Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [187]
“Crusade” in its older meanings still has its public advocates.52 Dr. Robert Morey, a fervent anti-Islamist, has founded a Crusaders Club. It has three grades. A “Crusader” pays $25 a month and receives in return a free Tape of the Month and a bumper sticker. To become a “Lion Heart” requires paying $100 monthly, and for that one receives the free Tape of the Month, and the bumper sticker, but in addition a subscription to the Quarterly Journal of Biblical Apologetics, as well as a special Faith Defenders coffee travel mug. A “Knight” has to commit to $5,0 annually. But a “Knight” is given a Faith Defenders Crusader’s Sword, and special quarterly messages by Dr. Morey, as well as all the benefits that accrue to the lower grades of membership. Top of the range is membership of King Richard’s court. A “Courtier” is granted access to Dr. Bob’s personal e-mail address, a selected battle piece of armor, and a free invitation to the annual Crusaders Club banquet. However, all members subscribe to the same statement of principle:
The religion of Islam stands to be the greatest threat against humanity that the world has ever known. I therefore agree with this statement and will pledge my support. I also understand that my donation will further the efforts of Faith Defenders to reach these lost souls for the sake of Christ. I stand firm with Faith Defenders and further understand that at this time in history, we are in a crisis of epic proportions.53
It is easy to dismiss these and similar campaigns as unimportant, but modern means of communication have given both the new jihadists and new “crusaders” an extraordinary range, far greater than they ever possessed before.
MALEDICTA IS THE NAME I HAVE USED TO DESCRIBE THE TRADITIONAL and historic system within which “Christendom” relates to “Islam.” It was first assembled in the distant past, but the edifice has been rebuilt, added to, and modernized over the centuries. But like any historic structure, it is built on old foundations. Maledicta are about cursing—not so much about the everyday “bad language,” but formal and purposeful imprecations. Many cultures use curses or words of power, but in both Christendom and Islam the pronouncing of a formal malediction was a most solemn act, replete with dire consequences. To sense the power of such a curse we can read the all-encompassing malediction, the “Great Cursing,” of Archbishop Dunbar of Glasgow upon the bandits (reivers) of the Anglo-Scottish border. Originally written in Scots, it loses a little by being rendered in standard English:
I curse their head and all the hairs of their head; I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms, their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of their body, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, before and behind, within and without.
I curse them going and I curse them riding; I curse them standing and I curse them sitting; I curse them eating and I curse them drinking; I curse them rising, and I curse them lying; I curse them at home, I curse them far from home; I curse them within their house, I curse them outside their house; I curse their wives, their children, and their servants participating with them in their deeds. I curse their crops, their cattle, their wool, their sheep, their horses, their swine, their geese, their hens, and all their livestock. I place my curse on their halls, their chambers, their kitchens, their stanchions, their barns, their cowsheds, their barnyards, their cabbage patches, their ploughs, their harrows, and the goods and houses that are necessary for their sustenance and welfare.
May all the malevolent wishes and curses ever known, since the beginning of the world, to this hour, light on them. May the malediction of God, that fell upon Lucifer and all his fellows, that cast them from the high Heaven to the deep hell, light upon them.
He continued, ramifying and extending his imprecation,