WEBVTT 00:00:02.959 --> 00:00:05.280 Here we are once again together. 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:11.039 There are three things in particular that I would like to focus on for this session. 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:20.719 Last time we talked about how, after Constantine came to power, a lot of stuff changed for the better and for the worse in the Christian church. 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:28.399 The bulk of Christianity was spread across the Mediterranean world and to the east along the Silk Road. 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:41.520 What happened when Constantine came to power is that he moved the capital city from Rome to Constantinople, his new city, named after himself, and that left a vacuum in the old Rome. 00:00:41.759 --> 00:01:10.719 That becomes part of what we'll talk about today because as the government left the city, the church became the new government and it patterned itself significantly after what the Roman government had been about, including adopting many of the names of the structures, many of the titles of the offices, many of the expressions of even dress and public demeanor that were part of the old Roman Empire. 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:24.480 This will become a challenging point along the way because increasingly the Church of Europe will adapt itself to the identity and ideas of the Roman Empire. 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:40.959 And part of the great reformation that we experience in the 16th and 17th centuries is a pushback against the church becoming a social institution and an institution of power and direction over society. 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:57.680 We know that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of Lords, but what's the nature of that relationship between Jesus' global kingdom and the kingdoms and the principalities that we set up in our various countries around the world? 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:00.719 So that will be one thing that we'll look at again today. 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:05.439 The second thing that I want to focus on is the rise of Islam. 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:10.800 This was a major event affecting Christianity deeply. 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:18.400 Islam is the only truly successful post-Christian religion in the world. 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:20.479 There are a good number of religions. 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:24.479 There are many similarities between the various religions. 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:27.360 Some of them are more philosophical. 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:41.840 In fact, uh, within China and Japan and other places in Asia, there's a question whether some of these so-called religions are actually philosophies of life. 00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:45.759 And so that is still an ongoing discussion. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:03:00.159 But with regard to monotheistic religions, there are only three major monotheistic religions, and that's Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each of which claims a bit of succession to it. 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:02.560 Well, Christianity and Islam do. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:23.520 And Christianity understands Judaism to emerge from the Old Testament religion of Israel, uh, recognizing the creator God, but that now the added dimension is the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, who was forecast and foretold by the prophets of Israel's religion. 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:31.759 Islam considers itself to be a successor to both uh Judaism and Christianity. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:44.240 And in that light it talks about the greatness of Moses and the greatness of Jesus in a particular way, and then the greatness overall of Muhammad. 00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:47.680 And so we'll look at Islam today as a successor. 00:03:47.919 --> 00:04:04.080 The third thing that I want to address today is the Crusades, because the Crusades become the visible antagonism between Christianity and Islam, which has shaped much of even our modern world. 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:14.400 And it's important for us to understand what it was that triggered these things and why the tensions grew and what were the outcomes of those kinds of things. 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:32.000 As we go back to that first theme, what was taking place, particularly in Europe and in the remnant of the old Roman Empire, particularly its Western expressions, was a tension between church and state. 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:36.720 It's clear that Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. 00:04:36.959 --> 00:05:15.040 It's clear that Jesus talked about God being the God over all nations and that no one nation was the true nation or one people was the true people, even though God had used ancient Israel and the Jews that were the remnant of ancient Israel as the vehicle by which God communicated to the nations, God made it very clear to Abraham back in Genesis 12: Through you I'm going to bless all the nations of the earth, because all of the nations, all of the peoples on earth are the children of God. 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:17.839 We are all made in the image of God. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:26.079 And the way in which God invested in Israel was more of a missional technique. 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:47.680 Since I can't talk directly to everyone, I will establish a uniquely trained people and I will plant them on the one place where all of the other peoples, all of my other children, will come by and they'll see what's going on and they'll ask questions and they'll say, How do we find the creator once again? 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:58.560 So although Israel had a unique place in God's missional plan, it did not have a privileged place in the hierarchy of the nations. 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:13.360 What happens over time, particularly as Christianity becomes strong within the Roman Empire, is that it begins to take on a characteristic in the sense of saying, we are better than you are. 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:36.240 We are more noble or closer to God or have more of God's favor on us, and therefore we have a possibility or a privilege or even a right to ignore or destroy or overpower you because we are with God and you are not with our God. 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:43.600 And so that becomes a major issue in the crusades and lingering into the present. 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:51.600 The rise of a church and state negotiations, there are three persons in particular. 00:06:51.759 --> 00:07:03.519 Obviously, we're jumping over a lot of history and a lot of time, but three persons in particular you might want to keep your eye on and you might want to go back and think about them again. 00:07:03.759 --> 00:07:08.800 And they are Gregory and Charles and Gregory. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:16.959 So if you think about those three people, Gregory and Charles and Gregory, they're called Gregory the Great. 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:20.480 He was a leader of the church out of Rome. 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:25.199 He became known as Gregory the Great, the Pope of Rome. 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:28.959 And then Charles has several names throughout history. 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:36.800 He's called Charles the Great, but he's also become known to us in other ways as Charlemagne. 