The concept of a Christian Jihad at first glance seems rather oxymoronic. It seems to be the heretical consolidation of Muslim ideology and Christian theology. However, Drs. Emir and Ergun Caner give another, rather unorthodox, view of Christian history. Christian Jihad examines the events, circumstances, and belief systems of the early church Christians through the time of the Crusades and demonstrates how what is known as a “holy war” became a part of Christian life.

The Crusades was a war focused on the vanquishing of the peoples who had wronged Christians living in Moslem lands. This included Moslems and Jews alike. Ironically, the early church was infamously pacifistic; religiously shying away from war because of their faith and the extremely high frequency of persecution they faced on a regular basis during the first and second centuries AD. With that, the pressing question becomes, “What changed? Why did these historically temperate and somewhat passive people become warriors?” “The Unholy Marriage,” the unbiblical allegiance that united the church and the state and put Christians in the position of be a part of every societal venue including all aspects of government and the military. The same group of believers that had spent hundreds of years in solitude or oppression and maltreatment were now in the spotlights of their respective areas. Though not all church leaders of the time supported such involvement in political arenas, it became banal for Christians to be a part of these bodies, with a particularly high influence on military involvement.

Under the leadership, encouragement, and support of the papacy of Urban II, Christian armies ravaged the lands in retribution for their wrongdoing, with the ultimate Christian Jihad being called on November 27, 1095. It was this year, that Pope Urban II would have his army of warriors preach, pray, have “a procession in honor of God”, fast, worship, and retake the city of Jerusalem, slay thousands upon thousands of Moslem and Jewish men, women, and children, and have his soldiers at the end of the battle immersed in so many corpses that they were described as having blood up to their knees.

The army had become wholly Christian and impassioned by war. The soldiers were taught that by their fighting they would be given salvation for doing God’s work. They were told that it was their responsibility to honor the Lord by fighting. They were deceived, by the “church”.

Christian Jihad gives an authentic look at the history of our religion. The information was astounding, saddening, and absolutely necessary. It is the work that is needed for Christians to know where they’ve come from in order to plan where they are going. To move forward blindly is ignorant. To neglect the facts and truths of our (sometimes flawed) thinking is irresponsible. Christian Jihad gives the modern Christian some perspective on the root of the hostility between Christians and Muslims.

Though it is easy to look on history and play the “us/ them game” where we stand awe stricken by the horrific events done in Jesus’ name and act as if “we” would never do such a thing, this work gives us the opportunity to kneel humbly before God acknowledging that we all get it wrong at some point…in some way. Acknowledging that we do the same things today.

A brother in Christ once said, “Christians are mean” and my heart was saddened by it, maybe even a bit offended, until I experienced “the mean Christians” myself. In our being “more spiritually mature than others” how many times do we stand on our side and point fingers saying “you’re wrong”? How often do we “judge” or “label” the world and stand around with our fellow seminarians acting as if even on our own campus there had not been a time when people of other races were not admitted?

While having a rather “interesting” conversation with my mother about my a attending a Baptist institution, (I was raised Episcopalian), she told me that in 1986 she was asked to be in her best friends wedding that was being held in a Baptist church. Only, the leaders of the church told the bride she could not get married there if she had a black person in her wedding. She changed venues. But, the issue remains that there is a dissimilation not only between Christians and the world, but Christians and other Christians.

According to the dictionary, persecution is to “subject (someone) to hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of their race or political or religious beliefs.” In what ways do we maltreat others because of our worldview?

Sometimes the same separation that was between the converted Christians who were looked down upon during the Crusades for not being “real Christians”, and the separation of Christians of different denominations and races of today is still prevalent. Perhaps they are not being murdered with swords, but maybe murdered with mouths and that is only sometimes.

This book made me look at my own heart, my own worldview. It gave me perspective and much needed information to reflect on how I approach the world with evangelism. I hope we all can be honest enough to see how we do these same things (on a different scale) in our everyday lives.

“This is a battle between who you are and you God wants you to be.” -Keith Williams

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Of all the things I’ve learned in this Church and Empires class, the things I have found the most interesting of all is the process of canonization and creating the doctrines we have today. It’s amazing all the councils and debates the church fathers went through to come to the unified beliefs we have today. Of all the church fathers though, Athanasius was one of the most interesting.

