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Tre Sheppard helped me make this video in 1995. He did a great job of putting it together and I am grateful to the people at ywam.tv for digitizing it recently. It is still a relevant subject for a few reasons.
It is very important that Christians in the western nations should understand how many Muslims, and Jews, see Christianity. There are reasons for their feelings of enmity and we should humbly acknowledge that. As everyone knows, history shapes the present and if we do not make efforts to address historical sins, there is little hope that the consequences will fade. This video is a brief summary of the events of the first Crusade and their impact on Muslims, Jews and Eastern Christians—all of whom were victims of religiously inspired violence under the banner of the Cross of Jesus.
The following year, hundreds of Christians from Western nations journeyed to Turkey to convey a message of apology face-to-face. That initiative continued for over three years, through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank. It culminated in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, exactly 900 years after the Crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem and slaughtered all its citizens. In the context of the twisted understanding of the Roman Church at the time, their actions were thought to be “evangelism”.
Let us walk in humility!
Defusing the bitter legacy of the Crusades. Lynn Green retraces the history of the first Crusade and proposes an appropriate Christian response for today. The Reconciliation Walk was an independent initiative led by Lynn Green, an American who has been living in England for 25 years.
About 3,000 walkers participated over the 3-year period, with people coming and going in small groups, from many different denominations and nations. It began in the spring of 1996, as teams of walkers entered Cologne, Germany, where the Crusades were launched in March-April 1096, led by Peter the Hermit.
The 2,000-mile three-year walk across Europe and through the Balkans, Turkey, and Syria ended in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, the nine-hundredth anniversary of a Crusade massacre of Jews and Arabs. Recorded in 1996, by Procla-Media, and captured from VHS in 2019.
resource: UofN Legacy