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:41.199 That's really Charles Magnus, the great Charles. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:42.879 So Charles the Great. 00:07:43.120 --> 00:08:02.480 And then we have the other Gregory, who started his life as archdeacon Hildebrand, but had a showdown with one of the kings of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry IV, and brought Henry IV to subjection, again showing the power of the church. 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:07.519 So Gregory the Great, the first one, is in the 6th century. 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:09.199 That's the 500s. 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:18.800 And he's at the time after, say, Augustine, when the entire Roman government has been shifted to Constantinople. 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:29.759 And there are Huns and Vandals and Goths and Visigoths entering into northern Europe and coming down into Italy. 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:36.399 And the Roman government wasn't doing anything about them because the Roman government was busy with other things. 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:39.840 The Roman government was actually feeling the shrinkage. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.480 It was losing its capacity to rule the Mediterranean world. 00:08:44.720 --> 00:09:03.840 And in that place, Gregory the Great basically established a great nation that was essentially the old Western Roman Empire and became sort of the first leader of this thing that would become what we call the Holy Roman Empire. 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:06.480 He withstood the invasions. 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:11.679 He provided even for the conversion of some of those who came. 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:31.120 And he was part of the start of Christianizing Europe because all those who seemed to attack the Holy Roman Empire or the Western Roman Empire, he was such a powerful influence that they eventually became part of this very enterprise. 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:42.320 And that's why many of the northern European areas, countries, peoples, nations have emerged as part of the Christianized world. 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:56.480 Not only that, but he continued the structures of the Roman Empire in such a way that it provided the church the opportunity to actually rule over this vast domain. 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.679 And it did so from a centralized location. 00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:09.200 What had been the Western Roman Republic, the Western Empire now became essentially the Christian church. 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:18.559 And instead of there being an emperor, it was the bishop of Rome who was increasingly the papa or the pope over that domain. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:34.000 And with that, you needed to collect taxes, and with that, you needed to appoint people who were administrative rulers, and with that, you needed to have armies that would ensure that there was safety on the roads and tranquility and all of that. 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:41.840 Gregory the Great was the one who kind of promoted that identity for the Western Christian Church. 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:48.480 He was followed a couple of centuries later in the eighth century by Charlemagne. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:11:02.080 Charlemagne, Charles the Great, became one of the leading uh powerhouses within the rather splintered territories of the old Roman Empire. 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:04.480 It was the days of feudalism. 00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:17.759 Now, we don't think about feudalism so much, at least in North America, although there are times in which our nations seem to be splintering again into little groupings here or there in the next place. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:25.679 But we have to think of a world before there's modern telecommunications, before there's modern travel. 00:11:25.919 --> 00:11:30.879 In those days, everybody walked or at best rode a horse or a donkey. 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:32.399 You didn't travel far. 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:37.120 You may never get more than 20, 30 miles away from the place you were born. 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:39.840 There's no rapid communication. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.799 You may raft down a river or something like that, but there's very little movement. 00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:50.720 And so all of the little pieces of property are owned by someone. 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:59.840 And the thing that people are trying to get is to own more property, but it could be a patchwork quilt of it, not all right together. 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:06.879 And you need someone on each of those pieces of property to sort of look after the crops and the animals. 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:12.480 And it becomes a hierarchy of who's got land and which territories are yours. 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:14.399 We call that feudalism. 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:22.879 And within that, Charles the Great amassed one of the greatest powerhouses of leadership. 00:13:03.839 --> 00:13:15.759 By 800, by Christmas of 800, Charles the Great had become the recognized largest leader in Central and Northern and Western Europe. 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:24.959 And he was actually anointed by the Pope of Rome to be the Holy Roman Emperor. 00:13:25.199 --> 00:13:30.000 And so here we have the dominance of the church over the state. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:46.879 The church acknowledges his rightful rule and puts him in that office, but he becomes the one who rules over the church, even as the church continues to have much power. 00:13:47.199 --> 00:13:53.839 That tension would continue, particularly as Europe went through another period of weather change. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:04.319 There was a rapid change so that there's kind of a modern ice age, and the crops failed, and the population went down, and the bubonic plague came through. 00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:15.599 And after that, with a decimated population, the state, Charlemagne's great Holy Roman Empire, seemed to lose its punch and its potential once again. 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:20.479 And into that vacuum, once again, the church rose to prominence. 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:23.759 And here's where we have the second Gregory. 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:39.120 This is the archdeacon Hildebrand, and he is in contention with Henry IV, who's the Holy Roman Emperor, and there's a standoff as to which of them will become the servant of the other. 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:51.919 And by withholding the sacraments, eventually the king bows to Hildebrand, who then claims himself to be Gregory once again. 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:55.039 So we have this back and forth tug. 00:14:55.279 --> 00:15:12.799 What happens in all of this is that it becomes a powerful struggle of who owns more property, who can wield social influence over people, who has the right to declare laws, who has the biggest armies. 00:15:12.959 --> 00:15:15.519 The church had great armies then, too. 