Athanasius was born around AD 300 in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. Little is known about his youth, except that he was raised in a Christian home. He was not taught in a Christian school, but it is said that when Athanasius was a boy, the bishop Alexander once noticed him and his friends playing a game of church outside. As the bishop watched them perform pretend ceremonies, he noticed Athanasius attempt to baptize one of his friends. When Alexander asked the boy what he had said, it turned out that he performed a true baptism. Realizing his potential, Alexander took Athanasius as his secretary and gave him an excellent bible education. It’s said that he actually studied the whole bible better than anyone had ever studied even one book.[1] Athanasius was sure to do great things.

During this time, Diocletian was persecuting Christians more than ever before, but by AD 324 Constantine became the sole ruler of the Roman Empire and began to unify the empire around Christianity. Now that Christians were no longer being attacked for their faith, “everyone from the emperor to the common man was debating Christian doctrine”.[2] This might have been better than being burned at the stake or torn apart in the coliseum for believing in Christ, but it still presented some problems. With Christian doctrine being such a popular topic it began to develop some inconsistencies. A leading preacher of Alexandria by the name of Arius started a following with the idea that Jesus was not the same as God. That Jesus was created and was the highest of God’s creation which made him “the instrument of all the rest of creation”[3]. This idea bothered Alexander who really liked Arius, but knew that this view was not correct. Alexander, along with Athanasius, held to the truth of the unity of Father and Son. When both sides began to gain support it threatened the unity of the empire around Christianity, so Constantine summoned together all the bishops of the empire so that each side could come to an agreement.

This council, which became known as the Council of Nicaea, had over two hundred bishops in attendance. Most of these bishops disagreed with the views of Arius, but could still not agree completely on what they did believe. By the end of the council, Arius had been excommunicated by Alexander and the bishops adopted the word homoousios, meaning “of the same substance”, into the Creed of Nicaea. It was agreed, the Son was the same as the Father. Three years after the Council of Nicaea, Alexander died and at almost thirty years old, Athanasius was declared the new Bishop of Alexandria. Even though the council had come to an agreement, the debate was far from over. While exiled, Arius gained more followers and eventually Constantine began to lean toward Arianism, ordering Athanasius to readmit Arius. Athanasius refused. He did not believe that Arius really accept the council’s agreement of homoousios. So when Constantine called together another council, Athanasius was now on the losing side. Yet he would not budge. He stood firm against these beliefs and defended the unity of Father and Son. For this he was sent into exile five times over the span of sixteen years.

One of the things that interested me the most in the Church and Empires class was the process in which our early church fathers created the ideas and doctrines we value today. The counsils and th

Augustine’s Reasons for Writing City of God

In A.D. 410, there was a turning point in the Western world; The city of Rome was captured by King Alaric of the Vandals. This was a huge accomplishment, for the Romans, in their arrogance, believed that they could never be conquered.

In 410 A.D. this idea was shaken to the core and eventually came the destruction of the Roman Empire. All of civilization seemed shattered, and everyone looked for answers for what was to be done, as well as that in which to believe. People who clung to the declining pagan faith were eager and quick to place responsibility and blame on Christians, claiming that the gods had abandoned Rome because many Romans had turned from them and taken this new faith. These pagan Romans tried to claim that Christians were not devoted to the Republic, because they were a people who served God rather than state, and granted forgiveness to enemies. More importantly, the pagans said that the God of the Christians had not protected Rome as they thought he should have, since He had been declared the one true God by Emperor Constantine.

The disgruntled bickering betwixt the two sects caused Augustine to begin his composition of The City of God in 413. He wrote it in order to refute the pagans’ claims that Christians caused Rome’s downfall.

Augustine’s Primary Arguments

The first five books of City of God treat pagan beliefs such as one that the old pagan gods must be worshiped in order to acquire material gain, which they said included the possible continuance of the Roman Empire and the city of Rome keeping it’s supremacy. In book I, Augustine deals with the pagans’ idea that claimed that Christians had weakened Rome and thus caused it’s collapse, and he states that all must and will face misfortune. In book II, he shows that Rome’s fall was not a singular catastrophic event in Rome’s history; the Romans had gone through many catastrophes prior to this, even while the pagan gods were being worshipped, and in those cases the pagan gods did nothing to keep the calamities from occurring. He suggests these pagan gods caused Rome’s weakness, since these supposed gods themselves were said to be prone to moral and spiritual corruption. In book III, Augustine’s discussion on calamities occurring while under the pagan gods to show that Christianity did not cause Rome’s fall continues. To further prove his point, he poses a question, asking why the pagan gods did not protect Rome from past disasters. In book IV, Augustine presents an alternate option, a view where he shows Rome survived for multiple centuries for the one true God willed it to be so, and not because of the influence of pagan gods, who acted in the most detestable manner. In book V Augustine speaks to the fate, one of the pagan’s beliefs which was seen as a legitimate cause for Rome’s staying strong. Instead, Augustine says that the virtue of the Romans of old had caused God to bless them and make them prosper, even though they did not acknowledge him as God.

