“God never called a Christian army and Jesus never promised salvation by bloodshed” These words describe the main theme of the Caners’ Book Christian Jihad. In Christian Jihad the Caner brothers shed light on Christianity’s darkest time. The crusades. The crusades were fought because of the belief that they were doing it under Gods command. To them they were fighting for their own salvation.
In the beginning of the book we see an assassination take place, at fist I thought that it of course had to do with Muslim terrorist attack, but to my surprise it did not have to do with Allah at all! This threw me off because of my ignorance about the crusades I really had no idea what they were or were about. Nowadays we as Americans are so focused and fixated on the bad guys, because of their terroristic attacks on 911 but we seem to forget or are simply unaware of the lives and blood that was shed on our part. By our part of course I’m speaking of believers and followers of Christ or Christians. Sadly as I continued reading I found myself constantly asking the question, what if they never happened, would we have peace? Sadly after much thought on the subject I found myself in my own battle defending my Christianity against, to what I guess would be classified in religious terms as infidels. I fought not for their peace or salvation, but for my own agenda my own selfish desires to prove my victory. Sadly even if the crusades did not happen, peace would still not exist because deep inside every man there is a selfish ambition burning ferociously inside of us. This is what causes men to fall, to stumble, to disobey, and sadly to achieve those selfish ambitions regardless the case. If we who have been forgiven and redeemed by Jesus, still battle with this how can we expect others who don’t know Christ to keep their selfishness at bay? If anything this lesson should teach and remind all Christians that we were forgiven not by force but by mercy. Not by hate but by love, not by selfishness but by humility Christ’s sacrifice was one without personal gain. In this we see a, merciful God desiring a relationship with his creation. Having been forgiven for our transgressions we in turn should forgive all of those supposed bad guys and all other religions, because they are desperately searching for the treasure that we have found. Luckily for them this treasure is infinite, endless without limit available to all who call on the name of the Lord! As hard as it is to realize, God loves every single human being who has ever lived and doesn’t focus on a particular event in history to pass judgment, he focuses on the thing that has separated his creation from him, sin.