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:23.359 And so it was really a tension of powers like any major tension of powers that our world has gone through. 00:15:23.599 --> 00:15:48.399 The nations within Africa, the nations within Asia, the nations within Europe, the fights that have taken place in North and Central and South America, all of these attempts to dominate one another for power, all of that was present in Europe and was part of identifying the church's self-perceived rule over others. 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:55.599 Well, in the context of that, something new developed, and that was the rise of Islam. 00:15:56.319 --> 00:16:11.519 Muhammad was born into a modest family in Mecca, in what's now Saudi Arabia, and it was a modestly populated region. 00:16:12.239 --> 00:16:23.759 He was himself kind of an ordinary person, except that he did have epilepsy or something similar to that, which caused him to have seizures now and again. 00:16:24.079 --> 00:16:27.039 His father died before he was born. 00:16:27.199 --> 00:16:30.239 His mother died when he was just a young boy. 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:36.879 He was taken under the care of his grandfather until his grandfather died, and then under the care of an uncle. 00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:43.759 Along the way, Muhammad was someone who didn't show any particular special prominence. 00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:58.799 But he was used by his grandfather and his uncle to manage some caravans of camels, particularly one which was a long string of camels that went all the way to Syria and was a rather major deal. 00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:00.799 And he succeeded well at that. 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:05.200 And he was recognized by others as giving good leadership to that. 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:15.839 And that placed him into the graces of a woman who was a distant cousin, and she thought he should look after her camels and his her trade. 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:17.759 And eventually they got married. 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:24.640 That was one of the most interesting things, a distant cousin of his or aunt that he married. 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:37.279 But in his travels, he was able to go through the Middle East and see the Jews as they operated in a world after they had been decimated by the Romans. 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:44.960 And he was able to see the Christians as they were engaged in kind of a tug of war East and West. 00:17:45.519 --> 00:18:01.279 And he began to think that both of these religions, which believed in one true God, were in fact the best of all religions, but they just didn't get it straight what that religion was all about. 00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:27.840 There's a sense in which the Quran and the teachings of Islam are actually kind of a pared-down Judaism and Christianity that just gets to the root of power structures and behaviors, minimal behaviors, but very necessarily practiced, even more so than the multiplicity of things that Judaism had in terms of its feasts and festivals. 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:33.039 There is for Islam a very limited and focused scope. 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:40.720 And in terms of Christianity, there were all of the arguments about the nature of Jesus and what God was like. 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:46.640 If there was one God, why did we start speaking of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? 00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:52.480 And in Muhammad's mind, there was a sense of these things are way too complicated. 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.600 Now, Muhammad himself could not read. 00:18:55.840 --> 00:19:05.200 So he didn't get his information from any books or sources, including any of the writings of the Old Testament or any of the writings of the New Testament. 00:19:05.360 --> 00:19:09.440 It was all based on what he heard and overheard from others. 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:13.039 And when he was about 40, he began to have visions. 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:17.840 And these visions, there are different ways in which they're explained. 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:20.080 Could it be encounters with God? 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:23.039 Could it be fits of epilepsy? 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:28.799 Could it be what was in the air in some of the caves that he certainly liked to spend time in? 00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:31.360 In any case, he began to have visions. 00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:36.480 And in some of the initial visions, he imagined that he saw the angel Gabriel. 00:19:36.560 --> 00:19:40.720 And the angel Gabriel was vast, as big as the heavens itself. 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:52.160 And the angel Gabriel came to Muhammad and began to speak to him and tell him that he had to do these things and had to know these things and had to write down these things, had to read these things. 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:57.200 He even brought him uh manuscripts to read, according to all of the teachings. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:06.320 And Muhammad uh rebelled against that or pushed back against that because Muhammad kept saying, But I don't read, but I don't read, but I don't read. 00:20:06.560 --> 00:20:21.279 And according to the stories, the angel Gabriel shook him by, took him by the neck and squeezed him till the breath was gone, and he had some ecstatic visions, almost killed him, but then released him and said, You gotta read. 00:20:21.360 --> 00:20:23.039 But Muhammad said, I can't read. 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:40.799 And that happened several times over until in the stories, this is the origins of Islam, the angel said, Okay, then I will kind of take over your mind and I will speak through you, and you arrange for people to come and take down these words. 00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:47.759 And this becomes a way in which Islam is very connected to the spoken word. 00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:55.759 This is why in countries which are dominated by Islam, we have the minarets, the towers, and the calls to prayer. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:00.400 A lot of it is oral, it's uh audible, it's out there. 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:15.120 While the Quran is there, it can only truly be read and understood in the Arabic language because that was the language of the time and the language through which Gabriel and God himself, Allah, spoke. 00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:20.960 So it's very much tied to a particular language and to the vocalization of that language. 00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:28.560 And this has influenced even the way in which uh Christians in particular have looked at the Bible. 00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:41.680 Until the time of Muhammad, it was seen to be a sort of record of the things that God had done, along with specific teachings that came through certain prophets. 00:21:41.920 --> 00:22:11.039 But the Quran began to talk about the word of God as something that is absolute and unchangeable and dictated in certain words, and that perspective on what divine teaching is began to filter back over time into Christianity and change the nature of the way that Christians began to think, many of them, about how we understand and use and experience God through the scriptures. 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:14.400 What took place over time is a struggle. 