Syrian Templars

Comments

[Stefano]

Hi,
I would like some clarification. Who exactly are the armed men in the photo? More importantly, I would be interested to know if they are Orthodox Christians.

Now the Templars and other Crusaders, despite your romantic revisionism, were deluded thugs. They would have done probably chopped your head off (as an Anglican heretic) the same as any other enemy like Muslims. They were under the false impression that dying ( and killing) in battle would get them to heaven. I can assure you that whatever the persecuted and besieged Christians in Syria are saying about their need for protection they are not evoking the crusades as a precedent.

[Embryo Parson]

I don't know whether they're Orthodox Christians or Eastern Rite Catholics, but the fact of the matter is that Orthodox Christians are in fact taking up arms against ISIS and other Muslim forces. Your umbrage over the linkage here to the Templars is predictable, as is your resort to Orthodox talking points about the Crusades, though I would hasten to add that I'm using "Templar" here in a very loose sense. The fact is that the Crusades are complicated by a number of factors, not the least of which are the "Byzantine" behavior and corruption manifested by both the Latin West and the Greek East.

But that was then, and this is now. The Christian East and the Christian West will have to unite in a way they didn't during the Crusades to fight the Jihad. Here in the Christian West, we who are on the more reactionary side of conservatism are happy to see the way the Christian East in general, and Russia in particular, are rising to the the occasion. We consider you our friends, allies, and brothers in Christ. Let's try to capitalize on the ecumenical bonhomie.

[Stefano]

I have no doubt that there are Orthodox Christians taking up arms to protect themselves. Orthodox nations like Russia or Greece are not pacifists. During the Greek War of Independence many clergy inspired the people to fight for freedom.

My problem is that you link war and fighting as some kind of religious 'good'. I'm sorry but God does not take pleasure in killing and war. The Crusaders were mistaken. You know perfectly well they killed lots of innocent people, including plenty of Eastern Christians.

I take issue with you using 'Byzantine' in a prejoritive sense. The Crusaders hated the Byzantine because the Byzantines had Muslim allies like the Fatimids of Egypt. There was even a mosque for Muslim merchants in Constantinople.

You seem to be sucked into all the fearmongering about ISIS. Let's face it, the overwhelming majority of the victims of Islamic terrorism are other Muslims.

I have no doubt that Orthodox nations will defend themselves. We might lose but we will fight. I also think that the USA will probably be the one selling Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait the weapons they will use to attack us.

[Embryo Parson]

"My problem is that you link war and fighting as some kind of religious 'good'. I'm sorry but God does not take pleasure in killing and war."

This sounds like some of the pious nonsense that emanates from the left-leaning Orthodox Peace Fellowship, but if Scripture is any indication, God takes a more nuanced view of the matter. There are times when war is a "good." Look it up in Holy Writ.

"The Crusaders were mistaken. You know perfectly well they killed lots of innocent people, including plenty of Eastern Christians."

Indeed the Crusades went awry on many levels, but it's simplistic in the extreme to call them a "mistake." Unless, that is, you think the Orthodox Byzantine emperor who pleaded for Western help, thus touching off the Crusades, was mistaken. But as medieval historian and Crusades scholar Thomas Madden shows in his books and articles , the Crusades were defensive wars in every sense of the term, waged against an antichristian, tyrannical and totalist empire, and hence "good." Though the Crusaders were unable to keep the Holy Land or free Eastern Christendom, they held Islam at bay long enough for advances in technology to give the West sufficient means to defeat the imperialists of Mahound at places such as Vienna and Lepanto. Thereafter, capitalizing on the increasing weakness of the Ottoman Empire, Orthodox freedom fighters in Greece and the Balkans took up arms and threw off the Muslim yoke, providing you with more instances of how wars can be a "religious" good.

Unless, that it, you think that Orthodox nations should have been kept under the Muslim yoke.

"I take issue with you using 'Byzantine' in a prejoritive sense."

