I wouldn't mind if the would spend an equal amount of time on how Jesus and Christians impacted the world in the first century (during a history class covering that time period, of course). The class would, of course, have to include the lessons on Christian beliefs themselves, same as they are doing with Islam.
I am curious about how the Crusades are portrayed in this class, however. Do they bother to mention that the Crusades were launched in response to the Muslim violence in Europe? I would be willing to bet the answer is no.
Yeah, apparently (from reading the more in-depth link that dervish posted) there was hardly any mention of Christianity, which is a huge omission considering the massive roles various forms of Christianity played in medieval politics, life, and culture. In my medieval history class, we spent about a week on Islam, and a touched on it again when we went over ‘The Song of Roland’, but we’ve been incredibly in-depth with certain aspects of Christianity just because they influenced so much. In fact, I don’t think we’ve had a single class so far that hasn’t required some discussion of Christianity in order to better understand what was going on. What in the world were those textbook makers thinking?
I also wonder if they mention that Jews and Arian Christians were targeted just as much as Muslims during ‘The Crusades’ - it wasn’t just Christians versus Muslims, the Christians and Muslims even wound up fighting against people of their own faiths at that time. Or the fact that the Muslims have been killing each other over differences in their faith for about 1300 years as of now... I’d bet that gets glossed over too.
TrueI wouldn't mind if the would spend an equal amount of time on how Jesus and Christians impacted the world in the first century (during a history class covering that time period, of course). The class would, of course, have to include the lessons on Christian beliefs themselves, same as they are doing with Islam.
The logical line would be the factual one that the emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium and founded his capital, Constantinople. Constantine and his successors made Christianity the established religion of the Eastern Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire was conquered by the Mohammedan's, while Christianity became the established religion in Europe. even as the Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and the pressure of the Goths, Vandals, &c.I am curious about how the Crusades are portrayed in this class, however. Do they bother to mention that the Crusades were launched in response to the Muslim violence in Europe? I would be willing to bet the answer is no.
The Mohammedan's conquered the whole Eastern Roman Empire which had been Christian - including Egypt, for example. It is all well and good for Mohammedan's to complain about the Crusades, in which they were attacked - but the entire Jihad project was an offensive which had Europe on the defensive in Spain and in eastern Europe.None of the resulting empires - the Ottoman Empire, Arabia, the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire, or the Western Roman Empire or any of the fragments into which it devolved - allowed freedom as Americans understand the term. Slavery existed throughout the world throughout history, including the Christian world after the establishment of Christianity, up until basically the Nineteenth Century. Then the Christians simultaneously became abolitionist toward slavery, and simultaneously became politically/militarily dominant over most of the world. Which is the only reason that slavery is no longer common.