The Crusades And The Spanish Inquisition: An Analysis

Ever since the advent of religion, there has seemed to be strife among competing religious groups. Many groups want to impose their vision of religion upon the world and please their version of God. Entire wars were fought over religious domination, the most infamous of which being the Crusades. It was not until the great American experiment that the concept of pluralism and religious tolerance was implemented legally in a nation. The Founding Fathers seemed to settle the debate, but today, with the rise of globalism, the conversation of religious pluralism has flourished once again. Ever since 9/11, the American populace hurriedly lost sight of what made America so great, and began persecuting Muslims. The persecution even seeped out into …show more content…
Within Christianity, it is impossible to analyze the relationship between religious diversity without mentioning the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. While exploring the relationships between various religions and violence in his book, When Religion Become Lethal, Dr. Charles Kimball dissects the Crusades and the Inquisition (2011). With the consolidation of state power in the papacy, the Holy Roman Empire led the charge to reclaim the Holy Land in Jerusalem from the Islamic rulers at the time. The Crusades were extremely violent. Bodies and blood lined the streets of Jerusalem as the Crusaders swept through the city like a plague. Dr. Kimball attributes this kind of violence to the lack of separation between church and state, but it might be attributed to the lack of religious pluralism in Christian Europe at the …show more content…
In her book, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Maria Menocal explores how the religious toleration and pluralism in the Golden Age of Islam in the Umayyad dynasty (2002). Muslims viewed Christians and Jews living in Spain as those of “the book” and, for the times, created an atmosphere of tolerance. The ruling muslims allowed the religious minorities to live in relative peace. While there were of course conflicts, it was nowhere near the level of violence present in the Christian Europe at the same time. Not only was it peaceful, but intellect and science flourished. The muslim community made great strides in science and even preserved the ancient greek philosophers’ writings. This era was the perfect example of how religious tolerance is the perfect ingredient in the pie that is peace and intellectual