To understand the world, we must understand stories, because people understand the world through stories. Not numbers, not equations, not analytical trends, none of these are the lens of human sight. Stories are the framework and motivation of human thought. We analyze every human event as a story, set our emotions by stories, and act out stories in our lives. For some, this affair is more conscious than others, but for all it is dominant. As a result, when we encounter a story we do not want to persist, we cannot hope to dissuade its bearer from it through mere facts and analysis. Some will certainly be persuaded by such, but many will not. Emotions, valuations, and trust are all bound to stories, not to the analytics. To overcome one story, another, more compelling story must be offered, one which understands and accounts for the motivation and direction of the story it replaces.

Today’s article is without a doubt different from my usual fare and stems from another field, specifically the maelstrom that is online Reformed discourse. In the past few weeks, a particular controversy has blown up big-time: James White (& friends) vs everybody who likes the Crusades. Typically, my thoughts on the topic would not be appropriate to this venue, being theological, philosophical, and political primarily. One aspect, however, deserves our attention as writers: the power of the story and how it drives human thought and action. So consider the question not just as a doctrinal or analytical problem but as a matter of narrative.

Crusades! (& Motives)

To start with, let’s look at White’s take on the Crusades themselves. He argues (in multiple livestreams) that the Crusades were offensive wars founded on sacralism and indulgences, wars prosecuted with nearly no regard for the Gospel and a desire for the blood of the Moslem, not his repentance. As far as the history goes, this is a plausible if not probable viewpoint. Further, it’s not really relevant here, though I do have some skepticism towards the standard narrative on the Crusades, driven by my experience with other topics (generally, the more you actually learn about a subject, the less plausible the standard narrative on it looks; this is true in origin science, medicine, politics, and history to just name a few). What I do know says he is at least in part correct; his condemnation of the sacralism (don’t worry, I’ll define that momentarily), indulgences, and bloodthirstiness (in some, not all) seem on-point.

Doctrinally, I have more issues, but by and large those are not worth focusing on today. Suffice it to say that I find his dismissal of cultural and extra-missionary efforts to be a Bad Idea. On the topic of indulgences, I saw with White that they are an abomination against God’s mercy, a denigration of Christ. As for sacralism, well…. White has an allergic reaction to anything he thinks smacks of church-state entanglement. The level of entanglement seen in the Crusades, the church acting as the state, or in the Anglican church, the state ruling the church, is undoubtedly wrong, but White tends to apply the term farther than it will bear.¹ His condemnation of such in the Crusades, however, is absolutely justified.

As for the recent outpouring of support for the Crusades, White attributes much of its force to anti-Moslem (and to a lesser extent, anti-Jewish) sentiment. He considers it a sign that too many wish to slaughter instead of convert. That some men now and then are justly condemned by that stigma is undoubted. Some people really do support the Crusades because they’re interested in killing a whole lot of Moslems (and some Jews too, while they’re at it). White’s position, however, seems over-simplified and over-generalized to me.² While this is certainly a motive for some, it does not seem the central force of the Crusade-love.

Why The Above Doesn’t Matter (Yet)

By my count, White’s essential mistake is that he sees people’s interest in the Crusades as an endorsement of their historical fact. It isn’t. The appeal of the Crusades is their story. What is that story? If we understand the story, we understand not only why the desire exists but much about how it will proceed; we will also be empowered to deal with it. Causal, moral narratives are the human understanding of the world (a fact writers must never forget, in writing their characters, in presenting their stories to others, and in understanding themselves).

So I propose this story for the Crusades not as their reality but as what people are latching on to. The Crusades, in this narrative, are a story of men risking life and limb in order to preserve their faith, their culture, and their civilization. It is a story of self-sacrifice for what makes home into home, of dedication to a cause higher than oneself, even God. For the modern, this story has an undeniable pull, regardless of its accuracy (which, to be honest, is somewhere between terrible and decent, because the Crusades are complex. Certainly a functional argument that they were a defensive war exists, when we consider that they were directed towards regaining territory formerly held by Christendom. It simply requires us to consider the matter in a context that has much less concern for nation states and a much longer historical perspective). It calls us to value what came before, to fight and fight bravely for what we love, to dedicate ourselves to a cause that cannot, like the wars of modern America, be quantified in dollars and cents.

This story does not match the reality of the Crusades. Certainly all its elements may be found in the Crusades. As White himself has admitted, some of the Crusaders undoubtedly fought for noble reasons. The story I have told, however, forgets the great complexity of the matter, leaves out the ugly parts which perhaps predominate, and as a result does not survive an analytical comparison to history. Yet that’s irrelevant, right now. People understand the world through stories, and this story has captured many a heart, many a mind. While it lives there, no analysis will fully dislodge it, not for most, because the analysis attacks something entirely irrelevant to the story’s strength. The analysis attacks the accuracy of the facts; it does not address the moral and emotional weight of the story. The facts being gone, of course, should destroy that moral and emotional weight, but that’s not how humans work, and thus the story persists because people don’t care so much about what the Crusades actually were. They care about what the Crusades are now, about the symbolic weight of the Crusades in the present day, about the ideal which that story conveys, an ideal the Crusades are subordinate too more than originative of.

