I’m Christian and You’re Wrong

The Children’s Crusade and lobster pee both fall into the general category of inexplicable things. Life in the Boomer Lane can’t speak much about lobster pee (except to note that lobsters pee out of their faces), but she can speak a bit about the Children’s Crusade, as a metaphor for our current political climate.

The Crusades, in general, purported to create a God-fearing Christian (Us) world by wiping out the Infidel (Not Us). The Us vs Not Us mentality, being baked into the brains of homosapiens from the get-go, had mostly served them pretty well. This time around, it used religion as a way to mobilize countless humans to go out and slaughter countless other humans, while the Real Prize of the Day had mostly nothing to do with religion at all.

The religious ferver of the Crusades resulted in two 12-year-old boys, one in France and one in Germany, being convinced that they were instructed (by God and Jesus, working in tandem) to go into battle against the Infidels. One group quickly disbanded when its leader failed to part the ocean, so that they could cross into the Middle East.

The other group, having no such silly expectations of their leader, pressed on. In 1212, thousands of children aged six to 16, marched toward Jerusalem. These tots and adolescents, having no dog in the Big Fight to begin with, and absolutely no military training whatsoever, did what any sane person would assume: They died, mostly through hunger or thirst. The lucky ones were captured as slaves.

The complete debacle of the Children’s Crusade didn’t stop humans from continuing to re-enact its events, with certain subsitutions. Christianity was a malleable goal. It could morph into anything that was needed that would be worth fighting for. Speed ahead to the mid-1800s, in which the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives, like the children of the Children’s Crusade, had no dog in the fight. What they had was a fervent belief in a system that never cared for them to begin with and whose rewards benefitted only a small group of people of whom they would never be a part. The list goes on and on, of “soldiers” who fight for an idea that doesn’t actually exist. What does exist is the very tangible benefit that goes only to others.

Countless people, now, have their own Crusade and their new Leader. Their crusade is real. They fight for recognition, for respect, and for the rights they are told they deserve by the pundits they follow. Many, who live in areas in which there are no immigrants, fear immigrants. Many, who never really thought about guns or abortion, now equate guns with the American flag and abortion as the Anti-Christ. Many, who saw religion as a person choice, now would have it imposed on government and on education. They are all told how powerful their guns and bibles are, by a Leader who believes that real power has nothing to do with these. For their Leader, real power is money, period. And precious little of that will be shared with his followers.

Welcome to the New Childrens Crusade (minus the death and slavery part).