Rodney Stark—the eminent sociologist and historian of religion—has a new book out, God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, making the case that the Crusaders were not “greedy, colonizing, brutal barbarians” but rather that the Crusades were just, defensive wars designed to repel the Islamic conquest of Byzantium and to prevent the Holy Land from being destroyed.
Here is the publisher’s description:
Stark reviews the history of the seven major Crusades from 1095 to 1291, demonstrating that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations, centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and sudden attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, Stark argues that this had nothing to do with any elaborate design of the Christian world to convert all Muslims to Christianity by force of arms.
Stark says that he is simply popularizing what is now acknowledged by the competent scholars in this field.
You can read an interview here with Professor Stark on these issues.
I’m always interested in learning about the projects in the “queue” from authors like Stark. Here’s what he is working on next:
I have a book called The Birth and Triumph of Christianity about to go into production. It’s a follow-up on a little book I did about fifteen years ago called The Rise of Christianity. That was the beginning of my attempt to do history and I am deeply dissatisfied with it even though it was very nicely received.
This book is about three times as long. It’s not a history of Christianity. The subtitle is, New Perspectives on Major Episodes. That means I can skip everything I do not want to cover and focus on the things I have something to say about.
I’m now working on a book called, How Denominations Die: The Continuing Self-Destruction of “Mainline” Protestantism. There are quotation marks around “Mainline” because they are no longer mainline. What happened to these big denominations? They killed themselves. They did it theologically and they did it with radical politics. They offended older people, who voted with their feet.
