CHRISTIANITY UNDER SIEGE 600-1400 AD
In the beginning of the seventh century a new paganism was coming on the scene called “Islam.” The last 1400 years has been a “jihad” to force people into Islam, or die or become slaves. In the first fifty years of Islam, most of the Middle East and North Africa came under the influence of Islam.
Winston Churchill said: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohamedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. In improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist whereever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammed Law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”
610 AD, Mohammad had a vision supposedly from the angel Gabriel. There is no history of a nation changing to Islam except by force. A century after Mohammed’s death, the lands of Islam, under Arab leadership, stretched from Spain in the west across North Africa and most of the modern Middle East into Central Asia and northern India.
732 AD Islam was taking over the Iberian Peninsula advancing to take over Europe and on their way to England. It must have been a fearful sight to see 80,000 warriors with their curved swords coming at you. When Islam was spreading throughout Europe we had a problem with the church. Theology is the basis of civilization. If we do not have a right understanding of who God is then it will hinder the spread of a right and just civilization.
Medieval Christianity was more of a wholesale rather than individual conversion. The conversion to Christianity came about through the command of the leaders or by political influence with alliances made with heathen princes and their Christian wives. In other words, people became Christian in name only, and not through a new birth as laid down by the apostles. Christianity became more traditional (as taught through the fathers, monks and pope) than Biblical. It was more a baptism of water than by the Holy Spirit and fire. The missionaries of the time were mainly monks of little education or limited education, but they often had great zeal and self denial.
However, in the midst of all of this the contrast between Christianity and Islam that was spreading mainly through force and the sword. Christianity came with persuasion. Often when the Apostle Paul went into the synagogue he reasoned, proved and persuaded the people. Christianity carried with it the promise of freedom, family life and building a just civilization.
Islam came with the sword and brought in polygamy, slavery, despotism and desolation. The moving power behind Christianity was love to God and man, but the moving power behind Islam is fanaticism and the sword. I have been able to travel to a hundred different countries and have found that Christianity finds a home among all nations and different groups of people.
Islam forcefully marched and took over the lands of the Bible, the Greek Church, it seized the throne of Constantine, overran Spain and crossed over the Pyrenees and even for a time threatened the Church of Rome and the German empire. The Crusades originated with the desire to from the followers of Mohammed the “holy lands.” In the ensuing years of slaughtering one another, a hatred built up and even today when missionaries go out from the West to the Muslim lands the Muslims bring up the Crusades, and so the answer to other religions was “the sword.” In the crusades we tried the same thing and failed.
However, there were blessings in disguise. The conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) drove Greek scholars with the Greek New Testament to Italy where there was a revival of letters which in turn helped pave the way for the Protestant Reformation.
Several lessons that we can learn from this are: 1. True essence of religion is love to God and to man. The church cannot allow this to be eaten out by hatred and strife. 2. Disunity in the Body of Christ opens the door for the enemy to come in to steal precious souls from the Kingdom of God. We must keep in mind Jesus’ last prayer in John 17. The jealously between the Greek and Latin Church made the Body of Christ weak and there was no defense against marauding hordes. 3. God can take something that was made for evil and turn it around for something good. Islam coming in destroyed idolatry and, I believe, paved the way for the ‘real Gospel.’ Communism in China destroyed the ancestor worship and opened the door to the Gospel.
God did say, regarding the church, that the “gates of Hades will not overcome it.”