Once again, we must acknowledge that sometimes the reason for latching onto the Crusades is not as I have told it. Some do see the Crusades as an excuse for Very Bad Things- sacralism or massacre, mostly, not so much indulgences-, though even there I venture a guess that they help power their affection for said Bad Things via the positive associations of the story I’ve offered. Yet I do not think the relevant portion of the church so degenerate as to be primarily motivated by those Bad Things. The affection for the Crusades seems to arise from understandable, sympathetic, even admirable sources, though do not take this as an endorsement. The matter is more complicated, and we’ll get to the issues soon enough.

People Remember Stories, Not Facts

To bring this back around to writing, consider the difference between a history textbook and a work of historical fiction, between an equation and a newspaper headline. Humans are built to remember stories, and we tend to remember facts as part of stories. That emotions have a powerful impact on memorability is certain (usually increasing it, though there are instances of trance-like states wherein memory blanks), and stories are what stir the emotions. Through a story we are brought to care about other persons, places, and ideas. Further, when we see the world, we naturally frame it into stories: this person is a Friendly Neighbor Looking Out For His Pets, that one is a Real Jerk Who Just Thinks About Himself, that other one is A Total Stranger, I Wonder What He Does, Look at His Hat!

The story about the Crusades follows this trend. If I were to bet, contrary to my habit, 99.9% of the Protestants who endorsed the Crusades never gave one thought to the presence of indulgences in the historical reality. They did not see them and decide they were good; they did not even dismiss them. The fact simply did not appear in the story presented, did not jive with it, and so even if they technically were aware of the use of indulgences, they for all practical purposes forgot about them, remembered only the story. The few who did remember, moreover, did not at all like the idea of indulgences; no, they just find the story more compelling than their dislike of indulgences. The story mattered, and they remembered the story.³

The role of sacralism (church-state entanglement; I’m using White’s term) is, to be honest, more complex. Unlike indulgences, a church-state union has started to look real nice to all too many Christians nowadays, though whether it’d be church over state or state over church never seems quite clear. Regardless, they know they want God’s law to matter in government, as it generally doesn’t nowadays, and they mix that up with the church being involved in government, a very bad (very un-Biblical) idea.⁴ To argue, therefore, that sacralism did not count as a motive for people to like the Crusades would be inaccurate. It did matter, and insofar as it did, we must argue against it. However, as I’ll get into next time, the how of that argument is very important.

Conclusion (For Now)

The essential fact for writers here is to understand the power and importance of stories. Stories can distort the world or they can clarify it. They can over-simplify it or they can catalyze a mature understanding of its complexity. More, they can point us towards God in His creation or away. To wield them, therefore, is a high honor and a grave duty. In the public sphere, as we have seen and shall see, it is important to understand not just the reality of the events the story refers to but the reality of the story that is being applied to the events. Because people understand the world by story, in order to understand them and their worldview, we must understand the stories they have been told, the stories they tell themselves, and the stories they base their lives upon. Only then can we judge their desires; only then can we seek to guide them to better ones, if that is necessary.

In the end, remember this: the greatest and most fundamental story is the story of Scripture. Around His Word, His story, should we frame our understanding and existence.

God bless.

Find Part Two Here

Footnotes

1 – For fans of the Puritans, Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex is a good book if you want to read about Christian governmental theory. It’s also a bloody pain to get through, given his writing style. If you aren’t up for the slog, Greg Bahnsen’s work is generally quite good, though I’ve not read much of him.

2 – I would also point out that we must balance Jonah’s mission with that of Joshua. To bring the sword against the evil-doers is sometimes necessary, though always mercy, temporal and Divine, must be offered beforehand.

3 – The same goes for the Second Crusade (a debacle), the Fourth Crusade (an immoral disaster that helped break the Byzantine Empire), the Peasant’s Crusade (a tragedy), the Children’s Crusade (though I’m not sure about the reality of this one, if real it was another great tragedy), and honestly all the Crusades besides the First and the Third. Those two- the only successful one and the one with Richard the Lionheart- are basically the entire idea of the Crusades for their proponents.

4 – Attentive reading of Scripture shows that a church-state distinction was part of the Mosaic law, as well as its implementation under Samuel, David, the Southern Kingdom, and Nehemiah. Civil or criminal heresy trials do not get support, notably- the laws against idolaters, blasphemers, and false prophets do not justify such, properly understood.