By Jim Coggins

A crusader (Orlando Bloom) sallies forth in Kingdom of Heaven.

She made the statement in a news release criticizing the conclusions of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan. The panel’s ‘Manley Report’ recommended Canadian troops remain in southern Afghanistan after February 2009, provided an additional 1,000 troops are sent to the region by Canada’s Western allies.

May said Canadians should be replaced by Afghans, and troops from “a different cultural mix of UN countries.”

The report, she asserted, “fails to consider that the recommendation of more . . . forces from a Christian/Crusader heritage will continue to fuel an insurgency that has been framed as a ‘jihad.’ This, in turn, may feed the recruitment of suicide bombers and other insurgents.”

However, it was not May’s policy proposals which raised the controversy.  

‘Crusade’ has become an increasingly volatile word, and public figures have shied away from using it in recent years.

U.S. President George W. Bush stated on September 16, 2001, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack: “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.” After the term aroused widespread criticism, he withdrew the remark and apologized.

For decades, Billy Graham conducted evangelistic ‘crusades.’ His son and successor Franklin Graham presents ‘evangelistic festivals.’

The ‘c-word’ was first applied, almost 1,000 years ago, to the military campaigns waged by some Christian European countries to take back Jerusalem and the Holy Land, which had been conquered by Muslims a few centuries earlier. The term is now often associated with the atrocities committed by the original Crusaders; and it is often applied to people from Western countries – which are perceived by many Muslims as still basically ‘Christian’ nations.

A Conservative Party response to May’s statement called called her comments “grossly insulting to Canadian forces,” arguing that Canada’s military is working “to bring peace and human rights to the people of Afghanistan . . . at the invitation of the Afghan government.”

A National Post editorial made a similar point: “Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are fighting for values that people of all faiths (or of no faith), can freely support.”

A Calgary Herald editorial maintained Canadian troops’ purpose “is not conquest, but security for those trying to build schools and clinics.” The Herald also suggested that, ironically, May’s warning against fuelling jihad will have the opposite effect –  her “hapless choice of words” will confirm “radical suspicions” of “Muslim fundamentalists” and “endanger the lives of Canadian soldiers.”

In a February 1 piece published in the National Post, May conceded she should have put ‘Christian/crusader heritage’ in quotation marks – to signify she was not calling Canada’s military effort a Christian crusade, but was saying the Taliban would use that term as a means of gaining more recruits.

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“The point we are making is that Taliban recruitment propaganda portrays the NATO mission, led by the United States, Canada and other Western countries, as a conflict between the Christian West and Islam,” she wrote.

James Beverley, a professor of Christian thought and ethics history at Tyndale University College and Seminary, told BCCN the conflict in Afghanistan is an attempt to combat terrorism and is not a religious war. Although the West is “still largely Christian . . . most people in the West do not view the campaign against terrorism as a religious war,” he said.

While there is a danger the Taliban will characterize the war as a Christian crusade, and Canadian leaders should be aware of that, sending Canadian troops there “is not necessarily wrong,” he added.

The furor over May’s terminology has been an “over-reaction,” said Beverley, adding: “I doubt if the Taliban leaders are really following the Green Party.”

Newspapers and politicians, including May herself, are backing away from any suggestion that the conflict in Afghanistan is in any sense a Muslim-Christian war. Rather, they insist it is an attempt to bring democracy and human rights to Afghanistan.

Beverley said it is unlikely troops from Muslim countries would replace Canadians in Afghanistan because it would arouse opposition in their own countries from factions who would see them as being “co-opted by the West.”

He said it is important to remember that “Islam comes in different varieties,” and that “the vast majority of Muslims in the world don’t like Islamic terrorism” – which is “so lacking in respect for Muslim law about the use of force.”

However, Roman Catholic columnist Raymond J. de Souza commented in the January 31 Post that, “despite the awkwardness in her formulation, May is largely correct.”

De Souza argued that Muslims, Christians and others understand the Crusades as “the outrages of fundamentalist Christian zealots setting upon irenic Muslims in the east, raping and massacring and pillaging as they went.” Without defending these atrocities, he said the Crusades should properly be understood as “an episode in a long series of battles between Christian and Muslim armies.” Moreover, in those battles, Muslims were often the aggressors, “advancing for several centuries, even into Europe, before being turned back.”

Joanne Pepper, coordinator of inter-religious studies at Trinity Western University, told BCCN it is important to understand that the Crusaders were often complete secularists just emerging from the Dark Ages – who were not able to read the Bible since it was available only in Latin.

“They supposedly acted for “gold, glory and God,” she said, but asserted there was often “little gold, a lot of glory and nothing of God” in them.

“Most Christians have come to realize that carrying the sword does not help advance the gospel,” said Beverley. “Christians don’t want the Christian story connected to sending armies to kill and conquer.”

 Helping the Afghan government fight off terrorism might be “a terrible necessity” in the short run, said Beverley. However, while that might be the responsibility of the Canadian government, the Christian church should have a different agenda.

“The most important thing Christians can do is help people in every country come to the gospel,” he said. “And the best way to do that is through social care, loving action and trying to work for peace.”

March 2008