My oldest daughter said to me one day a week or so ago, “You know how you reach a point that you think you are pretty well educated? Then you find out just how ignorant you really are?” We had both suffered that particular realization that day, on different subjects. It is a really stunningly humbling experience. We cruise along, taking classes, reading books, just living. Then we run against something that should really be common knowledge, but we had never been exposed to it.
The hole in my own education holds all the “dark ages” of Europe and “The Crusades.” Somehow, I have missed taking any courses related to medieval history. In various Literature classes, I had read bits and pieces from the time frame, but nothing that gave me a real understanding nor even a basic knowledge.
I discovered this philistinism while reading Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong. It is the text being used for my class on Middle Eastern Religions. The first section was about Judaism and I felt comfortable with most of it. I won’t claim to be an Old Testament expert, but I have read most of it. The begats zone me out fairly quickly, but I have a working knowledge. The second section on early Christianity was disturbing, not because I didn’t know it, but because I’d never looked at it from the outside before. Some of it isn’t very uplifting.
I had been waiting all semester to get to Islam. A desire to learn more about this religion that has become such a dominant force in today’s world was the main reason I had enrolled in the class. I have had Muslim acquaintances and read other books about modern Islam. I had heard and seen bits and pieces of information in movies and on television, some true, some fictional. But, I knew little of Islamic history and I didn’t feel I had even a minimal knowledge of what it was. From things I had read and seen, I had come to the conclusion on my own that ‘Allah’ was simply their word for God just as the Spanish say ‘Dios’ and the French ‘Dieu.’ It frustrated me that most Americans seem to think it means a different God because they use a different word. Is a horse a different animal because the Arabic language calls it ‘hisan?’
The chapters on Islam are covering the crusades in a way I had never been exposed to before. I must trust Armstrong’s words. She was accurate about all other points, although her viewpoint sometimes made me flinch. Her book was chosen for this class at a respected university. I could sort of understand the attitude the early Christians displayed toward the Jews. I didn’t agree with it, but I could see why they felt as they did, especially after centuries of persecution. Their actions during the crusades, I could not find any way to condone. I am not saying that modern Christians deserve to bear the brunt of the sins of the religious leaders and knights who committed those long ago atrocities , but sins they were. I don’t know why I am so shocked. I knew about the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. I realize that the Bible has been used as justification for everything from slavery to the current attitude toward gay marriage. I simply wasn’t prepared for the romanticized Crusades to be a coverup for the invasion of a foreign land and the all out slaughter of people who had done absolutely nothing to deserve it.
I am constantly saddened by the perversion of Jesus’ teachings. During Lent, my commitment was to attend a special Sunday School class about the Cross & the Resurrection. It was an in depth look at what those two things mean to us. I came away wondering why we needed to define them at all. To my way of thinking, they are simple facts. Jesus was executed by the method commonly in use at that place and time. On the morning of the third day, the tomb was empty. He appeared, alive, to his disciples and other people several times over the next few weeks. Then He ascended. I don’t need to understand God’s motives for what happened.
Why do we need to dissect it? Instead we should be concentrating on the real reason He came, to deliver His message. We should be dissecting His teachings. That is what’s important about Him, not how or why he died. In the long run, it doesn’t matter if He gave his life as “payment” for our sins or as an “atonement” to bring us closer to God. All that matters is “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do to You.” We simply don’t seem to get it. I can only take small comfort in knowing that things have improved. The scorched earth policy of centuries past is deplored today and people who engage in it are called war criminals. The “more civilized” countries, including those who engaged in the Crusades, try to contain the perpetrators. Still, we have a long way to go.
In some of my reading this past month, and I can’t remember the source, I came across a concept of heaven that was new to me. I like it, but I am afraid it means postponing the end of the world for another 2000 years. The gist of it is this: Jesus’ kingdom isn’t something that will arrive intact. Mankind is supposed to be building it here on earth. We are supposed to be learning to live by His teachings, to be making a worldwide kingdom of peace and love where everyone will do what is right because they want to, not to keep from being punished. When we finally achieve that goal, He will return and rule for all eternity. Are you ready to build? Do you think anyone else is trying?