00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:18.080 Most of the Arabs at that time were polytheists. 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:19.680 They believed in many gods. 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:24.000 This was not unusual, local gods, family gods, whatever. 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:39.440 In Mecca, there was a shrine, the Kaba, and it had four walls, and in it were sort of the displays or the representations of the variety of gods it did. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:41.039 Not have a roof. 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:50.000 We're in a very arid country and it didn't have a roof, but there was some discussion about needing to put a roof on top of this to make it a full building. 00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:57.039 And Muhammad took the lead and basically tore the thing apart so that it could be rebuilt. 00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:04.640 And by the time they had it rebuilt, Muhammad was seen as the great leader, and he was talking about there being one God. 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:15.039 And so the Kaaba no longer had the shrines and images of the other gods and became the center of the worship of the one true God, Allah. 00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:21.440 Well, there was tension within Mecca, and for a time Muhammad was forced to leave to go to Medina. 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:23.840 He would organize society there. 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:34.799 He would talk about Allah and the one true God and how both the Jews and the Christians had gotten a start on all of this, but that they had become sidelined along the way. 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:41.039 And so he had received the visions of the proper way in which to understand the one true God. 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:49.840 And he was the one who was mandated to be the greatest of all of the prophets, to bring all of the peoples of monotheism together again. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:55.600 So the design was to bring all Jews and Christians into Islam. 00:23:56.320 --> 00:24:03.279 That led to the return of Muhammad eventually to Mecca, the great return. 00:24:03.600 --> 00:24:08.880 Shortly before his death, his death becomes celebrated as the start of Islam. 00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:16.880 And when he came in triumph back to Mecca with the Kaaba, this became the center of what Islam is all about. 00:24:17.360 --> 00:24:35.759 And the growing strength of the reorganized Arab peoples began to spill over, and the simplicity of Muhammad's thoughts with regard to God and religion and all of that began to take hold very fast and very effectively. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:52.160 The rise of Islam becomes the major threat to Christianity because Christianity had become so aligned with the old Roman Empire that it had become essentially kind of a nationality in itself. 00:24:52.320 --> 00:25:14.640 And here was a new forming, burgeoning, growing nationality over against what Christianity had been, particularly because there was a self-perception within Muhammad's mind, then filtered into Islam, that you are good people, but we have the insights and the true knowledge which supersedes that. 00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:19.680 So Islam became a post-Christian religion. 00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:35.920 Now Islam spread very rapidly, and virtually the entire Eastern Church was out or just simply disappeared under the onslaught of the rapidly expanding Arab Muslim world. 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:52.320 It went into all of the Silk Road area, into even what's now Western China, where we still have Muslim groups in Western China that the official Chinese government is trying to get rid of and persecute. 00:25:52.560 --> 00:26:16.480 There was a way in which there was so much commonality between Islam and Christianity that for many people it was just a matter of who was in charge and how we would follow the leader and how we would take even the symbols of Christianity and uh dress them in different colors or in different patterns and then use them. 00:26:16.560 --> 00:26:37.600 You see this in the great Hagia Sophia, the great church in Constantinople, which was built as the largest freestanding structure in the world in its time and still is an awesome site, but it went from being a church to a mosque to a museum and now back to a mosque again. 00:26:37.840 --> 00:26:44.320 And many of the early mosques of Islam were actually the takeover of Christian buildings. 00:26:44.560 --> 00:26:48.880 And the Christian buildings were at times the takeover of Jewish synagogues. 00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.000 So this is just something that kind of evolved over time. 00:26:52.240 --> 00:27:06.960 The Muslims did not actually add a lot of architectural structures that were not there prior, except for the minarets, the towers that allowed for a public call to prayer seven times a day. 00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:16.880 Islam itself eventually took on a characteristic of having five major aspects to it, the five pillars of Islam. 00:27:17.120 --> 00:27:23.120 And it is not highly theological, but it is extremely practice-oriented. 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:31.279 And so you have the five pillars, the testimony that there is one God, Allah, and no other gods beside him. 00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:48.480 And there's a sense within Islam over the years that that is the new manifestation of the name of the God Yahweh of Israelite religion, the God of the Father of Christianity, the creator God, that that's all wrapped in the same one. 00:27:48.560 --> 00:27:56.320 To this date, there are debates among all three religions as to whether we're talking about the same God or we're talking about different gods. 00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.640 And that continues to this day. 00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:03.840 The second pillar was that of prayers, seven times a day or five times a day. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:18.720 It kind of depended a little bit at the start on who was in charge, but there were a number of times of prayer during the day, and everyone would pray toward Mecca because that was the center and that's where the Kabbalah was the holy shrine. 00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:21.120 And then there were the almsgivings. 00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:28.320 This was the method of taking care of the poor in the community as a reflection of both Judaism and Christianity. 00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:31.360 And then there was the fasting. 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:34.640 Fasting was prominent in ancient Israel. 00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:37.039 It was prominent within Christianity. 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:46.080 There was a sense that we become too easily consumers in our world and we need to be able to push back against that consumerism. 00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:55.200 And when we push back against that consumerism, like the monks in the monasteries of Christianity, we reduce our food intake. 00:28:55.279 --> 00:29:16.480 And sometimes during periods or seasons of life, in fact, Ramadan was built on top of Lent, because Christianity had Lent, the 40-day period prior to Good Friday, in which with Jesus we focus our attention on things that truly matter and maybe abstain from certain things. 00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:22.400 So the fasts of Lent became in Islam the fasts of Ramadan. 