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Fellow Heirs is a podcast for Christians.
We ready? Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fellow Heirs, a podcast for Christians. I'm David, and my guests today are Nick. Can you say hello
Isaac:to Nick? Hello.
David:Isaac. Hello, listeners. And Caleb.
Isaac:Hello, everyone.
David:It's good to have you here, Caleb. Thank you for helping. You won't hear as much from Caleb because they haven't given him a mic yet. Yeah. We're working on that.
David:Coming. So this this this evening and whenever it is when you're listening to this, we're going to be speaking about the Crusades, which was the topic chosen by Nick and Isaac. And I told them that today I was going to take it over and I was going to ask the questions, and they were gonna provide the answers. They've read or listened to a book on the Crusades, a book by some a guy named Stark. I can't remember his first name.
David:Rodney? Rodney. Rodney Stark called God's Battalions. And I had found it a good book. I've I have read about three books on the Crusades and listened to read other novels based on it.
David:And there's some fun novels based on the Crusades as well, historical novels. One is Raymond Ibrahim called Sword and Symmetre. And it's the history of conflict between the Islam and the West. And of course, central to it is the Crusades. Another one is probably the most famous book on the Crusades.
David:It's a dry read. I thought I was giving God's battalions to my brother-in-law earlier this year when I sent him an audio version of a book on the Crusades. But this was the one I sent him, the Crusades by Thomas Asbridge. And he said it was a tough slog to make it through it. So we've read these and we're looking forward to getting going.
David:But let's pray first that God blesses our conversation and uses this for his glory and and how it's listened to. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for the opportunity to be together and to think about things that happened over a thousand years ago and some events. We pray that we'll learn from them and we'll apply their lessons to to this day and that we will honor you. We thank you for our forefathers in the faith who did fight in the Crusades, many of whom, father, were true Christians.
David:And we pray that you will bless their lesson and their lives to us as examples today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. So I I wanna know, gentlemen, if you could tell me if you could tell me what you knew about the Crusades, and what you learned as you were reading these books.
David:And let's start with you, Isaac, and then we'll turn to you, Nick.
Isaac:Sounds good. Sure. I knew nothing. I think I this is funny. Literally, the only thing I had ever really known about the Crusades was I had a Where's Waldo book as a kid, and it had a scene of the Crusades, and it was Christians versus Muslims, and they were going to battle over a wall or something.
David:Which side was Waldo on?
Isaac:Well, Waldo was neutral because he was just in his red and white stripes.
Nick:What side? But it's Waldo.
Isaac:You could assume he was on Christian side. He's wearing red and white. Waldo's I feel
Nick:like Waldo's English. Right? I don't know. Maybe not. But I feel like he so he would be on the he'd be on the Christian side
David:Yeah.
Nick:If he was.
Isaac:Yeah. But we were discussing, we didn't learn about it in school, like, all.
David:Nothing.
Isaac:I learned nothing at school. I don't remember anything I learned in Sunday school about it growing up. I'm sure you've touched on it in your adult Sunday schools at points, but I You didn't know anything until reading this book. Did you find it? For the most part.
David:And what about you, Nick?
Nick:Pretty much the same. I might have learned something in high school, but I genuinely don't remember. I'm not kidding. There was a the only really thing I knew I knew is some kind of conflict that was in The Middle East, but the there was a a meme. The only when somebody would have asked me, like, what's the Crusades?
Nick:The first thing that pops in my head is a meme of, you know, how, like, constellations in the sky, you know, it's like six dots, like, randomly, but people will be like, oh, that's that's Orion's belt or that's something something or things like that. This was a meme that was making fun of that, and it was is saying and it was like a blank picture of the of the stars. It just said, and here we have the Crusades, and it was just like thousands of stars and like, you know, it it was just making fun of the fact that people just pull random scenes. Pathetic. I know.
Nick:That that's what that's Our what's
Isaac:only knowledge going into this was where's Waldo in a meme.
Nick:In a meme. And yep. So that's me, David.
David:That's that's not bad because because honestly, probably, you know a lot more than most people having read the book, and you're you haven't been infected by the the thinking about the Crusades that has has gone from being proud of them to being ashamed of them. I was growing up living in near near Wheaton, Illinois, Wheaton College, its mascot and the name of its teams were what? Crusaders? The Crusaders.
Nick:You know? There's a team around here named that.
David:Yeah. Well, they still called that?
Nick:I don't know that for
David:sure, but maybe not. At some point in the last thirty years, Wheaton changed the name of its team that had been around for a century because they were embarrassed about the Crusades. And that's been generally, I think, the Christian view. What in in terms of your reading of the Crusades, what is it that strikes you as being the the cause of the Crusades? What did they come out of?
David:And let's let's be clear that the Crusades were or at least six, maybe it depends on there were many Crusades at points. So how you number them. But let's say six major battles, wars that took place over a period of about a hundred ninety some years, almost two hundred years between 10/1096. '96 and December. Right?
David:Right. So that's what we're speaking about. What were were the precipitating factors as you understand it? Well, the the call to action was made by the pope at the time.
Nick:K. Yep. He's that's what the book starts with. Pope Urban the second. Right?
David:Yeah. That's right. A call to action.
Nick:And he's asking them because of the this is for the first Crusade, but he's asking them because of the reports that he's heard about the treatment of Christians by Muslims. The Muslims who have taken
David:And actually, you remember about he he got a letter.
Nick:Yes. He got a From
David:emperor Komeneus, wasn't it? I think it was emperor Kommenius. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. Alexei Alexei Urban had arranged the gathering in response to a letter from this is from the book, God's Battalions. Arranged a response to a letter from Alexius Comeny. Yeah. Whatever you said.
David:Alexius Comeny. Yeah.
Nick:Emperor of Byzantium, who had written from his embattled capital of Constantinople to the count of Flanders requesting that he and his fellow Christians send forces to help the Byzantines repel the Seljuk Turks.
David:So this is a this is let me give a little bit of background to that. This is a kind of a momentous event because just fifty years earlier, there had been a major divide between East and the West, between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Catholicism, which became known as Eastern Orthodoxy, with both sides anathematizing, excommunicating the other. And that's dated October is dated as the the period where Christianity had its first big divide, the second being the Reformation. And and so forty some years on from that, the the emperor who has real sway over the church and his lands in Byzantium, the eastern capital of the Roman Empire established as the eastern capital by Constantine. It was it was called Constantinople.
Isaac:Mhmm. Which is modern day Istanbul.
David:Modern day Istanbul. The emperor there, who is now a part of the Eastern Catholic church, not part of the Roman Catholic church, asks the Roman Catholic head, the pope, because there's no emperor left really in the in the West. There's the Holy Roman Empire, that's as close as you get. But there are Franks. There are Germans who also have their emperors in Europe, and so they're all under the pope.
David:So he asks them to come and help him. Why does he ask them to come and help?
Isaac:Well, they're under oppression by the Muslims at that time.
David:Right. The Seljuk Turks.
Nick:The Seljuk Turks. Right.
David:Right. Are invading. And what does the emperor what does the pope do?
Isaac:He assembles an army to the best visibility and makes a very public call to come and defend the Holy Land.
Nick:He asks a bunch of other, what is it, bishops, too? Like, he gathers them all. He sends
David:Gathers like a a council. It's not an official council, I think. Right?
Nick:Right. And it's that he gathers so a gathering of bishops and clergy. This is a a painting of it in the book, which is the day before he speaks to, like, a massive crowd.
David:In France. He's up where is he in? He's in France. Right?
Nick:In France. He's in Clermont.
David:He's Clermont. He's not in he's not in Italy. Right. He's gone up there to to do this. Right?
Nick:Up into France.
David:Up into France. Why has he gone up into I don't remember. Do you know? I think there's a reason that he was up there. I'm not sure.
