"Dr. Thomas F. Madden is the former director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and a leading authority on the Crusades.
In an essay for Christianity Today (May 6, 2005), Madden laid bare many of the distortions and inaccuracies that have been promulgated by those who view the Christian West as the evil empire of the past two millennia. The Crusades were, in fact, a series of “holy wars,” but in no way were they conjured and perpetrated by the power-mad popes, rapacious knights or the Christian zealots who have been fallaciously characterized as “the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general.”
As Madden tells it, “Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death.” This went on in the Slavic territories, Asia Minor and as far north as Iceland.
I had several email exchanges with Madden after I read his essay and he directed me to other sources and scholars who basically shared his perspective. The issue before us today is: "Who is gunning for whom?" Evidence suggest that most of the "gunning" and militant violence is being perpetrated by Muslim extremists. Their goal isn't merely Israel, it's Western liberal democracies and other non-Muslim cultures."