00:29:22.560 --> 00:29:30.480 But the fasts of Ramadan, once again, there's a kind of simplicity and directness to all that happens in Islam. 00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:38.799 And that's that you only fast during the day, and at night you can eat again because you can't get through 40 days without eating anything. 00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:51.120 And so you make the fast visible and obvious during the day, but then you also celebrate and know your place with others and with God in the eating and drinking again every night. 00:29:51.360 --> 00:29:52.640 But that's the fourth thing. 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:56.240 And then the fifth thing became essentially pilgrimage. 00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.519 And this again was patterned after Christianity. 00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:24.880 By this time in Christianity, the holy sites of Palestine, the holy tomb and the birthplace of Jesus, and the mountain of transfiguration, and all of these places had been identified and shrines or churches built over them, and Christians would flow, particularly from Europe, to these sites within Palestine. 00:30:25.120 --> 00:30:27.600 That was also translated into Islam. 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:36.880 There's so much that Islam really just took directly from Christianity and from Judaism and then made its own thing. 00:30:37.120 --> 00:30:41.519 But the simplicity of Islam is you've got too many talks about God. 00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:44.799 So Jesus is not God, he's just a prophet. 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:46.960 And we can we can handle prophets. 00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:55.279 So Moses is the great prophet, and Jesus is the great prophet, and then Muhammad is the greatest of the prophets, and the other prophets are there too. 00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:56.799 But what do prophets do? 00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:58.720 They speak for God. 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:01.360 And so that becomes the mantra. 00:31:01.519 --> 00:31:02.400 There is a God. 00:31:02.560 --> 00:31:05.039 God is somewhat remote, but God is in charge. 00:31:05.120 --> 00:31:08.720 And the only way we can hear the voice of God is through the prophets. 00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:16.160 And the Quran is the direct statements of Allah, the direct statements of God. 00:31:16.320 --> 00:31:21.200 And so they take prime precedence over anything else. 00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:30.720 But those become the five pillars of Islam: the testimony, monotheistic testimony, there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. 00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:37.120 And then the prayers, the daily prayers that put a rhythm to life, like ancient Judaism. 00:31:37.360 --> 00:31:43.360 And then there are the almsgivings for the poor, which is part of Judaism and Christianity. 00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:48.320 And then there is the fast, which reminds us that we are not perfect. 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:50.799 And that's from Judaism and Christianity. 00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:53.120 And then there's the pilgrimage, the Hajj. 00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:56.880 At least once in a lifetime, one is supposed to go to Mecca. 00:31:56.960 --> 00:32:00.480 And if one can't, one's supposed to pay for others to go. 00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.360 That became the simplicity of Islam and the forthright. 00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:10.080 You don't have to know a lot of theology, but you practice these five things. 00:32:10.320 --> 00:32:12.880 Well, it spread very rapidly. 00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:26.400 The Coptic Christians in Egypt were probably the only group that managed to live successfully side by side with the growing Islamic movement. 00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:41.360 There was a huge sense of propriety among the Coptic Christians that nations come, nations go, religions come, religions go, we belong to God, we know Jesus, and we live in that light. 00:32:41.600 --> 00:32:43.920 So the Coptic Christians survived. 00:32:44.160 --> 00:33:16.960 But along the northern African coast of the Mediterranean, most of the Christians had been led by people who were actually from Europe, from Greece or from Rome, because the Roman colonies of northern Africa tended to be dominated by the peoples who came from Italy or Greece and established a rulership over these peoples, and it didn't filter into indigenous expressions of a common culture. 00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:21.680 It was the Roman Empire over the African peoples. 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:34.799 Islam tended to be an indigenous kind of religion that it communicated with the people from their past and said, This is the way that your religion really was headed in any case. 00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:38.960 So Christianity virtually disappeared from North Africa. 00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:46.720 And the same was true along the Silk Road, going to Egypt, I mean to China and to India. 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:51.120 Islam kind of took over all of that. 00:33:51.279 --> 00:34:01.519 What was left was this growing holy Roman Empire plus the Eastern Church as it had been large. 00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:10.719 We call it the Byzantine Empire, not because it called itself that, but eventually it was known for being from Byzantium. 00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:22.239 And so it's that little region around the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea that became sort of the Eastern Roman Empire or the Roman Empire as it continued. 00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:31.279 You have the Roman Empire, which is really now the Eastern Empire, and then you have the Holy Roman Empire, which is the Western Empire. 00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:36.239 And that led to the third thing, which are the Crusades. 00:34:36.639 --> 00:35:03.279 What happened as Islam began to push in that direction is that the Eastern communities, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantium Empire began to shrink and shrink and shrink, and territory was ripped away by this growing large Islamic kingdom that reached all the way up through Spain for a while before it was pushed back by others. 00:35:03.440 --> 00:35:07.919 Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 732 defeated the Moors. 00:35:08.079 --> 00:35:20.799 By 711, it had invaded all of Spain, and then the pushback came as Spain reconnected with the Holy Roman Empire. 00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:31.199 What happened in the East is that there were tensions between the Greek expressions of Christianity and the Latin expressions of Christianity. 00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:44.239 Eventually, the Greeks got the kingdom because Constantine moved the kingdom over to Constantinople in the East, but the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire. 00:35:44.319 --> 00:35:54.799 And these two were kind of on a collision course with one another all the while being increasingly surrounded by the Islamic, the growing Islamic Empire. 00:35:55.679 --> 00:36:11.919 By 1054, the Patriarch of Constantinople had excommunicated the Bishop of Rome, and the Bishop of Rome had excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople. 00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:22.960 Well, these were the two leaders of the two major branches of the Christian church, and they equally said, You are wrong and you're not even Christian. 