David:I don't remember specifically. Maybe because he needs the the kings of that area that area, that region.
Isaac:Well, entire Crusades were financially backed by the royals in that area. Right?
David:Yeah. Which principal royals? Do you mean
Nick:the knights? Is that what you're talking about? The principal
David:do which, like, what countries today would we say sent?
Nick:Oh, Germany, France England. England.
David:Yeah. Germany, France, and England.
Nick:Italy? Towards the end?
David:Be the pope, probably. Yeah. Maybe. Okay. The holy Roman emperor was sort of German, but also I think there were some German princes who came and the Holy Roman Emperor gave some gave money for it.
David:Holy Roman Emperor at that point would be like Austria, Germany, down into the, you know, Switzerland, that area of Europe. So he he he calls them, and what what do they adopt as their sign? Do you remember?
Isaac:The cross.
David:Yeah. And what do they do?
Isaac:Many of them have crosses in their hand as he makes the speech, and they begin to sew it onto their Under
Nick:their chest. Uniforms.
David:Right. As a sign of their commitment to the Crusades. Mhmm.
Nick:Yeah. I'm trying to find the part in here, but it says that after he's yeah. It says right here, now shouts of God wills it, began to spread through the crowd, and men began to cut up cloaks and other pieces of cloth to make crosses and sew them against their chests. Everyone agreed that the next year they would set up for
David:the holy land, and they did. Deusvult, d e u s v u l t. Right?
Nick:Well, this this is it's spelled that way.
David:A d u. Le volt. Le volt. Okay. God wills it.
David:God wills it. But it became like, I think, a rallying cry, didn't it, for the whole? God wills it. I don't remember that specifically. Okay.
David:Perhaps. Maybe.
Isaac:The cross has at least became a sign
David:Cross of became a sign. Right. So much so that a crusader was referred to as taking the cross. Someone who who took up the cross was someone who had promised that they would go on crusade. And it was like a religious act.
David:Did the Pope promise anything
Nick:to those salvation? Yeah. Salvation, forgiveness of sins. That was one of the things I was hoping to talk about. There's a lot of, like because there were talks in the book of, like, how the knights that were sent were often terrible people or murderers, and they would they were told, like, hey, if you go, you're gonna be forgiven and also you'll be given salvation.
Nick:But I think he says in the beginning too, something like, you know, if you die, you'll be with the Lord or something like that. Like, you're gonna die, and you're gonna if you die, you'll be with Christ,
David:and if you don't die Now are you guys aware of what what they're confronting with this? What the the Muslim equivalent is?
Isaac:The Muslim equivalent to what? I don't understand
David:what promise that he's making to those who go and fight. Okay. A little bit of history here.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
David:Since Muhammad in June, the the the Arabs and then the Seljuks, the the religion spreads beyond the Arabs in modern day Saudi Arabia. It it moves beyond them, goes into the Seljuk Turks and all. But ever since Muhammad, Muhammad was a raiding warrior and all his followers were raiding warriors.
Isaac:Right.
David:And they had been attacking they had been attacking to the West and the North for centuries by this time.
Nick:Right? Yeah. Because it explains, like, the guy who writes the or in the book, he sets up, you know, what is the what were the precursor events that led to this, and he explained, like, which I had never known, but he had explained how
David:Explain it because people probably don't know.
Nick:Yeah. It's just he goes through he goes through Here's page 11. So he goes through all of the countries that are taken, that the Muslims go through and conquer. So there's Persia, There's places in The Holy Land. There's Egypt.
Nick:There's North Africa, and then eventually, get into Spain. There's a ton of islands that are taken. These are all overtaken by Muslims
David:before a crusade.
Nick:Right. Before a thousand eighty, so leading up to the Crusades. Sicily and Southern Italy. I mean, there's a ton of places that I I was like, wow. This is places today, we know only as, you know, Roman Catholic and Western.
Nick:They're Western countries. Mhmm. You know? But but he's explaining, like, actually, they had these all conquered before thousand AD, and I had no idea. A lot of, like, big islands, Cyprus roads Malta.
Nick:Crete, Malta. Yep. Significantly says, were significant losses for the West. So he explains at the very beginning how North Africa, you know, Spain like I said, Spain.
David:Burbers in North Africa Yep. Then moving all the way through Libya into Morocco, that region.
Isaac:Yep. Which it's important to talk about the circumstances heading into the Crusades, because that's one of the biggest misconceptions about the Crusades today from what I've read and listened to in the last couple weeks is, like, people think Christians were entirely unjustified in their efforts, and it was an an attempt at colonization. But that's completely taking it out of context because of the oppression and evil that the Muslims had committed in that region for so long.
David:It's there's just no way to to accept that explanation. It was not in the you know, that that that even in the liberal historical, you know, circles that that these are kinds, you know, younger sons. The theory was that these were younger sons of nobles who weren't going to inherit lands, and so they wanted to grab their own lands.
Nick:They needed to find places to get.
David:That that has been discredited. It's just a joke, that idea. But it's a kind of anti Christian joke, the kind of thing you get when everything that Christians do is attributed to base motives. Yeah. So so the battles that that go on before the the first Crusade, what are the important battles?
David:Did you read about any of them?
Isaac:Before the first Crusade.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. There was one that they had come all the way up into into Europe, and there was there's do you guys remember this? There was a section where he says, like he's quoting another historian, and he says, If that battle had not been lost by the Muslims
David:There is. We'll come to that in a moment.
Nick:Okay? Okay. That's one of them. Okay. Because it's there so yeah.
Nick:It's fascinating. I'm trying to think of anything specific, but
David:Well Yeah. There maybe one of the most the most significant battles that took place was a battle that took place in Yarmouk. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes.
David:August 636. Right. When the Byzantine forces in the region of Jerusalem went did battle. This is shortly after Muhammad. I mean, this is in the same century.
Nick:Yeah. It was yeah. Same. Yep.
David:And at that point, there were Christian Arabs. Now it's we don't think of there as being, but there were there was a Christian Arab force. There was a Muslim Arab force, and there was the Byzantine force.
Isaac:Mhmm.
David:And the question was, which side would the Christian Arabs join their own countrymen or their own religion? You know? And the battle took place. There was bad weather. The Byzantine army was capable of fighting and fighting well.
David:But eventually, days of battle, they were in a I think it was in a valley or something. And the Muslims attacked at night and there was a sandstorm and they couldn't see and they were not used to sand, didn't know how to protect themselves. And the Muslims just totally annihilated at the end, the Byzantine army after days of back and forth. And And that set the course of the Muslim expansion into modern day Turkey, into the Byzantine Empire. So that by the time that the pope is asking, as has been asked by Commenius for help, the Muslims are on the door of Constantinople.
David:All right. So they're going that way. But at the same time, as you mentioned, the Muslim forces have also gone through North Africa. They've gone up and they have invaded what was known as Iberia or Spain. And they're the Moors.
David:Okay? And so the Muslims have conquered Spain. They continue moving up north from Spain. Okay? And the battle that you were talking about was the battle do you remember the name of it?
Nick:Yeah. I'm trying to find it right now. There was Rodrigo, but he drowned. Yeah. That's that's
David:the the battle took place in July, and it's the battle of Tours or Paudier. Yes. Paudier? That's right. Okay.
David:And it was the Muslims came against a French force. Right. And the story of that battle is an amazing one. The Muslims
Nick:Battle of Tours or Poitures? Poitures. Yeah.
David:Right. Right. Yep. I've got it. You got that?
David:Mhmm. And the leader of the of the French force, the Franks, was a guy named Charles Martel. You know what Martel means? I think he got the name of the battle.
Isaac:I don't
Nick:I'm trying to find it, but what is it, David? I'm looking for it.
David:I think it means hammer. It was Charles the hammer.
Isaac:Ah, okay. Okay.
