02-09-25

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
February 9, 2025
I occasionally come across little history notes on my computer, and today’s note informed me that on this day in the year 1098, during the First Crusade, the Army had a victory during the siege of Antioch. There was no other specific information in this history note, and it would have been easy to sort of dismiss it, but there was a bit of underlying curiosity as I am rather ignorant about Christian history around the Crusades. I took a couple of history classes that included that specific time period, but sadly, I did not retain much of it. With some quick research, I have been reminded how this crusade to the Holy Land included a lot of violence toward Jewish people. It is uncertain how many Jews were killed, but it is believed that at least a few thousand died, while others were forced to convert to Catholicism under the threat of death. Though the violence was condemned by the church in Europe, it did not stop it from occurring. 

So often, we do a surface reading of history and do not learn the implications of certain decisions. For instance, this crusade was called the People’s Crusade, and it included lots of poor farmers and others without resources. The church blessed the people to go forth and commit violence in the name of God but did not provide resources for those people, including food and shelter. In the end, the people felt emboldened to attain necessary resources at any cost. Anyone standing in the way of this larger holy movement was seen as the enemy, including the Jewish community. It wasn’t that the Crusaders were evil, but the religious fervor that was stoked by the church leadership gave the movement a divine blessing, and suddenly it took on a life of its own. 

Christianity, without the Sermon on the Mount and without the image of the self-giving, self-sacrificing Christ, will easily fall into a void where humility, love, compassion, and mercy are forgotten. What emerges from that void is a religion that takes the name of Jesus with absolute no memory of the life of Jesus. In the end, it is nothing more than another civil religion used by those who hunger for power and money.

Keep before me, Holy Source of Life, the teachings and stories of Jesus. There I find the plumb line of faithful living. Amen.