00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:25.679 And you are wrong and you're not even Christian. 00:36:25.759 --> 00:36:36.079 And so you have the two major expressions of Christianity each declaring the other is completely wrong and apostasized. 00:36:36.319 --> 00:36:41.759 Well, that lasted for about 50 years, and they just didn't say hello to one another. 00:36:41.839 --> 00:36:44.719 They lived separate, but 50 years only. 00:36:45.119 --> 00:37:03.119 Then as the Islamic movement began to creep toward Constantinople, the Patriarch and the Emperor, actually, the Emperor of Constantinople said to the Pope of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, Help, we need you. 00:37:03.279 --> 00:37:04.399 Come over here. 00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:07.919 And that gave rise to the Crusades. 00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:17.839 About 50 years later, in 1095, Pope Urban was gathering the leaders of the church, obviously the Western Church. 00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:23.199 And during this several days conference, they had lots of things to talk about. 00:37:23.519 --> 00:37:30.879 But just before the conference ended, Pope Urban II gave a fiery address. 00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:44.239 And in that speech or that sermon, the first half of it was that we have to clean house and we have to be better Christians and we have to do things right, and the leaders have to get back on target and all of that. 00:37:44.399 --> 00:37:51.039 But the second half of it said, we have to help our brothers and sisters in the East. 00:37:51.199 --> 00:37:51.839 We have to go. 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:55.359 They have asked us for help and we had better go. 00:37:55.519 --> 00:37:58.239 And the crowd went wild. 00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:02.399 The crowd shouted out, God wills it, God wills it. 00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:07.919 And they tore their clothing apart into strips. 00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:18.799 And then they took two strips, a longer strip and a shorter strip, and they put them on their shoulders, just laid them on top of their clothes, strips that formed a cross. 00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:24.000 They were now under the cross, and that became the start of the crusades. 00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:26.799 Pope Urban said, We got to organize this thing. 00:38:26.879 --> 00:38:30.239 He gave until August 15 of 1096. 00:38:30.639 --> 00:38:33.759 But some people said, God wills it, and we have to go. 00:38:34.399 --> 00:38:51.279 And a whole bunch of people just started in mass moving toward Palestine and were basically killed right, left, and center along the way until that group of people was entirely annihilated. 00:38:51.519 --> 00:38:55.839 Those who waited until 1096, they took off. 00:38:56.319 --> 00:39:16.079 And although they weren't well equipped and they didn't really know what they were doing, surprisingly, because of the strange thing that this was, the church forming an army against a fellow religious group, they won. 00:39:16.399 --> 00:39:18.879 They won three major battles. 00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:34.879 In 1097, they took over Nicaea, which was that resort town that Constantin that Constantine liked so much, and where the Council of Nicaea had been meeting and created the Nicene Creed. 00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:39.359 They retook that from the Muslims that had pressed all the way over there. 00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:49.440 And then they went on and they took Antioch, which was the place where Paul and Barnabas established that first major church outside of Palestine. 00:39:49.519 --> 00:39:54.239 And it became a center of Christian identity until the Muslims took over. 00:39:54.399 --> 00:39:56.159 And then they went on to Jerusalem. 00:39:56.239 --> 00:39:59.679 And in 1099, they took over Jerusalem too. 00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:03.119 Nobody expected it, and yet they did it. 00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:15.279 And just like that, the West had reasserted itself as a Christian organization under power and under orders in the Middle East. 00:40:15.919 --> 00:40:20.639 Well, this began creating some friction and tension with the Muslims. 00:40:20.799 --> 00:40:30.079 Not only were they they had never lost battles like this before, they had been so successful for hundreds of years that they couldn't imagine what was going on. 00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:48.559 And suddenly the whole attention of Islam was retooled, and that's when other groups began to push back against Islam in various places, and it led to kind of a consolidation of the different Islamic uh leadership groups within the Middle East. 00:40:48.799 --> 00:41:03.119 Within a few years, some of those places were retaken, and 50 years later, or so that's when the next pope had to declare another crusade because Edessa had fallen. 00:41:03.279 --> 00:41:07.759 And so there was a sense that we have to go back and we have to fortify these things. 00:41:07.919 --> 00:41:12.239 So there was a second crusade about 10, 1147. 00:41:12.879 --> 00:41:24.559 The years of the 1100s, the 12th century, that's basically the time of the crusades, the 1200, uh, 12th, uh, the 1100s, the 12th century. 00:41:24.799 --> 00:41:32.480 About midway through that century, the second crusade was called, and it was a complete disaster. 00:41:33.119 --> 00:41:43.759 While people got going and they managed to, some of them reach their destinations, they were resoundingly pushed back and beaten by Muslim forces. 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:50.239 And then as they began to sit and lick their wounds, they decided that they had to take an easy target. 00:41:50.399 --> 00:41:54.639 And nobody knows why, but they began to attack Damascus. 00:41:54.879 --> 00:41:58.319 And Damascus had been a stronghold of Christianity. 00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:05.839 And now suddenly we had the crusaders of Christianity fighting Damascus, which was both Christian and Muslim. 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:18.559 Well, within a few days, the defenders in Damascus managed to almost annihilate all of the remaining crusaders, and the second crusade came to a very dismal end. 00:42:19.679 --> 00:42:27.440 The third thing that the Third Crusade was uh commanded about uh oh 40 years later, right near the end of the 12th century. 00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:43.679 And this time there was much more planning that went into it, and the Third Crusade managed to re restock some of the places in Palestine, but there was a strong pushback against it. 00:42:43.919 --> 00:42:48.960 Uh, and there were three notable characters out of Europe that went there. 00:42:49.119 --> 00:43:06.399 One was Frederick Barbarossa, the orange-bearded German out of Germany, and then the other two were the king of France, Philip, and the king of England, King Henry the Lionhearted, or I mean King Richard the Lionhearted. 00:43:06.639 --> 00:43:12.799 If you know some other stories out of England, you probably know the stories of Robin Hood. 00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:19.759 What happens is that King Richard leaves for the Crusades and he puts his brother, who is really corrupt, in charge. 00:43:19.839 --> 00:43:31.759 And it's during that time that Robin Hood of Nottinghamshire begins to push back against the rule because he wants uh King Richard to come back again, and he does. 00:43:31.839 --> 00:43:34.399 That's all the stories of Robin Hood. 00:43:34.639 --> 00:43:44.159 But these three kings go, and both King Philip of France and King Richard of England, they kind of work together. 00:43:44.319 --> 00:43:51.199 They were a bit of enemies of one another, but they kind of worked together with preparations and they planned a sea voyage. 