World History II-Essay Final Question.

The Question: Were the Crusades warranted? Defend your position.

The Answer: Well, this question can basically be answered, in several different ways and perspectives. I, however, will be answering the more logical and philosophical way as to why I believe the Middle Age Crusades were truly needed or not.

According to Wikipedia's definition for the Crusades, "The Crusades were a series of military campaigns waged by Christendom with the express purpose of reconquering the Holy Land from Muslim rule and defending the subsequent conquests. " You can access the link above to read more about the Crusades and what they really were according to Wikipedia.

The Crusades were held in the Middle or Medieval Ages in the European sect of the early Christian world. They were, to be specific, a set of "holy wars fought for God" led by the early Christian people in order to take over and hopefully convince the people in the European cities of their time to convert to Christianity and join the fight to converting others. However, this was not done by simply asking these people who wanted to be converted, if they so desired to become a Christian or not. These so-called "fighters of God", who were known as the Crusaders leading these infamous conversion takeovers, found that they thought the only way to successfully convert these people was to take over and pillage their city, occasionally fight the leader, and even possibly killing and fighting even some of the city's people. Well, what I am trying to answer, in relation to this given information, is to decipher and decide whether or not, these Crusades were necessary, or commanded in a sort, to actually take place as this being the only way to convert people to this form of Early Christianity

The First, Second, Third, and even Fourth Crusades were all held in European cities and were progressively growing. Many, many, MANY leaders led the way to opening various doors of the Crusade creation and the conversion believed by many early "Christian" followers, as the only successful and necessary way to convince these people of how the developing religion of Christianity to be the only way to govern the lives of these people. However, one looking back at these Crusade times today might wonder or even in a sense, doubt as to whether or not these supposed "divinely-led", holier-than-thou fighters even had a reason to do this in the first place.

First, I think it is best to look and evaluate what the Bible says about conversion and trying to lead others to Christ. In the book of Matthew, in the Holy Bible, chapter 28, verses 19 through 20 says, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." However, never once does it say here, or any other place in the Christian Bible, that a sort of "Crusade" is necessary in order to share the good news of Christ Jesus with others. (non-believers) This, makes for one very confused group of people, in the Middle Ages, fighting for something that was NEVER necessary or commanded by God Almighty, to happen in order to convert those to come to Christ. So why do we, the thinkers and intellectual people of our day, Christians and non-Christians alike, think that these Medieval fighters of the day thought it was necessary to go out, conquer, and pillage these cities thinking that this would be the only way to fight for people's salvation? Let's examine a few reasons...

One reason could possibly be that the Muslim and Islamic people, living in the same time period as these holy Christian Crusaders, thought necessary to fight for conversion sake, thus establishing what we know today as the "holy war". This maybe in the Crusaders' minds, sparked the need to fight some type of a holy war themselves. Maybe seeing the success of the other religion led to the thoughts to a need of their own personal war in order to really convince others to want to convert to Christianity. Possible explanation, however, no one in the modern world can really quite know for sure.

Another likely reason that possibly led to the Crusade being a necessary action in the movement of the Early Christian church, in order to convert the European cities, was due to the Pope. Popes, Priests, Pastoral figures in the early church of the European Medieval era were, in a way, the translators of the Holy Bible. The Bible, in that day, was a reading tool to those only of high position in the Early Christian Church and its development. This is because not everyone in this day was allowed to own or read a Bible. The Popes and high leaders of the church thus translated the Bible into a twisted, more humanistic book, and they even mentioned works un-necssary and never mentioned in the Bible's text. So, in conclusion to this possible reason for the Crusade's start, could the Pope or Priest of the Church be the major contributing and leading factor as to why the Crusades and the purpose behind them, be the creating head point to which the Crusade's really necessary (overall, however, un-necessary) conversion outreach to the surrounding European cities? No one can ultimately tell.

Whatever the reason the Crusaders felt the need to have the medieval cities taken over by conversion in this way, the Crusades, as very plainly displayed in my argument and reasoning here, were in the end, un-necessary to the successful conversion as being the only leading way to influence the European people that Christianity was right. Whatever the case, the Middle Age Crusades were never commanded by God to take place, never instructed within the simple text of the Holy Bible, and never once mentioned the need for such an uproar within the early Christian community.

<3brittany