It's Not About the Crusades

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/23.64.html

[Christianity Today] 20 July 2007--In addition, Western Christians feel deep guilt over the Crusades, even though, as Sanneh says, Arab historians give the Crusades (which they refer to as the wars with the Franks) little notice. These incursions, mostly rebuffed by the Muslims, pale in comparison to the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan.

Sanneh urges Western Christians to move beyond the guilt of the past. The global picture has changed, after all. Although the worldwide percentage of Christians has declined only slightly, from 35 percent in 1800 to 33 percent today, the geographical shift has been immense. While Christianity lost 800 million adherents in the 20th century—mostly in Europe and the former Soviet Union—explosive growth in places like Africa and China replaced them. (Sanneh acknowledges that this explosive growth occurred only after colonialism ended.)

Seventy-five thousand people a day become Christians, according to some estimates, and two-thirds of them live in Africa. These buoyant new believers do not carry around burdens of history such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. They experience the gospel as Good News and celebrate it in new and creative forms.

At the same time, Christians in Africa and Asia are confronting a newly resurgent and sometimes militant Islam. Repulsed by the decadence and rampant secularism of the West, Muslims have their own evangelistic agenda. In places like Iran, Egypt, and Palestine, moderates who once dreamed of modern, secular states are losing out to religious zealots who want to impose a harsh version of Shari'ah law. Only God can legislate, they say; religious leaders act as God's deputies in ordering society according to Qur'anic principles. In some Islamic nations, "crimes" such as conversion to Christianity or teaching evolution are capital offenses.