists was not enough. The Crusaders also conquered other lands already owned by the Arabs in the Middle East, and even attacked Jerusalem, eventually killing thousands of Jews. Non-Catholic Christians about 30,000 were also slaughtered.
Furthermore, the Crusade was a straight violation to the Christian scriptures:
We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens. – Ephesians 6:12 CEB.