David:One of the great war names, you know, the hammer. And he has his Frank his Frankish soldiers up, and they're coming up to invade. The French take high ground. The Moors are attacking beyond the region. They're trying to get into France from Spain.
David:And the Moors have horses. And what they do is they come in and dashing raids on the horses, and they approach a line, and then they try and break through. And having broken them, they flank them and come at them from behind. Right. And that usually leads to turmoil and to running by the forces that have been penetrated.
David:Martell has trained the Franks how to use a battalion, sort of a shield wall. Yeah. And so And the Arabs have never come across something as effective as it's kind of like the old Roman approach. And so they come up and they attack and the shield doesn't flinch. Right.
David:And then as the Arabs veer away on their horses, they stab at the knees and the stomachs of the horses.
Isaac:And
David:then they advance a couple steps. And then the Arabs come back on the horses and they attack and they they don't yield. And then they advance, and they stab them and kill them some more, and then they advance a few steps. And by the end of that battle, the advance, that's the high watermark of the Muslims in Europe. Right.
David:They never come close to that again. Right. It's like Gettysburg with the Confederacy.
Nick:Yeah. And it's I wanted to read this. It says, many historians have regarded the victory at Tours Boites as crucial to the survival of Western civilization. Edward Gibbon supposed that had the Muslims won at Tours, they would soon have occupied the confines of Poland and the highlands of Scotland, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames or Thames, however you
David:say it.
Nick:Yeah. Perhaps interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammad. Subsequently, many Western historians have taken a similar view of the battle as a major historical turning point. Indeed, the German military historian, Hans Delbruck, wrote that there was no more important battle in world history. That stuck out to me because I had no idea.
Isaac:Close one.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. But I had no idea that any of this you know, in my head, I'm thinking, like, Europe has always been Europe, you know? Mhmm. It's like existed without any sort of Muslim influence for since it began.
Nick:That's in
David:my mind. So let me read about the Muslims way of doing war. Early Christian and Muslim sources attribute I'm reading from Sword and Symmetre. Attribute the initial Islamic conquest to the use of cunning and terrorism. The chronicle of July says that the Saracens influenced by their leader, Mohammed, conquered and devastated Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia more by stealth than manliness, and not so much by open invasions as by persisting in stealthy raids.
David:Thus, with cleverness and deceit, and not by manliness, they attacked all of the adjacent cities of the empire. Another version of the Chronicle cites Arab quote unquote trickery, cunning, and fraud rather than power. Similarly, in the context of discussing Muhammad's boast, and this is the boast, I have been made victorious with terror. That's what Muhammad said. Ibn Khaldun says, terror in the hearts of their enemies was why there were so many routes during the Muslim conquest.
David:Tells a story of the Muslims winning a battle and then taking captive and killing him and and then throwing him in a pot and eating the pot. And according to the Muslims, they had actually killed a calf or some kind of cow or something and had thrown it in the in the pot. And they weren't really eating the person they had just killed. But some people think, no. The Muslims just told that out of embarrassment.
David:You know? They really did eat them. And then they let all the other people see them eating the people they had conquered, they spread terror everywhere. The Christians went back and said they eat their foes. It was the kind of thing that were just done.
David:Okay, so we have this series of raids that had gone on for years. What happened during those raids?
Nick:I mean, there was a lot of terrible work. I mean,
David:it's Okay. What was murder and Yeah. Okay. That's true. Yeah.
David:But what was the Muslim modus operandi and way of making money in these raids?
Nick:Slaves. Slaves.
David:Yeah. They say 4,000,000 Europeans were taken as slaves during those centuries. That is a huge number. Yeah. In fact, if you've read about Ireland, you know that the Muslims would come up to Ireland and raid it, and the Irish moved inland.
David:I've seen maps of this era and how all the coastal cities were sort of the the people moved away from the coasts and up to the north because they were trying to escape the constant Muslim raids and the taking of captives.
Nick:That's crazy. If I remember correctly, maybe it was a maybe it was a podcast that I listened to recently that Isaac sent me on that it was the author of that book talking, but it could have been I think it was in this book, but he explained there was a part where the guy said that the Muslims actually bought slaves from the Vikings, like the Vikings would
David:That's get later, but yeah.
Nick:Okay. I thought that was in the book. They they would get slaves from those northern areas, and then the Vikings would sell them to the Muslims.
David:Yeah. But, so slavery. So slavery, there was just all sorts of and and then as well, the the Muslims would interfere with those who would go on pilgrimage. Remember, that was another major reason that people wanted to go ever since Constantine became a Christian. Constantine's mother went down to Jerusalem and established a number of things that were, you know, permanent places for Like historical markers or like churches and stuff.
David:Right?
Nick:She kinda like set it up
David:and initiated the thing. Know, almost a millennium people would would go there and visit these areas. Yeah. Christians would go on, and it would be a pilgrimage, and they'd under Catholic theology, it would be one of the ways of earning. Right.
David:You know, the pope would promise them something if they went on pilgrimage.
Nick:Yeah. They want. There's one guy in the book that was notorious. I think he had committed murders in the cast and the and the pope told him, you need to make four pilgrimages to take care of those. Yeah.
Nick:Caleb's nodding. He remembers that guy. Yeah. So, yeah, it was some it was a way to, like, atone for sins as well.
David:Okay. So the the promise to the Crusaders, now having talked about what what preceded, the promise to the Crusaders was, as you said, life. Mhmm. What was the promise to the Muslims for fighting? What was the famous promise?
David:Mohammed told them what? If you don't fight and you're a coward, you'll go to the deepest hell and be tortured beyond anyone else. But if you do fight and you die
Nick:in battle, what? Isn't there something to do with harems
David:or something like that? Hauris, h o u r I s. I don't know the pronunciation. Yeah. You remember that?
David:Which is what? It is the celestial virgins. Right. Beautiful beyond comparison. Right.
David:And and the promise was that they would die, and they would immediately go up into the embrace of a 100 celestial versions. Was it 40 or a 100, some ridiculous number?
Nick:Yeah.
David:And so was reading accounts in these books of Muslims watching a fellow Muslims die and reaching up. And they would say, I saw them reaching and grabbing the hand of a celestial one of their celestial virgins, and they're going to their joy. Pope Leo Leo. Now Muhammad wrote to to the to Heraclius, who was the Byzantine emperor, and urged him to join him. Leo responded with his own letter, the first known Byzantine text with which refutes Islam.
David:This is in the six hundreds, and it shows knowledge of the subject much wider than that of other contemporary polemicists. And that Leo, who was as zealous in his Christian faith as Omar, was in his refuted Islam on the basis of the Christian gospel as well as on the basis of the Quran. Standard Christian shock at the incredulity of the Arabs for believing Muhammad whose tremendous imposture. In other words, he was just a great impostor. Yeah.
David:Should be self evident. Was a prophet. Was only one of the frank emperor's many criticisms. He says, nor do I wish to pass over in silence the abominable authorization given you by your legislator, Muhammad, to have with your wives a commerce that he has compared, I am ashamed to say, to the tilling of fields. Quran.
David:He quotes the Quran. As a consequence of this license, a goodly number of you have contracted the habit of multiplying their commerce, in other words, sex with women, as if it were a question of tilling fields. Nor can I forget the chastity of your prophet and the manner full of artifice whereby he succeeded in seducing the woman Zeta? Of all these abominations, the worst is that of accusing God of being the originator of all these filthy acts, which fact has doubtless been the cause of the introduction among your compatriots of this disgusting law treating women as tilling fields. Is there indeed a worse blasphemy than that of alleging that God is the cause of all this evil?
David:As for paradise, Leo wrote, we Christians do not expect to find their springs of wine, honey or milk. We do not expect to enjoy their sex with women who remain forever virgin for we put no faith in such Philly tales engendered by extreme ignorance and by paganism. But for you who are given up to carnal vices and who have never been known to limit the same, you who prefer your pleasures to any good, it is precisely for that reason that you consider the celestial realm of no account if it is not peopled with women for sex.