00:43:51.519 --> 00:43:58.239 King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany wanted to do things on his own, and he was a blustery sort of guy. 00:43:58.399 --> 00:44:00.239 And he took off overland. 00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:19.039 And about the time he got into what's now South Central Turkey, he was just moving along, and there was a large river that they had to cross, and he just kind of blundered right in with his horse and his heavy armor on him, and he fell off his horse and he was weighted down by his armor and he drowned. 00:44:19.279 --> 00:44:25.119 And his part of the crusaders just kind of evaporated, and some went back home and other places. 00:44:25.279 --> 00:44:28.319 But King Richard and King Philip, they managed to go. 00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:33.919 By this time, there was a leader among the Muslims that the West called Saladin. 00:44:34.319 --> 00:44:39.440 He has a much longer title than that, but he becomes sort of comrades. 00:44:39.919 --> 00:44:43.119 Particularly to King Richard the Lionhearted. 00:44:43.359 --> 00:44:54.319 And while Philip will be there for a time and they'll win back some territory, particularly along the Mediterranean coast, in the end they won't be able to take Jerusalem. 00:44:54.480 --> 00:45:00.559 Philip will go back and he'll try to press some claims against things that King Richard is supposed to earn. 00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:09.519 And so Richard is in a hurry to get back, but he makes peace with Saladin and they kind of like one another and they form a pact together. 00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:20.079 And they say that both Muslims and Christians, as well as Jews, will have full and complete access to all of the holy sites in Palestine. 00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:25.279 And that's kind of lingered through every different changing regime right up until today. 00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:30.480 Well, there was a strong pushback after Richard left to England. 00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:38.719 There was a strong pushback from Islam, and there was a rather nasty slaughter of Christians, particularly. 00:45:38.879 --> 00:45:49.599 There was a lot of slaughtering of Muslims by Christians and an awful lot of Christians slaughtered by Muslims until the Muslims basically took over part of that world again. 00:45:49.839 --> 00:45:55.440 And that led in around 1200 to the Fourth Crusade. 00:45:55.679 --> 00:46:04.639 And the Fourth Crusade saw some of the failings of the early crusades and wanted to be well stocked and wanted to have boats to take them over there. 00:46:04.799 --> 00:46:08.399 So they came to Venice and they spent some time in Venice. 00:46:08.559 --> 00:46:12.559 The Venice people were the shipbuilders, build some boats for us. 00:46:12.639 --> 00:46:18.559 And then they ran out of money, and the people of Venice were kind of uncertain, what are you going to do now? 00:46:18.639 --> 00:46:29.599 And then the people of Venice were kind of in competition with the people of Cedar, down on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, part of Croatia today. 00:46:29.919 --> 00:46:45.519 And because these two rival cities both wanted to command the trade of the Adriatic Sea and into the Mediterranean Sea, the people of Venice said, Well, we'll forgive your debts and we'll build your boats if you will take out Zadar. 00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:47.519 And the Pope said, You can't do that. 00:46:47.599 --> 00:46:49.119 That's Christians against Christians. 00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:50.480 We don't do that kind of thing. 00:46:50.639 --> 00:47:04.480 And the people of the Crusades said, Well, we want to get our boats paid, so they went off and they went to Zadar and they resoundingly beat the pulp out of the people of Zadar until it became sort of a subsidiary of Venice. 00:47:04.639 --> 00:47:33.839 And that's about the time that the Muslims finally got close to Constantinople, and the emperor, uh, the last of the whole or Roman emperors there was put off his throne, and his son comes over to Zadar and he says to these crusaders, he says, If you will come to Constantinople and drive out the Muslims, I will give you a whole pile of money. 00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:37.679 I'll pay for everything for you to go on crusade. 00:47:37.919 --> 00:47:43.679 I will even bow to the Pope in Rome, will bring the church back together again. 00:47:43.839 --> 00:47:45.199 This is going to be good for you. 00:47:45.359 --> 00:47:47.919 And everybody said, Yeah, we can handle that. 00:47:48.159 --> 00:48:04.559 And all of a sudden, more people came streaming into Zadar from Europe and they left for Constantinople and they wiped out the Muslims who had taken over Constantinople and they re-established Christian rule in Constantinople. 00:48:04.799 --> 00:48:11.759 And then Prince Alexis says, By the way, I don't have any money. 00:48:12.079 --> 00:48:17.440 And they turned on him, and the crusaders took over Constantinople. 00:48:17.839 --> 00:48:20.159 And that's the Fourth Crusade. 00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:23.599 You see how crazy this thing is getting? 00:48:23.919 --> 00:48:41.279 Christianity had regained for a time some footholds in Palestine, and then they had come under turmoil, and now they were being lost, and now Christians were turning against Christians, and the Muslims would continue to push through what becomes Turkey. 00:48:41.519 --> 00:48:44.000 It was a really tough time. 00:48:44.480 --> 00:49:07.440 And this is where we get to the modern age, because what has continued to take place since the time of the Crusades in particular is a strong animosity between righteous Muslims and righteous Christians, self-perceived, between strong Muslims and strong Christians. 00:49:07.919 --> 00:49:10.079 They have our territory. 00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:13.839 This is our territory, and we have a better religion than they do. 00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:15.519 They just don't know it yet. 00:49:15.759 --> 00:49:24.480 And this has led to even the tensions that are exploding again in the Middle East, and even to what in the United States we call 9-11. 00:49:25.039 --> 00:49:43.839 One of the reasons that the date was picked by bin Laden for the attack on the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon and the White House, was that that was the anniversary of the date in which the Battle of Constantinople had taken place. 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:47.279 And the Muslims had lost then, and now they were going to win. 00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:51.519 And this continues to go on and on back and forth. 00:49:51.759 --> 00:49:55.199 There were some other outcomes of the Crusades. 00:49:55.519 --> 00:50:22.239 One is that now that the church had kind of spent its wad trying to push in the East and was increasingly losing, the church continued to use that tactic led by Rome as a powerhouse of political activity and use it on non-Christians and on supposedly heretical Christians and people who aren't really believing like us. 00:50:22.319 --> 00:50:47.279 And you have about a dozen more crusades after the initial four, some of which went toward Egypt and Palestine, but most of which went toward Western and Northern Europe to conquer peoples that are not yet Christians and turn them, force them, either kill them or make them Christians, and Christianity becomes this kind of power-hungry organization. 00:50:47.839 --> 00:51:06.159 This will lead eventually as Europe grows through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Exploration to this sense that Christianity and European dominance are one and the same. 00:51:06.239 --> 00:51:09.279 And so we can go out and we can conquer other peoples. 