The Stained Reputation on Western Christianity

Andre Benveniste

                                                   

Crusaders claiming Jerusalem

Armstrong's Jerusalem: Once City, Three Faiths provides a thorough history of the brutality of the Crusades, amongst other events. In the text, I found the bloody Christian (Catholic) invasion of Jerusalem in 1099 to embody the divide between all three Abrahamic religions. I mean the “streets literally ran with blood” (Armstrong 274). The Christian invaders therefore ravaged the city by killing all of its inhabitants (both Jews and Muslims), and seized Jerusalem exclusively for themselves which would not prove to be sustainable. 

The Crusaders’ sacking of Jerusalem was also terrible for the city itself, in addition to the massacre of Jews and Muslims. The city had been turned from a “thriving and populous city” to “a stinking charnel house” (Armstrong 275). So especially for Muslims who had previously held control over the city, this scene must have alerted them that Christians were savages and harmed the well-being of Jerusalem's holiness. Therefore, it is only right that eventually they would come back to reconquer the city. Which happened when Saladin retook the city around 85 years after the Christians captured Jerusalem. But what is most remarkable in Saladin’s reconquest of Jerusalem is that he did not kill any Christians. He rather allowed the rich to pay a fine in order to leave the city, but also did not kill those who were not able to pay. This subsequently cemented Saladin, a Muslim, for adhering to the Christian values of compassion and mercy, which gave him an “honorary Christian” title (Armstrong 294). This can also suggest that the Crusaders had failed their mission of achieving religious status since Saladin was a more righteous figure than they were.

Along with the Crusades, Christians also severed their relationships with Jews and Muslims through the Spanish Inquisition. In which case, both Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain starting in 1492 in order to promote a purely Christianized Europe. Throughout the Inquisition, Jews and Muslims were brutally tortured in order to extract confessions (Britannica). I think that this, in addition to the events of the Crusades, would reasonably harm the reputation of Christians even more. More importantly, the Spanish inquisition also reinforced that Christians were unfit to rule over such a holy city as Jerusalem as they never welcomed outsiders. And by not accepting anyone other than Christians into their empire, it would be impossible for Christians to create a stable living environment for such a culturally diversified city as Jerusalem.

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Reference(s):

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Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Spanish Inquisition Causes and Effects". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Oct. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/summary/Spanish-Inquisition-Causes-and-Effects. Accessed 21 March 2024.