Well, it's a perfectly good term whether used in a pejorative or a descriptive sense. I clearly used it the latter sense, not the former. Wonder why you didn't see that.

"You seem to be sucked into all the fearmongering about ISIS. Let's face it, the overwhelming majority of the victims of Islamic terrorism are other Muslims."

Ah, "fearmongering." Well, it looks like maybe you've gone and tipped your hand, Stefano. Tell me, where do your political sympathies lie, leftward or rightward?

Regardless, anyone who can't see the demonic antichristianity of ISIS is either a fool, an ideologue, or is simply paying no attention.

"I have no doubt that Orthodox nations will defend themselves. We might lose but we will fight. I also think that the USA will probably be the one selling Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait the weapons they will use to attack us."

Well, happily, on that last point we can agree. Allow me to reiterate: I count myself as part of the very uninfluential party of conservatives here in the US that is reactionary in nature, and which is accordingly rooting for the Orthodox in their continuing struggle against the Jihad, and which detests American foreign policy. If you weren't so keyed in to your typical Orthodox anti-Westernism and devoted to talking points developed by Orthodox apologetes, you just might come to the realization that you have advocates over here.

[Stefano]

I don't have any political leanings. You are trying to pigeon- hole my views according to your American world view. Please watch more than Fox News so you know what's happening.

Yes, Thomas Madden stands out as one of the great historians of the Crusades. Yep, the Crusades were defensive. Also, the Crusaders often gave their enemies puppies and boxes of chocolates to show there were no hard feelings over all the atrocities they committed.

Historical error alert - Emperor Alexis .Comnenos asked for recruits to join the Byzantine army so he could fight the Turks. Plenty of westerners had done so previously. Actually, Anglo-Saxon refugees from 1066 had journeyed to Byzantium and fought in the Varangian Guard. He did not ask for hoards of religious zealots. Did you know in the First Crusade the Crusaders felt outraged that the emperor prevented them from looting Nicaea after they captured it from the Turks? This was the start of the Crusaders distrust of the Byzantines. That Nicaea was actually populated by Greek Christians didn't matter. The Crusaders wanted their loot, blood and rapine. Look it up in a book.

There is a simple Orthodox hermeutic principle, we read the Old Testsment through the lens of the New. I rank your claim that war is good according to Holy Writ with the same credibility as the Bible advocating slavery, ethnic cleansing and theocracy.

I'll repeat my previous assertion, the Crusader mentality is incompatible with Christianity.

My ancestors spent 500 years fighting Islam before the Cruaders turned up. The Crusaders did us more harm than good. Because of them we spent 400 years under Muslim occupation. Now that America has screwed up the Middle East they are churning out the broken rhetoric of the Crusades as a solution, all the while safe and sound in North America surrounded by Canada, Mexico and Haiti.

[Embryo Parson]

"I don't have any political leanings."

Right. You're a lefty. That would explain much. I write about leftist influence in the Orthodox Church here..

"Please watch more than Fox News so you know what's happening."

Not a fan of Fox News. Maybe when I tell you for the THIRD time now that I am a *reactionary*, it will dawn on you that I go elsewhere for information.

I don't know why you continue to go on about the corruption of the Crusaders when I've indicated TWICE now that I agree with you. As to the question of whether the Crusades did more harm than good, we'll simply have to agree to disagree. I agree with Madden on the matter, whom you've indicated is a credible historian. I find his assessment of the value of the Crusades credible as well.

My guess is that you haven't attended seminary, and it seems that you instead continue to rely on your prized Orthodox talking points, but you should know that reading the Old Testament through the lens of the New isn't solely an "Orthodox hermeneutic (sic) principle", but one shared by East and West. Theology 101 stuff in Eastern seminiaries as well as Western ones. That being said, it is by no means evident that reading the Old Testament data on war through the lens of the new yields the conclusion that war is never a religious good. I know that causes your head and the heads over at OPF to explode, but there it is. You can repeat your previous assertion that the Crusader mentality is incompatible with Christianity until you're blue in the face, but simply repeating yourself is no argument to someone like me who actually is theologically educated.

