Christ wrote a beautiful tune, which the church has often performed well, and often badly. But the melody was never completely drowned out. Sometimes it became a symphony.
John Dickson, Bullies and Saints
Dickson opens the book, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look At The Good and Evil Of Christian History, with a story. He was standing on what we sometimes refer to as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, now the third holiest site in the Muslim faith. He was standing outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, recording for a documentary he was making. The subject was the Crusades, and in particular that day he was telling how the Christian soldiers stormed Jerusalem in 1099, horrifically slaughtering any and all they could find in the city-from the fighting soldiers down to unarmed women and children. I’ll spare you some details, but it was brutal.
As he was speaking into the camera, Dickson could see a member of his crew that day standing just to the side, a Jerusalem Muslim woman named Azra who was acting as a handler for the documentary crew while they were on the site. As he delivered his lines, Dickson saw the tears begin to well up in her eyes. After his filming, he felt the need to go to her and apologize. As Dickson puts it, “The date, 15 July 1099, has left a nine-hundred-year-old wound in the soul of many.” Dickson titled that opening chapter to the book, “The Day I Lost Faith In The Church”.
To be clear, Dickson didn’t lose his faith. As a historian, communicator, ministry leader, and pastor (more on Dickson in a future Sabbatical Sit Down), Dickson is firmly committed to the Christian faith and the advancement of the Gospel. But his realization, and the purpose of “Bullies and Saints,” is to point out that Christian history is full of wonderful examples of Christ’s love impacting the world, alongside horrendous examples of people committing sins and atrocities in the name of Jesus Christ.
Many of us live in something of a Christian bubble, and we view the universal church, today and historically, with rose-colored glasses. We see the good things and celebrate, and we avoid the ugly parts and pretend like they don’t exist.
The world doesn’t do that. The world points to the Crusades, the Inquisition, forced conversions, church sexual abuse, and the like, and they condemn the church. Increasingly in our country and our world, people are no longer asking, “Is the church good?” they are asking, “Is the church safe?”
Fair or not, that is a reality we have to deal with as believers. Whether that is a current-world question or a historical question, we need to be able to compassionately engage with people from a variety of backgrounds and show them the beauty of the gospel. It’s true that the Crusades were terrible undertakings done in the name of Christ, but history also shows that it was the church that created the idea of charity, that created the first welfare systems, and that consistently protected the weak and the orphaned and widowed. One doesn’t make up for the other, but it should be acknowledged that the church has, and continues to, provide the world with a powerful source of good.
Jesus Christ wrote a beautiful composition. Christians have not performed it consistently well. Sometimes they were badly out of tune. But the problem with a hateful Christian is not their Christianity, but their departure from it… The antidote to hateful, nationalistic, violent Christianity, Einstein proposed, is Christianity in practice. Christ’s melody remains beautiful – dare I say unique. When Christians perform it, they leave an indelible mark on the world.
John Dickson, Bullies and Saints
A couple of posts back I wrote on another history book, Dominion by Tom Holland. Part of my takeaway from that book was a unity, a consistency in the historic faith – despite drastic changes in the church, the culture, and the world, there are themes and ideas that transcend the last 2000 years; themes like love and compassion and forgiveness, all found in Jesus Christ.
Bullies and Saints took my mind in a different direction. I found myself thinking back to the Old Testament concept of a remnant-no matter how bad things were, God kept a remnant, a group of faithful followers that continued to do God’s work no matter what.
The Crusades were terrible and brutal, yet in the midst of them there is the story of Francis of Assisi, who humbly walked into the Muslim camp and shared the gospel with the enemy. While the Christian empire began persecuting non-Christians the same way that the earlier empire had persecuted Christians, Basil of Caesarea is launching the worlds first hospital. While the empire is expanding and forcing Christianity on newly conquered territories, Christian missions are finding and saving children that are abandoned to die because they aren’t wanted by their parents. While the church is coming to grips with its sex abuse scandals, its also leading a global fight against human trafficking.
The church is full of sinners, like you and me. We don’t get to single-handedly choose the direction of churches around the world, but we can be faithful to the calling God has given us, and encourage others to do the same. That includes having honest, compassionate conversations with those God puts in our path. Christianity isn’t perfect. Christ is. We aren’t called to conform to the religion, we’re called to follow the savior.
Violence has been a universal part of the human story. The demand to love one’s enemies has not. Division has been a norm. Inherent human dignity has not. Armies, greed, and the politics of power have been constants in history. Hospitals, schools, and charity for all have not. Bullies are common. Saints are not.
John Dickson, Bullies and Saints
Driven 