Nick:He did not
David:know that. These kinds of things were being said. Yeah. Four hundred years before the Crusades started.
Nick:And that's pretty con what? Condemnatory, I think is the word I'm looking for? Like, he's going he's attacking it.
David:Yeah. Okay. So would you run us through the Crusades now? Just Here, hold me I'm gonna give you this, and you can just this is a list of the Crusades, okay? Oh, great.
David:Okay. Just go through this and sort of explain to the people the various Crusades, what they were characterized by. Do you remember the the People's Crusade?
Nick:Yeah. The People's Crusade was by Peter the Hermit. Peter the Hermit.
David:He actually is a factor in the siege of Antioch. It's crazy, but he begins by doing what?
Nick:I mean, he goes throughout well, I can't remember what countries.
David:It's after the pope has called for people to take Right. Up the Responding to Comenius. He says, okay, we're gonna go. And there's been this vast outpouring of people saying, Okay, we're gonna take up the cross. We're gonna go and fight for the glory of Christ and for the relief of other Christians.
Nick:Yeah, because it's not Well, that's called the People's Crusade, right, because it's not like knights. It's not upper class people.
David:It was peasants, serfs,
Nick:you know? Right. Right.
David:And he was this wandering hermit. And what happened?
Nick:Didn't most of them get wiped out?
David:They got they got slaughtered.
Nick:Yeah.
David:You know, they they got a a fair ways, and then they encountered, and they were slaughtered. Right. Yes. But Peter, the hermit survived. Mhmm.
David:And then about later that year, the the an actual crusade with knights and warriors goes.
Nick:Mhmm. Right. And that's the when that was called something else.
David:The first Crusade, right?
Nick:Isn't it I thought there was a
Isaac:different name for the siege of Jerusalem. Maybe so.
David:Well, it began with them moving down. They go down into Constantinople, and then they continue on down. Actually, the People's Crusade made it to Constantinople and the emperor thought, oh, man, these people don't have food. They have no money. They have no and they were just a tremendous burden to the emperor.
David:You know, it wasn't a help at all. But then came the the those who were gonna fight in the first The
Nick:actual yeah. The actual fighters. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Nick:I'm just reading here. So yeah. Godfrey of Bouillon, Beomond. Yeah. Beomond.
Nick:Yeah. Remember. Okay. Yeah. Raymond.
Nick:Bunch of different people. Because there was a lot of different people of nobility that came down and fought the first time. Right.
David:Yeah. And and can do you remember how it happened? Okay. So they get to they get to they get to Turkey, and then they start moving down into what's called the Levant, which is the area on the Eastern Edge of the Mediterranean where Israel is. Right?
David:And and which would be modern day, you know, like Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, all the way down there. And they and their first real battle is where? Antioch. Antioch, which is famous in the bible for what?
Nick:Place where they were first called Christians.
David:Yeah. Yeah. And it's a it's a patriarch. It's where, you know, there's a center of the the Orthodox church.
Nick:I got it. Yeah. Okay. The Prince's Crusade. So five major groups made up Prince's Crusade.
Nick:Right? And so it was Hugh of Vermindoy Vermindoy, whatever. Yeah. So there's the there's the people's crusade, which was Walter the so there's Peter the hermit who led it, and Walter the penniless.
David:And those are basically around the same time.
Nick:Yes. Yeah. Those guys were the same time. The prince's crusade were Godfrey, Bimon, Raymond, Robert, duke of Normandy, and Hugh of Hermandoahi.
David:And that that's the first crusade which takes place between October Yes. And October. Right. And and they move down into the Levant. Okay?
David:They've been getting prepared, and they're being guided by by the emperor of of Constantinople. And they get into and they encounter Antioch. And what happens? You remember that?
Nick:Yeah. I'm getting to it. Yeah.
David:They have a
Nick:It's a victory. Right? Well They had a siege. They had
David:a siege. They sieged they besieged it from outside, and they almost starved. Remember? Tremendous suffering as they're besieging the city of Antioch. And inside who are the the are the the Muslims, and they besiege it and besiege it.
David:And then finally, what happens?
Nick:Well, I'm well, I was gonna read this part real quick. This is what you were talking about Yeah. When they were suffering. As winter said in, besiegers suffered far more than hunger and disease. They would they suffered far more from hunger and disease than did those besieged within Antioch since they continued to be resupplied.
Nick:Large numbers of the poor, noncombatants with the Crusaders actually starved to death. Obviously, Alexios, who was the emperor of Byzantium at that time Constantinople, could have sent ample supplies by sea, but he did not. Because he was actively like, they showed up at Constantinople and thought he would be fully on board with them.
David:Mhmm.
Nick:But he ended up being
David:was pretty tricksy.
Nick:Pretty antagonist.
David:Yeah. In fact, that happened a fair bit. Right. There were multiple times that The emperor was playing both sides against his middle sort of, you know? He really and there's a variety of emperors during this period.
David:So Antioch's on a mountain and they didn't surround the mountain, and so supplies could come in from the other side of the the range of hills and resupply Antioch. But the the attackers had no supplies, and they were virtually starving to death.
Nick:But eventually, they get in.
David:A There's a trader. Right. A guy who had been forced to convert from, I think, up in the North Of Syria or I don't remember where, but north. And he agreed to let them in. And come in at night at when they're at low ebb in terms of morale and everything and and no food, they're starving.
David:They're and they come in and they conquer the city and there's a a real bloodletting. Right? They it's a massacre. Mhmm.
Nick:Yep. Because there's a lot of Christians in the city as well that help. Help? Yeah. There's a Christian pop this is where upon elements of the Christian population of
David:the city attacked Muslims troops from within while the Crusaders poured into the city. Yeah. I think the Muslims forced Christian men out at the beginning of the of the thing, though.
Nick:Oh, okay.
David:I think they did, but I I'm sure there were others who Sure. Anyway, so so what happens is that the there's the sky opens the gate for them. They go and they take it over and they find there's no food inside because the Muslims at this point haven't been supplied for a while. And they're they're actually starting to starve as well. And and then what happens?
David:You remember the next day, they they they hold the city for a day?
Nick:Yeah. Another army comes, a Muslim army. They they were besieged.
David:And now they're stuck in the city, and 35,000 troops come from another Muslim source with all sorts of supplies, and they're besieging the city, and it's it's even worse than it was when they were outside.
Isaac:There's always a bigger fish.
David:And this is where Peter the hermit, after I don't know how long, it's months, I think, of of them starving in the city, Peter the hermit says what?
Isaac:Yeah. I'm trying to think of Peter the hermit, does he initiate a surprise attack on the army that's
David:He does, but how does he do it? This is the interesting part. He says, I had a vision and a dream.
Nick:Oh, that's right.
David:Remember? I have a vision, and in my vision, I saw the lance of the that was piercing Christ's side.
Nick:Right.
David:The the the soldier stuck in his eye. I saw the lance.
Nick:Right here. Yeah. It says, on June 14, count Peter Bartholomew reported that Saint Andrew had appeared to him in a vision and revealed to him the location of the holy lance, this being the spear used by the Roman soldier to pierce the side of Jesus during the crucifixion. Many of the clergy were skeptical, but several nobles accepted the story and helped Bartholomew dig in the promised spot. This was crazy because it says they dug up a piece of iron that they proclaimed.
Isaac:They did dig it up.
Nick:They dug up a piece of iron. They're like, this is it. Yeah. You think it
Isaac:was it?
David:I don't think so.
Nick:I don't
David:think so. I don't know. What can you say? Yeah. I mean, do you know what happens as a result?
