If the religious crusades did not happen would Christianity still be so wide spread around the world?

Question

I am troubled by the evidence that Christianity would almost not exist if Emperor Constantine of the most powerful empire at the time (Rome) did not decide to convert to Christianity which touched off the Bloody crusades, a time when a convert or die attitude was adopted.

Is it true the crusades are the main reason Christianity is so prevalent?

please help my faith is at risk!

Answer 1

God is sovereign...

He would have gotten us His Word in some way.....Constantine was just a small pawn in God's ultimate plan. We have what we have by the grace of God.....not man.

Answer 2

The Crusades were about recapturing the Holy Lands from the Muslims. Most of the spread of Christianity came from European colonization. The Spanish were notorious for converting a tribal leader in an area they wanted to colonize, then conquering any resistance. It happened all over Central and South America. They had less success in Asia. The British tried the same thing in India and China. Basically, where ever the European colonists settled, Christianity followed.

Answer 3

First of all one of my biggest pet peeves is calling Catholicism, Christianity. because it most certainly is not.
I dont believe Constantine was a christian. i do believe he was a catholic. The popes controlled the emperors of Europe and I'm sure we will see it again real soon that the popes will again control the governments. The crusades were carried out by the popes. The popes are the head of the holy roman empire and Catholics . Christians are subject to no man but God only. Christians obey only God. Christians accept Jesus as there savior and the only intercessor to God. Mary has no place of Deity to a Christian. There are countless differences between catholics and Christians.

Answer 4

If the religious crusades did not happen would Christianity still be so wide spread around the world?

Yes Christianity would still be wide spread. Jesus said to go out and teach so others may know the word of God.

The crusades was done by man not by God.

Answer 5

I think you are mistaking the crusades for something else. The Crusades took place nearly 800 years after Constantine converted to Christianity. I don't think they were responsible for spreading Christianity very widely.

Answer 6

Christianity is prevalent in great part because of the Roman Catholic Church's missionaries around the world, especially in Latin America and Africa. The crusades were fought by Christians from Europe trying to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. I doubt that they changed the religious hearts and minds of any of the Muslims.

Answer 7

Who introduced Christianity? Constantine? Or Christ? Who commanded the disciples to make disciples of people of all nations? Constantine? Or Christ?

Christianity is prevalent because those true disciples of Christ obeyed the commission he gave to them. At Acts 1:8 we read Christ's words: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit arrives upon you and you will be witnesses of me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the most distant part of the earth." At Matthew 24:14 we read Christ's words: "And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations and then the end will come."

Because true Christians followed the command of Christ, true Christianity spread to the most distant part of the earth. Christians were not commanded to fight to get back so-called holy land. They were not commanded to make disciples by the end of a sword. They were not commanded to shed much blood. They were commanded to preach and teach the good news of God's kingdom and make disciples who would in turn do the same thing.

The Crusades had nothing to do with the spread of Christianity. Neither did Constantine.

Hannah J Paul

Answer 8

i used to be a Christian but the pagan holidays, and polytheistic trinity thingy made me realize , what the heck am i doing. Crusades killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Muslims, and even Christians not considered Christian enough. we can see evidence in former colonies that Christian religion was spread by the sword and or gun/cannon. Christianity might well not have been so wide spread, perhaps saving a great deal of lives in the third world too. The colonizers would kill you if you did not convert to Christian, so one could say Christian was spread alot by the threat of death.

Answer 9

You seem to have forgotten that is was the Islamic Ruler Saladin who started the war by invading the Holy Land that sparked the crusades, and had it not been for that, all of Europe to include the Vatican in Rome and possibly now America would be under Islamic rule.
Now I am not denying that atrocities were not committed by the Crusaders, such things like that happen in war, but atricities were committed on both sides of that conflict.

But you are wrong, Constantine did not touch off the Crusades, Saladin did with his invasion of the Holy Lands

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b1saladin.htm

Answer 10

Think about it. Which is one is the real god and why! When Jesus died in cruxifition not a lot of pleople believed in Christianity, and those who did were persecuted. After a few hundreds of years later most of the people believed in Christianity and those who didn't were persecuted (crusades). Now, that was going on in Europe, but in the Americans people believed in different Gods. Spanish armies conquered most of the Americas and killed those who didn't believed in Christianity. Now, Egypt had different Gods as well (Ra for example). And Asia had their own believes as well. Now, most of the world believes in Christianity because our ansesters were forced to believe on it or were killed. But, what would had happened if worlds would not had collide? My point is, it depends in our background to define our God.

Answer 11

well i'm no expert on world history so i won't claim to be.but i do know about how christianity spread to asian countries.....till the british invaded asia (especially in sri lanka) christianity was not heard of at all.in sri lanka 100 % of the original converts converted because of either one of the 2 reasons:
(1) they were threatened to be killed if they didn't convert
(2)they didn't get jobs unless they didn't convert.

if these threatenings and other harrassments hadn't taken place even today chritianity would not be in sri lanka. that's how it originally spread to india as well.