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Jihad vs. Crusades

Jihad vs. Crusades

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By Eugene Robinson / The Washington Post

 [box] While National Black Robe Regiment disagrees with Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson’s assertion that President Obama’s comments about The Crusades were historically accurate as well as other parts of the article, we see the importance of the article below from the perspective of a Black liberal, not a white conservative. As you will see from the video below this article, the historical declarations were mistaken.[/box] At Prayer Breakfast, President Obama Struck a Patronizing Tone

President Barack Obama bows his head towards the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. (Evan Vucci/AP)

President Barack Obama bows his head towards the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. (Evan Vucci/AP)

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By Eugene Robinson / The Washington Post

There is no doubt that President Obama’s remarks about Christianity at the National Prayer Breakfast last week were historically accurate.
But they were also — let’s face it — glib, facile and patronizing.

I must immediately dissociate myself from the bombastic critics, mostly Republicans, who have accused Obama of grievously insulting Christians by noting that “terrible deeds” have been committed “in the name of Christ.” Obviously, this is true. Anyone who believes otherwise needs to crack a history book.

My objection is that Obama — in drawing parallels between past atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity and current ones by terrorists acting in the name of Islam — constructed an all-too-pat narrative that lets everyone off the hook, including himself. The admonition not to “get on our high horse” about jihadist terror as a “unique” phenomenon rings hollow, coming from a leader who routinely sends missile-firing drones to blow suspected militants to bits.

For the record, Obama’s history lesson was also incomplete.

“In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ,” the president said. Indeed, slave owners claimed to find justification for their hideous crimes in the Bible, citing passages in both the Old and New Testaments that appear to authorize slavery and describe how human chattel should be treated.

 But it is also true that the abolitionist movement grew out of Christian belief and the Christian church. William Wilberforce, the great British activist who spurred the abolition of slavery throughout the empire — and greatly inspired abolitionists in the United States — was a born-again Christian. Long before the Civil War, the religious and moral argument had been won by the anti-slavery side. Perpetuating the horror was, for slave owners, essentially an economic imperative.

Likewise, the architects of Jim Crow segregation sought absolution by citing various biblical passages. But it is fair to say that the civil rights movement never could have triumphed without the Christian churches, both in the South and the North, which served as organizational nodes. The institution led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was called the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference.

Obama also noted that, “during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” No argument there.

It should be noted, however, that the Spanish Inquisition took place 500 years ago and the First Crusade nearly 1,000 years ago. The world has changed a bit since then, as has the state of human knowledge. We understand, for example, that deadly epidemics are caused by germs — not by the failure to burn enough witches or slay enough infidels.

 

 Jihad vs. Crusades

By Bill Warner, PhD:

Category: In The News

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