Nick:Because, yeah, it says, they dug up a piece of iron that they proclaimed to indeed be a spearhead, and the news caused excitement throughout the army. With the Lance leading the way, they would certainly be invincible, and incredibly, they were.
David:Yeah. So they they come go out, I think, the next morning or something like that. The next morning, 20,000 starving troops come out of the city, go and attack the the force of 35,000 and route them because they weren't expecting the Christians to come out. Mhmm. So then they move on down and they besiege Jerusalem and they capture Jerusalem and it's rejoicing all through Europe.
David:Yeah. I mean, all of Europe is saying, praise God. Yeah. We did it. We we have preserved this for the Christians.
David:We have avenged the the the honor of Christ. Right? Mhmm. And at that point, there are what are called four Crusader kingdoms that are established. Mhmm.
David:So those are the four Crusader kingdoms that become they get carved out and European princes become the the kings of these kingdoms down in the basically, the region of the Holy Land. Mhmm. And and that continues, and the Muslims are sort of on their back heel, on their back foot, whatever the saying is, for some thirty, forty years after that, maybe fifty years until they started they besieged Edessa. Yep. And Edessa is captured and overthrown in the kingdom of Edessa with its capital.
David:And that news rocks Europe. Yep. It goes out and it rocks Europe. And they say, how have we allowed this to happen? We're allowing this territory that we gained with God's help to go back to the Muslims.
David:And so that was the beginning of the second crusade.
Nick:Yes. Yep. Okay. Yeah.
Isaac:The king of France and the king of Germany took it very personal. Right. And they let they put together the second crusade. And who helped preach that?
David:This is important because this one of the one of the guys who's quoted more by John Calvin than anyone else.
Nick:Are you thinking of Pope Eugene the third?
David:Well, he did it, but he had someone who was who was the abbot
Nick:of Bernard of Clairvaux.
David:And Bernard of Clairvaux, who was a great saint, a great Christian man, okay, became the preacher of this crusade and called on people all through Europe and was extremely effective.
Nick:Yeah. Like, the book talks about how people heard him because he was the one who who pushed for it. They decided to go.
David:He was, like, the the most prominent Christian leader.
Isaac:You said he was more influential than the pope.
David:He was. He was the abbot of the the big, huge French monastery at Clairvaux, and a great preacher and theologian. Just a great and he was thoroughly convinced it was a Christian duty to do this. Now that's whatever you wanna say, that's an that's an interesting It is. You know, what do you make of that?
Nick:I have no idea, man. I I'm like, finishing this book, I thought, you know, because at the end, he kinda goes over he kinda talks about the the the pushback that the Europeans constantly had as the as more and more Crusades started to happen. You know? They kept they would complain that the taxes, the expense of it all. They're fighting a battle that's far away, you know?
Nick:It's cool how many of
Isaac:these Crusades were championed by, like, heroes. Yeah. There was real leaders that arose out of the public, and they just put the rest of the team on their back, and just got In everything the first Crusade, the book kept going back to was Bohemian. Yeah, Bohemian, Bohemian,
Nick:or however you say Bohemian.
Isaac:Right. And they described him as just this chiseled demigod of a man, and then like, everyone wanted to follow him, and he was just a great leader. And then the second crusade was obviously Bernard.
Nick:Mhmm.
David:Though, what happened in the second crusade? They lost. Didn't get to Jerusalem. They didn't get it. And Bernard was very, very upset and defensive about it.
David:You know, couldn't figure out why God had not given them the victory.
Isaac:Mhmm.
David:So that was November. Then the third crusade, alright, is November of almost a hundred years after the first crusade. And this is where maybe some of the most famous people in all the Crusades are engaged in in the battle. Alright? And who's the who is the famous leader of that Crusade?
David:One of the famous
Isaac:Richard the Lionheart?
David:Yeah. Yeah.
Isaac:Or Richard Lionheart. Right? Right?
David:Saladin had recaptured Jerusalem by this time. Okay? Yeah. And Richard the first, Philip the second of France, and Frederick Barbarossa led it. Frederick is the Holy Roman Emperor, and he actually drowns on And so the And it kills the And so the German army the Germans.
David:Right. The German army which was gonna be the biggest part of this
Nick:They're a massive they just fall apart and
David:they die. Apart, and they never make it to the Holy Land. Right. So it's the French and the English under Philip and Richard. Okay?
David:And do you remember what happens with with Richard? But maybe maybe it's not in the book that you read. So let me just tell you. Yeah. Richard and Saladin, who was a very noble leader of the in this period, there were the just awful Muslims, and there were some that were more noble.
David:Richard and Saladin fight against each other, and Richard is lionhearted. You know? He and and they basically came to a a standoff. They weren't neither one was able to win. At Arsuf, Richard won a rare pitch battle, not just a skirmish against Saladin's forces.
David:But then Richard fell ill, and it's reported that Saladin sent him fruit and ice to get better. Richard's horse was killed in battle at one point, and Saladin sent him two replacement horses saying no great king should fight on foot. They the two never met in person, but the war did end in a negotiated treaty allowing Christians access to Jerusalem. And the mutual respect between the two of them became kind of a legend both in Christian and Muslim chronicles of the war. Mhmm.
David:Alright. One further thing to mention before we get to to lessons. The fourth crusade, twelve o four, is notorious because the the crusade was meant to go down to Egypt. Yeah. But it got diverted.
Nick:This was one of the funnier ones because they ended up it says right here, because the Fourth Crusade culminated in the Crusaders sacking Constantinople, so ended
Isaac:up, yeah, getting into Constantinople. They wanted to fight.
David:Yeah. Actually, it's it's kinda tragic because they owed the Venetians for getting
Nick:Ton of money. Right?
David:A ton of money for getting them for the ships Yep. That carried them. And because they were deep in debt, they agreed to help the Venetians settle scores. So they first sacked a Christian city that was opposed to the Venetian Zara. Yeah.
David:And then they got pulled into a dispute over who should be emperor in Byzantine in Constantinople, who should be the Byzantine emperor. And that ended with them storming and brutally sacking Constantinople, the largest Christian city in the world, with with incredible brutality, raping, pillaging. And that that battle and that crusade ended really any hope of the two of the Eastern Christians and the the Romans reunite. They did establish they took the city over and they established a Latin a Latin church, and they gave it to the pope, but the pope was never able to keep control, and and it went back into the hands of the Eastern Orthodox and the the the Byzantines. Mhmm.
David:But it was just a terrible, terrible mess of a thing. Yep. Okay. So, alright, now we come to the today, and we say, is it right? Was it right to fight these battles and these these wars?
David:And if so, what made it right? Were the was the offer of the pope of salvation to those? We need to remember. Some people will have heard criticism of these Crusades. They'll say, oh, they they were going they were trying to colonize or trying to do this or that.
David:The the reason that no good historian anymore believes that is that it's because historians have found evidence that those who went very often were beggared by doing it. They they lost everything. They risked their lives. They died. They came back and faced problems in their lands with rebellions that occurred during their long absence.
David:It was not a thing that was helping those who went. Mhmm. So there's no question, but that there was some greater purpose in mind than just getting money in lands because they weren't getting monies in lands and they didn't for two hundred years, yet they still kept going.
Nick:Yeah, which was one of the mind boggling things in it, because it was like, alright, let's do another one. Let's do another one. Let's do another one. People went. Yeah, yeah.
Nick:They got up and went.
Isaac:Well, it's funny, because what did it say about the people that were going each time? It said they were all family.
Nick:Oh, yeah. Especially in the first Crusade, a lot of them were family members.
David:Related, or sort of people who were tied to them by their being princes of an area.
Isaac:Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't just the entire general public that went.
Isaac:It was certain families that were very convicted to follow what the pope was saying.
Nick:Right. I mean, my first thought, David, I don't know what you think about this, but is that is the hey. There are these really terrible things going on. People are suffering. People are dying.
