The Crusade Salvation or Exploitation
The Crusades: Salvation or Exploitation Between the eleventh and the sixteenth century BC, the term crusade was used to denote campaigns that were encouraged by certain religious elements. Such crusades were mostly undertaken against Muslim in Jerusalem and neighboring cities. In addition, it involved pagans, heretics, and people that met the label of excommunication, for religious, economic or political reasons. The emblem of the crusades then was a cross reflecting its French meaning of taking up a cross. In 1905, Pope Urban II started the first crusade to restore Christian’s access to Jerusalem and its vicinity, which was considered to be the holy land (Constable, 2001). The crusade culminated into a battle that lasted for more than 200 years, which ended with a defeat of the crusaders themselves. In the modern world, however, these exercises have been employed as a strategy for exploiting others. Consequently, the way Christian have transformed crusades to be platforms for secular gains contrary to its original purpose, is a major point of debate. Earlier Christian crusades represented a voluntary activity involving a gathering of Christians in geographical borders of Christendom. They displayed crusades as presentations of powerful and devotion inducements for the correction of worldly sins. The idea of crusades was to bond a set of interrelated principals that are inherent within individuals, as well as those induced by a perfect, coherent preaching approach (Philips, 2009). In the era of Christian holy wars, crusades were intended to preach the Gospel in order to convert non-believers into Christians (Bravia Research International, 2014). Based on Riley-Smith (2008), many lives were lost during the crusades.
The concept of crusade has been applied in the current setting of Christianity. However, many evangelists in the modern society have continuingly centered the gospel on their individual social needs. A majority of them have become rich for beautifying religion for their personal gains through organizing multinational lucrative crusades, and exploiting naïve and poor disciples under the umbrella of God (Phillips, 2009). A majority of Christians gather at evangelical crusades hopelessly searching for an answer to their individual problems, eager to obtain a miracle at exorbitant costs (Chevedden, 2013). These crusaders entice their disciples into pledging, making monetary and other forms of donations, and offering gifts. In fact, many disciples give enthusiastically because the evangelists emphasize or distort religious doctrines in the Bible; they motivate them to give some of their personal wealth for a spiritual cause. The churches practicing such evangelical crusades disseminate their religious deception to their disciples in various forms, in the pretense of setting them free from the bondage of their troubles. For instance, specific crusaders purport to possess sacred water, special books and blessed garments that their disciples must purchase (Bravia Research International, 2014). According to Madden (2009), this tactic is a psychological inducement that they use to extract money from their followers. In practice, certain evangelical churches undertake crusades with a primary purpose of attracting multitudes who hopelessly succumb to their beautified evangelism. The bigger the crowd at their crusades, the more the opportunity presented to swindle money and resources from their followers. In fact, some evangelical churches ask their disciples to “sow” a specific amount of money on a monthly basis, promising them that God would increase their earnings by many folds.