Crusader Texts

        Probably the lowest point in the history of the Christian Church came in Middle Ages after Pope Urban II called for Christians to journey to the holy land and to attack the Muslims there and to free that land from its Muslim rulers.  The resulting series of crusades reaped havoc on Jews, Muslims and even Orthodox Christians from eastern Europe to the Middle East.

        Western (Catholic) Christians often went to war with the symbol of the cross emboldened on their shields and the words "God wills it" on their lips.  Pope Urban II promised absolution from all sin and a quick trip to heaven for anyone who died in the Crusades.  The ideology of the "Christian" crusaders is identical to the ideology of radical Islam's contemporary jihadists.

      The memory of these events is still fresh in the Middle East and makes any Western military presence in the Middle East a source of great rhetorical value for the most extreme voices within Islam.