Nick:Over here, we need to go help them, or at least we need to try and be an a it just makes me think of World War two and the Nazis and Germany, really. And, you know, I think there's similarities with the soldiers who left America, came back, and they didn't necessarily have anything. You know, they left and came back, and their lives were not particularly set up for them. And they went over and died. But that's my first thought.
Nick:It's like that It's that's the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of mustering up people to go to the Crusade, or to go to this area of land to as the First Crusade or the Second Crusade or what have you. I don't know. I'm struggling with
Isaac:I mean, you put if you put yourself in their shoes, it's like, okay. You have this area that's separated geographically that is being oppressed, and there's terrible things and violence going on there, and it's being run by the Muslims. Let's go take it over and put Christians in charge of that area.
Nick:Especially in an area where Christianity originated.
David:Let's let's say you were a young nobleman back then, but with your Christian faith of today, you know, do you think you'd have gone on a crusade?
Nick:I think I probably would have found reason to stay, to be honest. I think
Isaac:the pope was the church back then, and if church authority told me to go on a crusade, I would.
David:What do you think, Nick?
Nick:I mean, I I hear what Isaac just said. I'm like, yeah, that's true also. Yeah. If if the if the main authority of the entire reason you were alive, you know, the faith that you followed said, we should do this, I'd probably feel obligated or at least some sort of draw to do so.
David:So you think you might have at least considered going?
Nick:Probably. At the time.
David:Yep. You know that the the primary defenders in America or supporters, I should say, of of Israel are are the evangelical Christians. There's no group that's more firmly in support of Israel in The United States and has been for ever since the Jews regained that land and evangelical fundamentalist Christians in America. Right?
Nick:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. We talked about that before with you.
David:We've talked about that. Why do you think that evangelicals have supported Israel in in Israel in their in their wars and their battles?
Nick:I mean, I think back to when we talked about it, and my whole thought is they're Jews. Jews are, you know, descendants of Abraham. They're people who we associate
Isaac:So are the Muslims.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. True. But they're people who we associate as as being God's chosen or the we see them as God's chosen people. Right?
Nick:And so we naturally have, like, a positive connotation to them.
David:Is there a negative motivation as well for our support of Israel?
Isaac:I'm probably wrong in this thing. I don't know. I'm I always like, half the Bible happens in Jerusalem. Okay, yeah, yeah. And so that city is important to us as Christians.
David:Yeah. It's as important today almost as it was back in the Crusades, right?
Isaac:Yeah. And so it's terrible to see that in the hands of, like, and be completely being run by people who worship the devil.
Nick:Well, people who say that when you die, you're gonna have celestial virgins.
David:So we're willing to have the Jews fight and we support them. Right? To keep it out of Muslim hands. Yes. Yeah.
David:Is that true? You know? And actually, like then, the the Muslims and the Christians who lived there are being kicked out by forces by Jewish people moving in from all over the diaspora, the the dispersion of Jews, you know, into that region to reclaim Jerusalem, but not for Christ, are they?
Nick:The Jew no. Because they don't accept Christ.
David:But we're we're supporting them, and the Christians in America have supported them because we're opposed to the Muslims. Right. Mhmm. Don't you think that's a part of it?
Isaac:Yeah. It's like the common enemy is maybe more important than a common goal in keeping it.
David:Well, surrounded love for the Jews. It's also a Yeah. Know, an opposition to Right. Islam. Right?
Nick:Because they're surrounded by it in that region. Are we right to feel that way? I think so. I mean, my initial inclination was to say yes.
David:What do you think?
Isaac:I think I mean,
David:the
Isaac:Jews yeah. I think we're right to
David:think that
Nick:way. K.
David:Let let me ask a different question. Is it ever permissible to oppose Islam by opposing Islamic people? In other words, all through Europe right now, nations are you know, you you read about the the pride parade in in Berlin. Yeah. And the the guy from Beirut, the Muslim from Beirut.
Nick:Didn't he say he was from ISIS? Was
David:just Yeah. He was from Lebanon, I mean, but he had he had tried to join ISIS. Right. Yeah. He was who who went into it.
David:And these kinds of things are happening all over Europe. Is it appropriate to say that we're gonna fight Islam by fighting Islamic people and trying to keep them out and whether it's with guns and swords, you know, or Would you say it's What do you think?
Isaac:Well, wouldn't you say it's way less geographical now? Because Muslims are like every other house here in America, and then like
Nick:Well, the thing you had said, I mean, this guy who wrote Sword and Scimitar, right, he had talked about how when Muslims come into an area, it's something that's like a slow process, and they and they try to victimize themselves. And then over time, as they like, they they literally said there was one guy who literally said well, I can't remember if he was one of the major major guys in Islam that was like, well, we're we're just gonna outbreed them. Yeah. Which is what happens. They have a lot of children.
Isaac:Well, it's true, but, like, you see that in some cities. Like, obviously, Dearborn Dearborn. Is all Muslim. But, like, Sylvania, where I grew up, it's just a growing number of Muslims, and they're just perfectly intermixed with our people, with Christians.
Nick:Kevin, I don't think they're marrying and having kids with those
Isaac:You don't you don't think they're marrying and having kids with
Nick:those think people? People. So. I mean, have you seen it?
Isaac:It's this it's probably discouraged by their parents, but I think it does happen
Nick:a intermingle, but they don't fully assimilate.
David:Have you seen how many blonde
Nick:hair women
David:are wearing the head covering, hijab? Have you seen that?
Isaac:No. I have seen it.
David:Yeah. I see it more and more.
Isaac:Yeah. Just completely white people that are wearing a hijab. Yeah. Yeah.
David:And, you know, when that's going on, probably there's a a marriage between someone from the Middle East and, you know, is this something we only oppose spiritually? Is this something, you know, that we we go and evangelize and we accept and say God's given us an opportunity to witness to the Muslims, or do we seek to protect our status as Christians, the the place of Christianity in in American life by opposing it, whether it's by sword like these guys did or by law or by restricting of immigration. What what do you think?
Nick:Well, we know that God will never put us in a situation where we have to sin to get out of a scenario. So I don't
David:Will God never put us in a situation where we have to sin to get out of it?
Isaac:I mean, war is full of sin.
Nick:That's true, but I'm thinking, like, in my neighborhood. Like, I'm not gonna violently, you know, protect my family from Muslims if they're just living. I don't know. I that's what I'm trying to say.
David:Yeah. I agree. The point I'm making is that I think very often we go down a road and we end up in a a blind alley where there's no exit but sin. Now we made a mistake to go down that alley. Yeah.
David:You know what I mean? Was sin that led us down there. But you think about the Israelites who had married, intermarried with foreign people. God says, I hate divorce. You know?
David:I hate divorce, but Ezra says
Nick:Right. Ezra makes them
David:Separate from these women. You know? And so they've gone down a sinful avenue, and there's no good way out. And they have to decide, you know, I I think these are the kinds of things we face today. There's no we've we've made some major mistakes.
David:We've made some we've been a really wicked nation, and there's probably not gonna be a way out that doesn't involve sin of some kind.
Nick:See what you're saying?
David:You know what I mean?
Isaac:Yeah. What are you thinking, Isaac? Well, I'm just thinking back to your original question that you asked, like, two minutes ago. Is it spiritual, or is there a physical side of it too? And I think in America, I'm not gonna, I would feel like we shouldn't be physically fighting the Muslims here in America.
David:I feel
Nick:like it's not at that point yet. I that, I don't know. That's what I think.
David:Would it ever be right to fight anyone for the sake of God? Let's let's go beyond it because right now we're facing the question, it's not the Muslims. It's the but they're making common cause. Okay? And I think it's the the dynamic of evil that evil finally will join hands with evil.
