Koan #40: Criticizing the Crusades

It is often the case that many Unbelievers and Misunderstanders, in their quest to discredit the Faith in any manner possible, criticize the Crusades as an example of Christian injustice and evil. Yet while it is both possible and true to criticize the actions of individual Crusaders with such a claim—and as all men are fallen sinners, which Catholicism preaches and teaches, such evil individual actions are not only not unexpected, but inevitable—the Unbelievers and Misunderstanders cannot justifiably criticize the Crusades as a whole with such sweeping claims. For it takes only a moment of historical study to realize that the Crusades were waged primarily to defend Christendom, through a strategic counter-attack, from hundreds of years of Islamic military expansion, aggression and murder—which, it might be added, would continue for many hundreds of future years—making the Crusades both just and necessary. And thus, in the same manner as one might criticize the actions of individual Allied soldiers during the Second World War as evil, but cannot justifiably criticize the Second World War as a whole as such—which was also waged primarily to defend the Western World from Axis expansion, aggression and murder—so too can the Crusades, as a strategic defensive action, not be so easily claimed as evil by anyone with a modicum of historical and moral sense.

Koan #36: Changing the World

It is the sign of a well-intentioned, but naive and unreflective mind, of those that state that they wish to “change the world.” For truly, “changing” the world is by no means a difficult thing, nor is it necessarily desired, as many evil men have indeed changed it. What is difficult, by contrast, is to change one‘s self—with God’s grace—both consciously and specifically from a proclivity towards evil to an intense revulsion towards it, thus striving for a moral perfection and holiness not often seen. And in doing this simple, yet certainly not easy thing, the world would be immeasurably changed in a manner both worthy and deserving of change.

Koan #7: Cross or Crescent or Sickle

Let the choice be clear to all, as history has arguably shown and continues to show, the future will either be one of the Cross or the Crescent or the Sickle. For only the Cross can convert the Crescent or the Sickle; only the Crescent can overwhelm the Sickle and the Cross; and only the Sickle can overtly squash the others. And while the Cross—it cannot be denied—has unjustly crucified some, the Crescent has decapitated many more and the Sickle has exterminated even more than this. Yet it also cannot be denied that the Cross has helped to birth the liberty, freedoms, dignity and strength of the most prosperous nations on earth, which are inseparable from the cultural, philosophical and social influences of that very Cross. Let all, therefore, pick their side carefully and make their choice wisely, for much depends on it and indeed, much will come from it for all men and their children.