The Battle of Ager Sanguinis, medieval miniature
On February 5, 2015 Obama gave an address at the National Prayer Breakfast. He said of people who seek to "hijack religious for their own murderous ends","Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."There was enormous outcry over Obama's likening of Christianity to terrorist Muslims. There have been many Op-Ed pieces, reaction articles, and blogs published over it.
Even reformed pastor-blogger Tim Challies linked to Professor of Medieval History Thomas Madden's piece, in which Madden said both the Crusades and the Inquisition
"were initiated by popes, the unquestioned leaders of Western Christianity."Kings and popes. Professor Madden set forth a response placing the Crusades in historical context as part of Christianity. Madden said the first Crusade was called in 1095 by Pope Urban II. Remember, Tim Challies linked to the piece in his daily A La Carte segment.
Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said Obama’s words were “an unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison,” He continued, “The evil actions that he mentioned were clearly outside the moral parameters of Christianity itself.”
That's because the evil actions that happened in the Crusades and the Inquisition were not part of Christianity at all. In a CNN interview discussing Obama's remarks, Russell Moore took issue with Obama's statement solely on the front of its moral equivalency, saying it was wrong to compare ISIS with Christianity, and it would be the same as if Roosevelt had stood up and said "Pearl Harbor was a day that will live in infamy, except let's remember we surprised the British at Yorktown too."
A 19th-century depiction of Galileo before the Holy Office, by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury
All of this is moot. Wrong. Of no consequence. It. does. not. matter. Why? Of the reactions I've read from both political leaders and religious leaders, none have stated the obvious. The Crusades and the Inquisition were Catholic events. The Catholic popes started them and Catholics carried them out.
Catholics are not Christians. The First Crusade was Papal response to Muslim aggression, especially the first crusade which sought to retake Jerusalem from Muslim hands. The First Crusade was followed by the Second to the Ninth Crusades. In all cases, the Catholic popes' thrust was to forcibly defend against Muslim invasion. The Catholic popes have the Inquisition on their hands also.
Catholics follow a false god and their doctrine is not the saving doctrine of Jesus' Christianity.
Catholic dogma is not of Jesus and is in fact of satan, just as the Muslim dogma is.
The worst comparison Obama made in his speech was not Christianity to ISIS, but Catholicism to Christianity. If people would take issue with THAT, it would really be doing something for the name of Jesus.