David:Yeah. You you understand this? Liberalism is all about women's rights until it confronts Islam and then suddenly it becomes it lays down. Right? And so, you know, let's forget about the angle of Islam and let's think about where there is conflict in The United States today, and increasingly, we're seeing the potential for conflict as a nation.
Isaac:Yeah. The potential for conflict. Like Nick said, I don't know that we're there yet, because if you look at the time leading up to the Crusades, there was murders and sieges happening and all this stuff. As far as I can tell, the Muslims in America right now are just expanding and just existing, but they're not creating war against us.
David:Okay. We're not we don't need to talk about we don't need to talk about war. What we need to talk about, because it's a a continuum from that goes all the way that goes all the way from our saying we're gonna take over the the levers of government to actual war.
Isaac:Right.
David:You understand what I'm saying? That's a continuum of availing ourselves of the powers of of the world to accomplish the works that we think are the works of God.
Nick:Okay. Where do we go from here then? I mean
David:What do you think? I mean, I'm
Nick:just thinking what you said about governments and and, like, even, you know, you've got mom Donnie in New York that the more like, I remember when he got elected that I was like, oh, it's you know, I I kind of expected that to happen. I wasn't really surprised by it. I wasn't really thought that it was a big deal.
David:A little bit like him. Yeah. Alright. But,
Nick:like, as time has gone on, I've just thought more and more, like, well, actually, that's a big deal. It is a big deal. Like, that's a really big problem.
Isaac:He's probably the most influential Muslim right now.
Nick:In America. I mean, he's in the he's in the That's what
David:I'm saying.
Nick:The number one city in America. He's the mayor, which is when he got elected, I didn't think it was a big deal, but now, the more I've thought about it, and then especially in regards to this book, the more I've been like
Isaac:people treat what he says with more weight, and give more attention to his words than any governor I can think of. He's a very public voice in seems a
David:very, very powerful guy.
Nick:Yeah.
David:I I read that the Democratic Socialists, as part of their formal agenda, have a whole bunch of things they wanna do, one of which is the abolishment of the senate. And I I haven't been able to find out if that's actually the case, but where I think I read it in New York Times. So, you know, that they have an agenda. Right. You know, do we as Christians have an agenda for our nation?
David:That's a political agenda. Certainly, I think most Christians would say we do, and that's why this evangelicals have supported Trump, president Trump.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, we wanna see Christians wanna see Christian laws and principles.
David:And is that how we win?
Nick:I mean, I was thinking of Doug Wilson.
David:Crusades. You know? Yeah. Do we win by is this how Christ
Isaac:won, and is this how his disciples won? I think we win more through God working and through revival than we do through laws, but it's the most tangible step I can think of that we can take. Is what? Is Christian laws.
David:Christian laws? Yeah. Is that the most tangible?
Nick:I mean, that's what I'm saying, it feels like a silver soap, because now it feels like we're getting into Christian nationalism again, which is like, let's
David:make We talked about that.
Nick:We've talked about. I'm just trying to say, like That
David:is ultimately the question, though. You know? What is our role? One of the things to remember about the Crusades is that the pope called for it, but he didn't lead it, did he? No.
David:In fact, after saying this needs to happen, who took over?
Isaac:The royal the
David:The royals. You know, the the actual political leaders of those countries. Yeah. Is it more legitimate if the political leaders do this? God says he's given the power of the sword to the government.
David:You know? Right. Is that does that change our perspective on this?
Nick:Because the political leaders are doing the the actual work of it? Right.
Isaac:If there was some kind of situation where the influential Christian leaders in our country told the political leaders what to do, and they listened, that would be similar to what happened in the Crusades.
Nick:Yeah. But it still feels like almost like pharisaical. Like, you do the thing I'm calling you to do, but I'm not gonna do it. I don't know.
David:You know, I I I look at it and I think I'm glad probably that the the political leaders fought the Crusades, at least some of them, but I I would not want the church leading the Crusades. Why? Do you under well, it seems to me that Jesus had the chance to take over Jerusalem on his march in. I mean, if anyone could have taken over Jerusalem and established a kingdom, it was Christ.
Nick:That's what the Jews wanted.
David:It's what they wanted, and it's what Paul, you know, Paul said, I'm I'm just he never fought the battles politically. And I Mhmm. I wonder if we get into the mud and become no better than just a participant in a war. If we're as Christians calling for war, calling for We all look at the American revolution and say, wasn't that great? We just celebrated it a couple months, a couple weeks ago.
David:Right? Yeah. Do you think you'd have been a Tory or a revolutionary in the the 1776 era?
Nick:Nick? Pass it to me. How dare you? I mean, like, my my red, white, and blue heart wants to say, yeah, I'd be a rebel. But, like, I don't know.
Nick:I you know, you you think back in that time, or I don't know. What might I I would be a rebel. So You think so?
David:Yeah.
Isaac:So keep
David:going. Don't you
Nick:be? I want to think that I would would be a rebel also, and but I honestly don't know. You would be conflicted. That's how I am right now. So
David:Yeah. You know, you'd be conflicted. I think a lot of Christians back then were terribly conflicted. Yeah. You know?
Nick:And my question then is like, okay. So, yeah, if we if we have the examples of Jesus and Paul who did not pursue political power, but were extremely influential, yeah, those are examples. But and I'm not saying deviate from that, but what what do you do when we do see Mamdani in New York City, you know, clearly things are or or Muslims in Dearborn or Muslims in Europe and all of this happening. I mean, do we still just keep, you know, keep calm
Isaac:and carry on? I don't know.
David:I'm just thinking, like, what you you know, don't you wish that the government would do something to to slow down immigration? Yeah. Or something like that? To say, look, you you must you must embrace America. You can't Right.
David:Have to assimilate. That we actually are a people who have a heritage. Right. And that when you come, you must assimilate, and you are not going to be okay. That the government can do.
David:Right? There are steps the government can and should take if it's going to be wise Yeah. To run a country. But if we think that our preaching, you know, immigration restriction and and MAGA is going to lead to God's will being accomplished. It didn't get done during the Crusades.
David:In the end, the Crusades were pretty much a flop. Yeah. You know what I mean? And what really kept the the Muslims from taking over the world wasn't the Crusades. It was Charles Martel and a battle where the invaders were turned back.
David:Before the Crusades. Before the Crusades.
Nick:Right.
David:Right? I don't know. I I Yeah. That's why I decided I was gonna ask you the questions today because what to say? You know, in the long run, I think we all say there's more to more defense of there's more that can be defended about this Crusades than anyone in modern America is willing to admit.
David:They're more defensible. But then we also say, but would we want to be Crusaders? Right. Would we wanna take that approach? And I I don't know.
David:You say you'd be a a rebel in in the so you'd be a Crusader too.
Isaac:I wouldn't wanna leave my wife for that long, but Oh,
David:use so you're just a a sad sack Crusader.
Isaac:If I can come home every once in a while, you know, check-in.
Nick:Yeah. That's the thing is, you described these Crusades, and it was a slog. I mean, they were gone
Isaac:for a
Nick:long time, and it it was a that's what I was gonna say too is, like, you read through this. You get to, like, halfway through the book, and my whole thought was, like, this is a mess. Every single one was a disaster. I mean, it was amazing that they even conquered anything because there's so many
David:And it does it seems like God had to be on their side at points. Yeah. You know?
Isaac:It really the first one was productive. They established four kingdoms, and the next five were just rebattling over those same four kingdoms.
Nick:Yeah. But even in the first one, I'm pretty sure he says, like, there's there's there's like eighty percent of them die on the on the way there.
David:Tons of them.
Nick:It's crazy. I mean, it's it's a massive number of people just die. Yeah. So I that's what I'm saying. It's like, is a mess.
Nick:But Big time.
David:Well, I've presided over probably the least popular podcast we'll have ever done because we have absolutely nowhere to go, do we? I mean, it's very Caleb, what are your thoughts on this?