In book VI, Augustine switches gears, and begins to refute the notion that one must worship the pagan gods in order to attain immortality. Augustine destroys this idea using the pagans’ own authors to show how the pagan gods were never highly esteemed; Augustine uses this to present his argument that all the traditional ways, myths and laws are useless in guaranteeing eternal happiness, satisfaction, and security. He continues to gradually demolish the pagan’s theology all the way through book X.

The second part of The City of God begins in book XI, in which the doctrine of the heavenly and earthly city are portrayed by Augustine. Based on his reading and interpretation of the Bible, Augustine uses the next three books to describe how the earthly and heavenly cities came into being. The following four books explain the prehistory of the city of heaven, from Genesis to the age of Solomon, whose story is paralleled to Christ and the church. In book XVIII, Augustine undertakes a similar process of portraying the prehistory of the city of the world, from Abraham to the Old Testament prophets. Augustine, in book XIX, concentrates on how the heavenly and earthly cities will end, and in doing so, he lays out the nature of the supreme good. He also shows how the joy and happiness found on the earthly city can be found, in a greater amount, in the heavenly city.

Book XX consists of discussion on the final judgment and where we find evidence of its occurrence in scripture. Augustine speaks of the eternal punishment and damnation of the unsaved in book XXI and also presents his argument as to how it is in no way a myth. The final book, book XXII, discusses the end of the city of God, that is to say, of the eternal happiness of the saints; the faith of the resurrection of the body is established and explained; and the work concludes by showing how the saints, clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, shall live out eternity.

In summary, Augustine unearths a wide range of explanations to history, beginning with creation and moving through the turmoil and upheaval of man-made states (city of the world), while continuing on into the realization of the kingdom of God (city of God).

Augustine’s View of History

Augustine had a linear view of history. He came to the realization that God causes time to proceed in a plan with a single purpose, His glory; and also that history has a way of repeating itself. This is a valid view, one with which most people, including the writer, would agree. There are several popular sayings that would come from the idea of a cyclical view though, such as “what goes around
comes around” and “if we don’t learn from mistakes in history we are bound to repeat them.” These modern-day sayings show the side of those who would hold a cyclical view, for they speak of things reoccurring in history. A linear view of history is the most valid though, for one can view history beginning with creation, and then going down the line up until Christ’s return. So, in a sense, history cycles through and will repeat itself; yet it is also all going in a direct line headed straight for Christ’s second-coming. Augustine, in his conversion, shows that he

Christian Jihad, written by Ergun and Emir Caner, draws the reader’s attention to a rarely-looked-into topic. In their book, the Caner’s show the reader a history rarely seen, that of the Christian church and it’s violence. The book shows, through multiple sources, the war where Christians were killing in the name of Christ. Another thing discussed in the book is the pacifist views that were held to by the early church as apposed to the modern pacifist’s views. The early Christians, in correspondence with these views, devoted their lives to preparing for Christ’s second coming. They forsook earthly things and toils in order to focus on that of eternal value. These early Christians would not partake in any acts of violence whatsoever; they found conflict and violence as breaking the second greatest commandment of loving thy neighbor.

As the book proceeds it reaches a more gloomy age, a dark age, when there were no longer these pacifist calm views; there were Christians eager to take arms. These new Christians got into the military around A.D. 174, and joined into the fighting that they once condemned. This led down a slippery slope, one that ended with the church and the state practically intermingling and becoming one. Christian Jihad was an irony developed by the Caner brothers pointing out how the crusades were an attempt to, like Muslims, carry out and impose “God’s will.”

The book continues and speaks of the different atrocities committed by the church; of how Christians murdered and mercilessly pillaged. The early church ideals of peace and love were out the window, there was not witness to be had, not care or love; instead the church had traded its platform of Christ’s love for one of power.

The Caner’s end the book by stressing the importance of not repeating past mistakes; they warn not to allow the world to leak into our thinking, and to remain spreading the love of Christ.