00:51:09.359 --> 00:51:11.279 And who are the other peoples? 00:51:11.919 --> 00:51:31.679 Africa, Asia, the Americas newly discovered, and Christianity will walk with the powerhouses of Europe, and there will be this kind of mixed thing that will emerge colonialism and Christianity. 00:51:33.359 --> 00:51:34.960 Is it one and the same? 00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:36.799 Are they different? 00:51:37.119 --> 00:51:58.079 They have become so intertwined that it was almost impossible to decipher the difference by the time of the great mission era of the church that brought Christianity to Africa and Asia in large numbers, but also brought the dominance of the power-hungry Europeans and Americans. 00:51:58.319 --> 00:52:00.399 So it's a strange phenomenon. 00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:05.519 Now, there are a couple of things that come out of the Crusades that are worth thinking about. 00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:14.000 One is the dominance and the kind of ultimate victory of the Bishop of Rome. 00:52:14.239 --> 00:52:20.480 Essentially, the church became the remnant of the old Roman Empire. 00:52:20.639 --> 00:52:28.079 And it needed a hierarchy, an organizational structure, a set of organizational principles. 00:52:28.319 --> 00:52:34.399 It adopted all of that from the old Roman Empire. 00:52:34.639 --> 00:52:47.519 And what would happen, at least in significant part, in the Reformation, which was a Western Christian phenomena, is that people were saying, How did this ever happen? 00:52:47.759 --> 00:53:07.519 And how did the initial teachings of Jesus about turning the other cheek and about practicing love and hospitality, how did that turn into a great human nation state with power and prestige and wealth and armies and all of that? 00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:13.279 And a big part of the Reformation will be a pushback against all of that. 00:53:13.839 --> 00:53:22.239 But along the way, something other intriguing began to happen, and we'll be we'll see this still in our own experiences of Christianity. 00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:35.440 Early on, back in the Roman Republic, the armies were not raised out of mercenary payments to subjugated peoples like the Germans and the Goths and the Visigoths and others. 00:53:35.599 --> 00:53:40.559 The Roman Empire, in its later stages, really had a paid military machine. 00:53:40.719 --> 00:53:50.719 Early on, it was people who were dominant in their communities who would uh ask their neighbors and their families and their friends, join me and become my troop. 00:53:51.039 --> 00:53:53.679 And those people would say, I will be with you. 00:53:53.759 --> 00:53:54.879 I'll have your back. 00:53:55.039 --> 00:54:01.279 And they would give to the leader of their troop a little token of their commitment. 00:54:01.519 --> 00:54:05.440 It was usually a sandal or a small piece of clothing. 00:54:05.759 --> 00:54:10.639 And that in the Latin language was called a sacramentum. 00:54:11.119 --> 00:54:17.359 It was a pledge that as long as you held this from me, you can know that I will be with you. 00:54:17.679 --> 00:54:30.559 The early church leaders, teachers, pastors, theologians began to use that term to apply to baptism and the Lord's Supper, that these were actually little symbols from God. 00:54:30.719 --> 00:54:37.599 We can't see God, but God comes to us with these symbols, and God says, through these things, I'll have your back. 00:54:37.759 --> 00:54:38.799 You can count on me. 00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:39.919 I'm going to be with you. 00:54:40.079 --> 00:54:41.679 And they became the sacraments. 00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:57.119 Now, what happened during the time of the crusades in the Middle Ages is that people at first went on pilgrimage to the holy sites, and then the leaders of the church said, Because of that, you're doing a great thing. 00:54:57.279 --> 00:55:03.039 You don't need to pay taxes, and we'll provide hospitality and safety along the way. 00:55:03.279 --> 00:55:09.759 And then they said, you know, if you die, then we'll just kind of talk to heaven and say, let them in. 00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:17.919 Or they began the idea of purgatory, that there'd be a second chance, and then we'll get let your family pay the unremaining bill. 00:55:18.159 --> 00:55:24.480 And by the time the crusades finished, they had created something that was called the plenary indulgence. 00:55:24.559 --> 00:55:39.199 And that was basically: if you go on a crusade, if you go fight for Mother Church, those infidels, the Muslims, and others, we will give you a blanket get out of hell free card. 00:55:39.519 --> 00:55:41.440 No questions asked. 00:55:41.759 --> 00:55:52.559 And once the crusades had run their course, the church didn't back off on that, but created a whole sacramental system and found that it was pretty good to be a monopoly. 00:55:52.799 --> 00:55:55.839 And they said to people, You want to get to heaven? 00:55:56.079 --> 00:55:57.599 You have to come to us. 00:55:57.839 --> 00:55:59.519 You have to process the sacraments. 00:55:59.679 --> 00:56:11.599 And then they multiplied the sacraments in ways, and the church owned the sacraments, and you don't get to go to heaven or you don't get to the next life except that you get our stuff. 00:56:11.759 --> 00:56:13.839 And then they began to sell those things. 00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:23.519 And that was what triggered Martin Luther in particular in the start of the Reformation, because Johannes Tetzel was up there selling indulgences. 00:56:23.839 --> 00:56:30.399 Every time a coin in the coffers clinks, another soul into heaven slinks. 00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:33.839 They had all kinds of rhymes and little ditties for that. 00:56:34.079 --> 00:56:58.239 But indulgences and plenary indulgences, which are just not part of the Bible at all, and the growing network of sacraments, this is what you still see within the Roman Catholic expression of the Christian church, these become the monopoly of the church, owned by the church, and the means by which you can't get to God except through us. 00:56:58.480 --> 00:57:05.039 The reformers will begin to push back on that and see the sacraments in a completely different light. 00:57:05.279 --> 00:57:10.399 And that'll be part of our story of the Reformation, which comes in the future. 00:57:10.639 --> 00:57:23.679 But for now, what happened through the time of the early, high, and late Middle Ages is that the church took over the business of the old Roman Empire. 00:57:24.159 --> 00:57:34.319 Islam spread across northern Africa and the old Silk Road and the Middle East and pushed into the Eastern Church and the Eastern Roman Empire. 00:57:34.559 --> 00:57:41.279 The tensions between East and West were mitigated for a time when the East cried out for help to the Western Church. 00:57:41.519 --> 00:57:56.239 The Western Church saw its chance, built up armies, did the crusades, some of which were modestly successful, all of which were really failures because they put Islam and Christianity against one another as mortal enemies. 00:57:56.480 --> 00:58:10.319 And in the end, it gave rise to the dominance of the Church of Rome and its structures, so that the stage was set for someone to come along, for some to come along and say, that's not Jesus' church. 00:58:10.559 --> 00:58:17.759 And that became what the confessions of the reformed expressions of Christianity pointed to. 00:58:17.919 --> 00:58:23.119 What's the difference between the true church and the false church? 00:58:23.359 --> 00:58:35.679 And that would give rise to not a new form of Christianity, but an attempt to take Christianity back to its earlier expressions, reformed. 00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:39.440 And the reformation became that initiative. 00:58:39.599 --> 00:58:44.719 I think we'll leave it at that for now, and uh we'll get into some of those other things in the next session.