Dr Paul Allen

The upper part of The Transfiguration (1520) by Raphael, depicting Christ miraculously discoursing with Moses and Elijah. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this ( Luke 4:28). After Jesus began to preach, the people in Nazareth started questioning His words. He was claiming to be the Messiah, but they remembered Him as Joseph’s son, a young carpenter who grew up in their midst. They wanted to see proof. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum .’ I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his home town” (Luke 4:23–24). As if to alienate them further, Jesus went on to tell the people that the new kingdom was going to go to the Gentiles . It was going to go wherever people believed the Word. But it was not going to go to faithless Israel , unless they repented and accepted this “home town prophet.” He...

Image via Wikipedia There were certainly atrocities committed as part of the Crusades : the sack of Jerusalem stands as one glaring example which we should lament as Christians .  However, to be fair the Crusades as a whole must be set against both the backdrop, and immediate context of Islamic expansion through warfare and conquest.  The Byzantine Empire, the great empire of eastern Christendom , was under continued assault and invasion.  North Africa had fallen to the Muslims ; Spain had been invaded.   While the French mainland invasions from Spain had been repelled prior, there were regular attacks by Muslim raiding parties along  Mediterranean coastal France, Italy, Greece, etc.  This is one reasons why medieval (and later!) Greek, Italian and French villages along the coasts sit atop fortified hills – Muslim raiding parties which killed the men, sexually assaulted/captured the women, and took the children as slaves back to North Africa/Pale...