Stop Apologizing for the Crusades!

Perhaps a better title would be something like Don’t Allow the Crusades to be Thoughtlessly Added to a Parade of Christian Horribles without Knowing More about It, but I wanted to get your attention.

Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades.  You know the routine.  You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition.  This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades.  Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended.  All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically.  Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.

What becomes clear is that the Crusades failed for three reasons.

First, despite the fact that the westerners regularly decimated their Muslim rivals in combat thanks to superior tactics and technology, they were always on the wrong end of a numbers game.  The western armies arrived in the Holy Land already diminished from disease and harrying attacks along the way.  They never had large enough armies to begin with.  And whenever they secured their objectives, a substantial number of troops and/or nobles would return home leaving ridiculously small numbers to hold on, which amazingly, they did for decades at a time.

Second, Crusading was expensive.  Although it has been suggested the Crusades were about wealth, nobles didn’t get rich on them.  They borrowed, scraped, and imposed heavy taxes just to be able to afford equipping, paying, and feeding their armies.  When they captured an area, the land was not revenue-producing in the same way their European farm land was.

Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised.  Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help.  But the help was virtually never forthcoming.  Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today.

Read for yourself.  I found the book highly enjoyable.  Rodney Stark has reached the point to which many academics aspire.  He writes about things that interest him for a mass audience with the aid of a major publishing company (Harper).  And the books come to us rather than sitting staidly in university libraries.

Politics for Christians

Francis Beckwith is back with another book. He has written Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft.

I’ve not yet had a chance to read it, but this may be the book people have been asking me for as a follow-up to The End of Secularism.

I made the negative case against secularism and here Beckwith makes the positive case for a Christian politics. Amazingly, the books are priced within a penny of each other on Amazon. Bundle us up!

In seriousness, I am really looking forward to reading this book. I profited immensely from being Francis Beckwith’s graduate student years ago and have been somewhat awestruck by a number of his previous works. Any Christian involved in politics as a citizen, candidate, critic, or office-holder would benefit from reading him. Certainly, the quality of our discourse would improve as a result.

Ken Starr and Baylor University

Ken Starr is going to be named the new president of Baylor University.  Already, there have been rumblings.  Here in Houston, where I live, the pastor of Ecclesia church Chris Seay, who is a well known author, has already suggested people should join him in sending a statement to the Board of Regents expressing concern.  When I sent him a message via twitter, his opposition appeared less than sinister.  He was just surprised to get what he viewed as a conservative political operative choice rather than a “Billy Graham” style choice.

I think this kind of protest misunderstands Kenneth Starr.  Because he conducted the investigation which led to President Clinton’s impeachment, Starr became the focus of intense media scrutiny and was viewed as some kind of attack dog for the Republican Party.  That sort of view does not convey a real sense of who Ken Starr is or has been.

Of course, Starr has led the school of law and public policy at Pepperdine University for several years now.  In the past, Pepperdine has made its commitment to the integration of faith and learning clear and they are indisputably one of the finest Christian universities in the nation.  They are one of the finest universities period.  (Mr. Starr may be excited about the simpler task of paying academics in Waco versus finding a way to pay them adequately so that they can find a home in Malibu!)

In addition, before the Clinton-Lewinsky mess — which I believe he took on as a public servant and not as a hack — Ken Starr was on the short list for the United States Supreme Court.  He is extraordinarily well-regarded in the legal community and occupies a place in the very highest level of practitioners.  Although Baylor has an outstanding law school, Starr will immediately become the best known and most distinguished lawyer at the university.

Overall, I have little doubt that Starr will bring a new level of recognition to Baylor which has been rising fast.  Anyone who visits the campus will  be amazed at how beautiful it is today and what a wonderful environment it has become for students and professors.  Certainly, there are still tensions.  Baylor continues to be a school in transition and that means there are different camps of people hired in different periods.  But if ANYONE can withstand the politics of Baylor University, I would suggest it is Kenneth Starr.  He handled himself with grace and dignity throughout a difficult time in the spotlight in the 1990′s.  Notably, the worst thing that anyone could find to say about him was that he enjoyed singing hymns to himself.  Members of the media found that habit to be extremely odd.

One more question, which is significant, has to do with Starr’s long affiliation with the Church of Christ.  Baylor’s last president, John Lilley, had been a Presbyterian for many years and then returned to the Baptist church for Baylor.   (If Paris was worth a mass, what is Waco worth?)  Starr has agreed to join the Baptist church because the president of the university is required to be Baptist.  The question is whether Baylor has given up on true Baptist leadership since the last two presidents have had to “convert” in a manner of speaking.  I am unable to come up with a good answer here.  I suspect that the best long time Baptist candidates were already committed to their own projects and could not leave.

I wish Mr. Starr the very best and hope he will find good advisers in the provost’s office to continue driving forward on the integration of faith and learning at Baylor.  A great deal will depend on what kind of leadership he chooses on the academic side of the university.

(Disclosure:  The very first magazine item I ever had published was a letter to World Magazine defending one Kenneth Starr from the slings and arrows of elite opinion.)

Daddy and Grace Have a Conversation . . .

I’ve semi-lost my voice, so when I took Grace to pre-school I was talking to her in a purposefully crazy, raspy voice.  As we sat in line waiting to be let in, this exchange took place:

Me:  Can Daddy listen to radio?

Grace: No.

Me:  Daddy doesn’t have a book like Grace.

Grace: (giggling)

Me:  Daddy doesn’t have book.  Daddy can’t listen to radio.  Daddy bored.

Grace: (giggling) Daddy talk to Grace is good.

And so it was . . .  And now that I think of it, that was pretty girly of her, wasn’t it?

Baptists and Catholics Together: The Archbishop Comes to HBU

I am very excited about this.

Houston Baptist University will be hosting Archbishop Charles Chaput on the evening of March 1 for a major city address.  We are hosting this event with the help of the John Paul II Center at the University of St. Thomas.  To my knowledge, this is the first coordinated activity between the two universities.  Chaput is well known for his Doubleday book Render Unto Caesar.

HBU president Robert Sloan will offer substantive remarks as part of his extended introduction for Archbishop Chaput.  I think this event promises to be one of the most memorable happenings in the history of the university during our 50th year.

Go here to get details and to RSVP for the event.  It’s free, but we need a good count.