Nick:Yeah. Caleb Give that give
David:that guy a mic.
Isaac:I don't know.
David:Caleb, you read the book too?
Isaac:I mean, it's just crazy. I don't know. I don't think I'd wanna go on a crusade.
Nick:Crusade. Crusade. Yeah.
David:Would you not wanna go
Nick:because pursuit.
David:Nice. You don't agree with them or because you just wouldn't wanna take the risk?
Isaac:I think I wouldn't wanna take the risk.
David:Yeah. Okay. I
Isaac:don't know.
David:But that's the kind of thing that we kind of admire is they took the risk. They did it at great cost.
Isaac:Caleb, picture your church leader tells you to do something. Alright? Tells you to go fight this battle, and you have, like, all your like, some of your best friends and brothers, they're going to do it. Like, alright, we're gonna go do this. A lot of them were motivated by that reason.
Isaac:Yeah. Are you not jumping on that ship? That would definitely make me, like, probably want to more. So I still would be very hesitant, though.
David:But Nick, as a as a one day pastor, you know, you're gonna be leading a flock of people. Are you gonna call them to go to war for for the kingdom of Christ? Literal war. That's basically what happened.
Nick:I mean by
David:It was the honor of Christ, they said. Right?
Nick:Yeah. I would say no because it doesn't
David:What in the Bible will you turn to as a defense for your not being willing to do that? Right. When all around you, others are saying, yeah, good Christians are gonna do this. Mhmm.
Nick:I mean, you think of who Jesus was. Right? And he said it says he was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And I I just am not convinced from reading the Bible and understand like, yeah, you have the Old Testament, but you read the New Testament who Jesus was and who he is and who he describe and who he commands us to be as his people, and it doesn't seem like that lines up with scripture.
David:What what kinds of do you any verses come to mind? Isaac or Nick? Nick, especially. I
Nick:think of, like, if your enemy needs a drink of water, like, give him a drink of water if you're love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. You know, if you get slapped on the cheek, turn to them the other one also. I mean, it it just is a very Jesus was very meek. Right? He was he blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
David:Or what he says to Pilate, you know, my
Nick:kingdom is not as not of this world.
David:What does he say to Peter earlier that day or the night before?
Nick:Is it about the legions of angels, right, when he strikes the guy's ear?
David:And he says, you know, put your sword away. Right? Right. Don't you know?
Nick:Yeah. So he yeah. That's a great example. So he does not Peter Peter acts immediately and and violently very quickly.
David:And we like him for it.
Nick:Don't And we like him for it. Love him for We we love Peter
David:for wouldn't have it.
Nick:Right. Jesus rebukes him. Says those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Yeah.
David:I think you've come up with a lot of good arguments about what we how we'd respond. I I don't know. You know, what happens is that God works and you find yourself in in the winds of history, you know what I mean? Of that form the world and and you're blown and you end up having to make a choice. You know?
David:You have to choose. Will I fight for Germany and my country? Yeah. The land of my forefathers in World War two. Right.
David:Will I go in and fight or will I refuse? And it's a hard choice, you know, Especially if you're not really sure what's happening about the Jews, which probably people wanted not to know exactly what was going on. Yeah. You know? And so you go, well, I I don't think they have a good attitude towards the Jews, but it's my country.
David:I'm I should obey my ruler. Yeah. Yeah. And so at many points you're going to be forced to take a. I think often in life, we're forced to take a stand and we have to trust God.
David:And if we're gonna sin, sin boldly. Like, in that same situation, Bonhoeffer saying, okay. This man's evil. He's killing the Jews. So he allies himself with a group that's trying to assassinate Hitler.
Nick:Right.
David:It's hard to say, isn't it? It is. Would you would you do Bonhoeffer? Would you like to if you were in that in his shoes? Yeah.
David:What about you, Isaac?
Isaac:Yeah. I'd say so. Yeah.
David:Are there ways that we can be Bonhoeffer today?
Nick:That's the thing. I don't I don't think so right now. I don't think there's people in my country who are not that I that I know of that are organizing mass killings of people, you know, like Hitler was.
David:What about abortion?
Nick:I I was hope Isaac, I thought of that when you said that earlier, or when you were talk when you were talking earlier, I thought, what about abortion? Because abortion is killing of human life.
David:It is.
Nick:But but that's the thing, it's not like an I'm not trying to defend people who commit abortions or or the doctors involved with that, but it's not like an organized thing. Yeah. Maybe is organized. It's very
David:organized, isn't it?
Nick:I'm trying to There's not there's
Isaac:not one guy on top
Nick:So pick one leader, yeah.
David:That you
Isaac:could kill and then all I'm just thinking of Hitler.
David:Okay. I I we're I'm not sure we're shedding light, but we are, in some respects, shedding light because we're we're making it clear how difficult these decisions are, you know? And I think the Crusades help us set in a stark light the Mhmm. The the the thorniness of these decisions. Man, it's hard, isn't it?
David:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Well, thank you for listening.
David:It has been a pleasure being with you. Thanks
Nick:for having us.
David:Thank yeah. It was my pleasure to have you on the show today Fellow today. On the podcast. Thank you. We're very happy for you being at the controls there, Caleb.
Nick:Thanks,
David:Caleb. Thank you, Nick. Welcome. Thank you, Nick. We very much appreciate it and looking forward to this year coming up with you and the pastor's call.
Nick:Yes, sir.
David:Thinking more about things like this. And Isaac, well, you can continue to sell your industrial goods. But we still love you.
Isaac:Love you too, David.
David:Love you, David. Thinking you guys do. You've been very, very helpful to our church. Much, God. Appreciate the work you've done on this.
David:Trust God will lead you into into more fertile fields than the Crusades into your next sessions. Alright? Because when you chose this one, I went, oh, baby. I don't know if I wanna do that.
Isaac:David, I'm just gonna put this out there.
David:Yeah. We
Isaac:asked you what you'd be interested in talking about, and you said the Crusades.
David:I bet I changed my mind. If I said that, I changed my mind at some point.
Nick:Thank you, guys. Thanks, David. Love you. Love you, guys.
Isaac:Well, that was interesting, but we're still gonna do riddles. Yeah. That was interesting, and we are still gonna do riddles. So we have a little bit to cover here, because we have two challenges to award. Two awards.
Isaac:Two winners. Two awards. So, the first award we would like to award is last week's First winner. Suggestion Right. Competition.
Isaac:We said, hey, email us for suggestions.
Nick:We also have an anonymous link. That's not in the contest, but We received many suggestions,
Isaac:and Caleb has a winner chosen, a random winner, who will also be receiving a $10 gift card to sheets. Caleb, who is it? Who is it?
Nick:Reese. Reese. Reese Folk. Reese Folk. My brother-in-law.
Nick:No nepotism, though.
Isaac:Yeah. He didn't host this show for the first year and a half of its existence.
Nick:Right. Congrats, Reese.
Isaac:Yeah. Congrats, Reese. Alright. Should get him more, actually. Did a lot of work.
Isaac:The second award is last week's riddle challenge. A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him right after they enjoy a lovely dinner. This was the most answered riddle of all time. We got eight answers to this riddle.
Nick:I think because you
Isaac:gave you lobbed it over the plate for him, which was good. Yeah. I mean, I yeah. It's definitely an easier one. But the answer to that riddle is, it was a photograph.
Isaac:She shoots her husband with a camera, holds him underwater in a dark room or whatever, and then So, handsome camera. Yeah. So, Caleb, who is the winner of of those eight submissions? Colin Ambergy. Oh, the riddler himself.
Isaac:Congrats, pick a different winner? No. No. We'll Okay. Alright.
Isaac:Love you, Colin. Love you, Colin. The riddle for this week. Where is the only place where today comes before yesterday? We'll see y'all next week.