Puritanhead
Puritan Board Professor
First, I'm not looking for a debate nor do I have a strong position one way or the other. Just surveying... What is the common Reformed Christian View of the Crusades? and of war in general?
This is excerpted from the Wittenburg Door from Knox Seminary put together and signed by prominent Reformed evangelical theologians and pastors...
As a Top 300 Amazon.com book reviewer, I just got a complimentary review copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) from the conservative imprint Regnery and Myths of Islamic Tolerance edited by the same author, Robert Spencer, a Roman Catholic. Spencer basically offers an apologetic for the Crusades and has the Latin quote by Pope Urban for "God Wills It" on his first page. I'm also reading Laurence Vance's Christianity and War. Again, these authors are not Reformed.
So, how does a Reformed thinker approach the issue of war?
Some might say that Christians have been bamboozled by revisionist philo-Islamic, anti-church history of the Crusades that has been popular in recent years. Too often, Middle Eastern Studies programs in most American colleges make Islam look like saints and wholly victims during the Crusades. I have cursory knowledge of the Crusades incidentally, and I'm not that well-schooled.
I myself am not a warhawk and I trek over to Anti-war.com from time to time, though I don't agree with everything lock, stock and barrel. I've studied a lot of military history, tactics and strategy with some attentiveness earlier in my twenties while in college-- Plus, I wanted to go in U.S. Army JAG corps.
I kind of see war as God's judgment on sin, and consider wars of aggression as simply immoral. Additionally, I do not believe in the sanctifying myth of the state-- that is to say collective action under the auspices of State action negates what would be considered sinful if committed by an individua; thievery, extortion and homicide are always wrong even when agents of the State do it with state sanction. I obviously recognize that the magistrates has power over the sword and can punish criminal wrong-doers with due process of law including the death penalty....
The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul does a good job of explaining the holy wars of the Bible, and how God's holiness and judgment is manifest in such wars. Moreover, he explains how God utilized the Israelites as an instrument of judgment against the wicked nations, and likewise how God chastened his disobedient people with war because of their apostasy.
[Edited on 8-1-2005 by Puritanhead]
This is excerpted from the Wittenburg Door from Knox Seminary put together and signed by prominent Reformed evangelical theologians and pastors...
As a Top 300 Amazon.com book reviewer, I just got a complimentary review copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) from the conservative imprint Regnery and Myths of Islamic Tolerance edited by the same author, Robert Spencer, a Roman Catholic. Spencer basically offers an apologetic for the Crusades and has the Latin quote by Pope Urban for "God Wills It" on his first page. I'm also reading Laurence Vance's Christianity and War. Again, these authors are not Reformed.
So, how does a Reformed thinker approach the issue of war?
Some might say that Christians have been bamboozled by revisionist philo-Islamic, anti-church history of the Crusades that has been popular in recent years. Too often, Middle Eastern Studies programs in most American colleges make Islam look like saints and wholly victims during the Crusades. I have cursory knowledge of the Crusades incidentally, and I'm not that well-schooled.
I myself am not a warhawk and I trek over to Anti-war.com from time to time, though I don't agree with everything lock, stock and barrel. I've studied a lot of military history, tactics and strategy with some attentiveness earlier in my twenties while in college-- Plus, I wanted to go in U.S. Army JAG corps.
I kind of see war as God's judgment on sin, and consider wars of aggression as simply immoral. Additionally, I do not believe in the sanctifying myth of the state-- that is to say collective action under the auspices of State action negates what would be considered sinful if committed by an individua; thievery, extortion and homicide are always wrong even when agents of the State do it with state sanction. I obviously recognize that the magistrates has power over the sword and can punish criminal wrong-doers with due process of law including the death penalty....
The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul does a good job of explaining the holy wars of the Bible, and how God's holiness and judgment is manifest in such wars. Moreover, he explains how God utilized the Israelites as an instrument of judgment against the wicked nations, and likewise how God chastened his disobedient people with war because of their apostasy.
[Edited on 8-1-2005 by Puritanhead]
Oh why did the Pope have to use the phrase 'Deus vult!' for the Crusades... it would make such a good Reformed motto.