You also seem to have a problem reading me carefully. Not only have I had to reiterate to you things I've said two and three times, but here you characterize my argument as a "claim that war is good according to Holy Writ." I want you to stop, take a deep breath, and before you comment here again go back and *carefully* read what I actually wrote.

"My ancestors spent 500 years fighting Islam before the Cruaders turned up."

Yeah, so did mine. Have you ever read anything at all about a certain battle that occurred at Tours in the 8th century?

I glean from your last paragraph that you aren't crazy about us Americans. Fine. I've already expressed my agreement with you about American foreign policy, but like I said previously it seems you're too keyed in to your typical Orthodox anti-Westernism and devoted to your apologist talking points to be able to discuss these matters dispassionately (and thus failing a key test of theosis ;>) ), and so I am going to ask you to refrain from commenting here until such as you can gain some dispassion. It's clear that I annoy you, even when I offer an olive branch, and that your goal here is accordingly to annoy me. I must confess that I'm growing weary of it.

[Stefano]

The German contingent of the First Crusade practised their Crusading skills by massacring thousands of Jews in the Rhineland as they journeyed to the Middle East - just another example.
If you agree with me about the Crusaders, then why use the imagery?

I have no idea how American Protestants read their Old Testaments. Americans have used the OT to justify just about anything so I'm not sure what method they use.

I always find dialogues to be informative and this is no exception. I'd love to know how the bible justifies war? Why don't you throw in some Church Fathers quotes to make me happy, too?

Bernard Lewis (1994) Islam and the West " The Arab historians, if they mention this engagement [battle of Pointers 732], present it as a minor skirmish" page 11.

[Embryo Parson]

"The German contingent of the First Crusade practised their Crusading skills by massacring thousands of Jews in the Rhineland as they journeyed to the Middle East - just another example."

Yes. Which is why Bernard of Clairvaux, saint and advocate par excellence of the Templar Order, personally went there to put the kibosh on it.

"If you agree with me about the Crusaders, then why use the imagery?"

First of all, a prefatory note to the next point, medieval men behaved like medieval men. This was as true of brutal Orthodox Byzantine emperors and Orthodox Slavic tsars, and their armies, as it was of Western leaders and their armies.

Secondly, and more central to this discussion: the Crusades were a religious good for the reasons I've mentioned.

"I have no idea how American Protestants read their Old Testaments. Americans have used the OT to justify just about anything so I'm not sure what method they use."

I see you remain fixated on Americans, but here's a clue for you, since you didn't pick up on it last time: no credible theologian or exegete that I know of, whether Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, fails to read the OT through the lens of the NT. Not even the Just War Doctrine employs an OT-centered method. There are important data in the NT, Romans 13: 1-7, that are key the explication of the doctrine.

"I'd love to know how the bible justifies war? Why don't you throw in some Church Fathers quotes to make me happy, too?"

I'll go one better and recommend the John F. Shean's Soldiering for God: Christianity and the Roman Army, Despina Iosif's Early Christian Attitudes to War, Violence and Military Service, and Nigel Biggar's In Defence of War, recent works that take up the patristic data. Whatever a certain Father or group of Fathers may have said about war and killing, the fact remains that the Just War Doctrine took hold in the Western Church, and though Augustine-eschewing Orthodox writers tend to highlight that fact that the Orthodox Church never accepted the doctrine officially, it nevertheless proceeds as though it did. You yourself have acknowledged that the Orthodox have taken up arms to fight their enemies; for a good essay from an Orthodox writer, see Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky's The Christian Faith and War. His argument supports mine, not yours or the OPF's, and is moreover consistent with the historic practice of Orthodox nations.

And with that, I am declaring this conversation officially closed, as you and I, as usual, are going nowhere fast.

[Embryo Parson]

Stefano, when I say that a conversation is closed, I really do mean that.