Obama May Apologize, But Here's a Case for the Crusades
In his review of God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, by agnostic professor Rodney Stark at Baylor University, Terry Scambray writes:
Speaking in Egypt last June, President Obama apologized for an imagined American imperialism on territory that itself was gained by Islamic conquest. The New York Times in 1999 compared the Crusades to Hitler’s atrocities. Even Pope John Paul II joined in by apologizing for the sacking of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204.
Rodney Stark, Distinguished Professor of Social Science at Baylor, shows that such statements are serious bunk. For, as he writes, the Crusades were defensive wars to repel the Islamic conquest of Byzantium as well as to prevent the destruction of the Holy Land. . . .Stark, though basing his work on the very best sources, may appear to be a Catholic apologist. Yet he was raised Lutheran and considers himself an agnostic though with a desire to become a religious believer.
Professor Stark’s works are an encouraging corrective to the anti-Western constructs, sometimes called “history,” which are taught in our schools. But restoring the West’s loss of confidence and eradicating its culture of masochism will take more than his prodigious output, as deeply impressive as it is.
