The German press nicknamed him “God’s machine gun” for his aggressive, staccato preaching, but the name also fit for deeper reasons. Mr. Graham described these trips as “crusades” and saw West Germany as ground zero in what he called “Battleground Europe,” a Cold War fight to redeem the “land of Luther” from its Nazi past and secure its future as a stronghold for American-style democracy, capitalism and evangelicalism.
.. Billy Graham’s culture wars are inseparable from his role as an international Cold Warrior. He wasn’t just America’s pastor; he was God’s Cold War machine gun.
.. “Berlin is prayed for in the world more than any other city,” he declared, calling the city “a battleground, a continent for conquest” — not for earthly power, as the world wars had been, but a new battle “for the hearts and minds of the people.”
.. he affirmed that West Germans were his “brothers in arms” literally as well as spiritually. To strengthen a Christian democratic West against a godless Soviet East, he cast his weight behind German rearmament.
.. Mr. Graham portended a similar Americanization of German religion with its emphasis on conversion and its use of modern communication technologies for evangelism.
.. Some Germans deemed Mr. Graham a Hollywood huckster who, as the German news media put it, “advertised the Bible like toothpaste and chewing gum.” Others sensed an unnerving parallel between his mass gatherings and Germany’s fascist past.
.. “Religion for Mass-Consumption,”
.. argued that Mr. Graham’s real goal was to steer souls away from Communism more than toward God
.. German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller and the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr .. protested Mr. Graham’s equation of Christianity with America, anti-Communism and free-market capitalism
.. After the Watergate scandal, Mr. Graham withdrew from political debates and returned to his early focus on simply “preaching the gospel.”
How the Knights Templar became the world’s first financial-services company
Originally founded as the Knights of the Temple of Solomon to protect pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem, the Templars became the most powerful military order of the Crusades. But in addition they were economic trailblazers and banking pioneers during the 12th and 13th centuries. “I don’t think it’s facetious to say the Templars were an incredibly sophisticated organization with rudimentary business practices and financial methods that you would want any business to emulate,”
.. The Templars are known for the drama of their downfall or their role as medieval special forces. But they had a vast business and commercial empire, with lands generating agricultural produce and revenue all the way from Ireland to Cyprus and the Crusader states. They owned property in big cities which was rented out and chartered shipping in worldwide ports.
Then there was the banking side of things. It’s sometimes said the Templars were the world’s first bankers. There was a system of banking of deposits — King John of England deposited the crown jewels with the Templars in London when he was in trouble before the Magna Carta. But that doesn’t do them justice. They weren’t the first world’s bankers. They were providing the world’s first financial-services company.
.. They were paying royal officials there on behalf of the crown and running the books for the French King, his brothers and mother. They were collecting, on behalf of the Pope, the crusading taxes levied by the church in England, France, Hungary and parts of Spain and Italy.Their spread of properties all across Europe and presence in just about every kingdom made them unique. They crossed boundaries and weren’t subject to the authority or polices of any particular king. They were tax exempt in many jurisdictions across Europe. If you think about the deal between Google and the Irish government, the Templars had that times 20... Alfonso I, the King of Aragon, left them a third of his kingdom in his will and Queens and Kings gave them huge landed estates. They were also the recipients of popular donations, what today we would call crowdfunding. People left them in their wills a donkey or a little plot of land, tiny donations that when you added them up were massive and funded military operations.
.. If you were a young guy who wanted to go to war and fight for God, you could join the Templars. If you were an old guy who wanted to atone for a sinful life but was no good for fighting, you could join and run the books in a regional Templar house. If you didn’t wish to join but wanted to accrue the spiritual benefits of involvement, you could donate. They had what today in business terms would be called amazing international branding. The white mantle, the red cross. It’s the Nike swoosh, the McDonald’s arches, the Apple logo of the day.
.. They embraced diversity. Although they were a militant Christian organization, they were flexible and pragmatic like in the East where they hired as soldiers Turcapole Syrian cavalry, who happened to be Muslim, as they were much better at fighting in the conditions.
Religion, Violence and Roger Scruton
.. But let’s cut to the chase. What all “religion” might do and what all “violence” might be are fatal distractions, all too happily exploited by the Hitchdawk team. It is futile to get drawn into polemical debates with professional atheists about the meaning of abstract sociological notions looked at in the unlimited perspective of the past 5000 years, and that is the mistake Scruton makes. The real question today, as every man in the street knows, is not the anthropological seminar-room “What is religion?” question; it’s about the fate of Christian civilisation with its liberal, pacifistic and accommodating tendencies, versus militant Islam. How do we defend the former against the latter?
.. In the story Paul Stenhouse tells—which should be read by all—the 463 years between the death of Muhammed in 632 AD, and the First Crusade in 1095, were extremely dangerous for Christian Europe. Instead of peace there were unrelenting Islamic wars and incursions; Muslim invasions of Spain, Italy, Sicily and Sardinia; raids, seizures, looting of treasure, military occupations that lasted until Saracen forces were forcibly dislodged, sackings of Christian cities including Rome, and desecrations of Christian shrines. And be it noted: all this “violence” went on for fully 463 years before any Christian Crusade in response to these murderous provocations took place.
.. whereas Islam spread by the sword, Christianity mainly spread by precept and example and the peaceful proselytising of missionaries—many of whom contributed through their notes, journals and correspondence to what has become known in our time as “the anthropology of religion”.
Francis: Attempted Dialogue During the Crusades
Francis is what some call a “prime attractor”—one who moves history and humanity forward just by being who he is.
More than any other follower of Jesus, Francis of Assisi has been called a “second Christ.” He is taken seriously by all world religions. When Pope John Paul II wanted to gather the leaders of all the world religions to have a respectful interfaith dialogue in the 1980s, the only city that they could agree to meet in was Assisi, because the memory of St. Francis does not carry any negative baggage, even to other religions.
.. He is the only Christian man ever known to attempt two or three trips to dialogue with the “enemy” during the tragic Crusades against Muslims in the Holy Land, telling the Christians they were wrong for crusading and persecuting these children of God!