I know a range of Christians (mainly Protestants, mind you) who see the Crusades as one of the worst excesses of Papal power. The idea, promoted by the Pope in the later Crusades, that a man who went on Crusade would have his sins, past, present and future forgiven, not through the salvation of the sacrifice of Christ, but by papal decree, is in no way 'Christian'.

The underlying principle of this decree was to grant licence to any Crusader to do anything to anyone and nothing would be held against them.

It is more than a little akin to a suicide bomber being granted paradise and whatever number of virgins for dying in the cause.

These were the days before the Reformation, obviously. One of Martin Luther's complaints was in regard to the selling of indulgences, that is, selling heaven and salvation for gold coins, which sounds a lot like Crusader doctrine to me.

As I Christian I see the Crusades as an utterly sinful set of activities on a massive scale, that in no way could ever be justified by any reasonable reading of the Bible.

Viking, Your "bleedin obvious" is far from being so. You first asserted that "the Crusades happened because of Muslim expansionism." Your implication was that the 11thC Crusades were a response to "Muslim expansionism" in the 11th C. If by "Muslim expansionism" you mean the Arab Conquest of the Byzantine and Persian Empires in the 7thC, then I fail to see any direct connection between what happened in the 7thC and what happened 4 centuries later. Are you suggesting that Christian Europe somehow had the restoration of the Byzantines on its agenda for 4 centuries? Definitely not "bleedin obvious." Your use of the term "Christian and Jewish Holy lands" suggests that because Judaism and Christianity began in Palestine and are still associated with certain holy sites there, Palestine is therefore somehow eternally and wholly a Christian/Jewish land, a decidedly Christian Zionist/political Zionist perspective. Palestine is not the monopoly interest of any one (or two) religious ideologies. Nor does your earlier assertion that "most of [the Crusaders'] victims were actually Christian" gel with your later statement that "the price [the Christians] paid was rather high." High it may have been, but that's not what you asserted earlier. I think you're the one who should be hitting the books.

Hamlet, Pity the Protestants didn't practice what they preached what with the burning/drowning/hanging of witches; the massacres they engaged in; Martin Luther's hatred for the peasants, and for the Jews and his encouragement to burn them out (read his Tract on "The Jews and their Lies"......so much so that he has been called the Spiritual Father of the Nazis"), the brutality of the anabaptists at Munster etc. In fact, most of the Protestant reformers approved the use of torture.

Francis,
Martin Luther [1483 - 1546 AD] lived well after the Crusades [the last 1240 s] and he was the first Roman Catholic Priest to denounce the practises of corrupt Priests selling indulgences. His message only had minimal influence in his lifetime and he retained much of the theology taught in the Roman Catholics semenaries. The protestant reformation occurred well after the Crusades as people read for themselves the teachings of Christ which developed enlightenment.

For you to introduce Protestanism is an attempt to move the debate into a different field. If protestants used unjust and immoral agression to gain territory they also are condemned. But that is not the point in view in Kevin's complaint.

The Crusades are something that Muslims have never forgiven and forgotten and they raise it every time current Muslim terrorists cause havock on Western innocents. It is Just that they know little about forgivness and must equalise the power struggle and gain greater moral power to expunge what they feel is a past injustice.

Islam is about power and political submission, not about forgivness and uniquivical reconciliation. That is why current events in Muslim minds are equated to ancient battles as equal. Reconciliation often means one party is reconciled to a lesser position eg Japan in the World War 11. Muslims have not moved foward from their medieval theology: 'that Power is given by Allah and the believers in Allah always must win'.

Islamic expansion was occurring in the Byzantine region.. to the point where Alexius's empire was crumbling.
Europe noted this trend, and with a bit of extrapolation, and 2+2 = "If we don't act now it will be too late in future".

One only needs to look at maps from 630 to 1000 to see the expansion of the Islamic empire by military conquest. Only a thickheaded dullard would not be able to piece together the 'future' based on this trend.

It would not matter that it was 'Islamic', it just had to be 'different' from the prevailing power balance for it to be a threat.

The crusades, were a multi dimensional action, and cannot be either written off wholus bolus as 'evil' or condoned. It is neccesary historically to look at the various factors, and ultimately, in regard to the 'Christian-ness' of them, to compare and contrast with the Word of God and Christ, the teaching and life of the Apostles.

ZPhilo,
Where are you coming from? Hamlet introduced Martin Luther....my reply was basically that those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. My point is that Protestantism is not the enlightenment that you seem to allude to but an unholy mess of competing sects and cults as capable, as history shows, of being as corrupt as any corrupt Catholic official