How have the crusades impacted on modern society?

Answer 1

Modern Christianity has backpedaled from the Crusades largely due to modern attitudes towards religion and war. Most modern people, including Christians themselves, do not consider religion a cause for violence, especially as modern people desire tolerance and are not concerned with claims to truth as such claims cause division and can lead to prejudice and violence. Most Protestant religions wash their hands of the crusades as they did not yet exist - one of the few times they will admit having no continuity or identity with the early Christian Church; only the Catholic and Orthodox churches existed as major religious Christian bodies at the time.

As such, Catholics and other religions have apologized for the Crusades and even seem to carry a sense of shame about them. When taken in their historical context and looked at objectively, the Crusades make sense. The evil and good that came out of them must be looked at with the mentalities of the people that were involved as well as the fact that people actually believed that religious truth was the highest truth worth fighting and dying for. Few people of either side do this, and hence the Crusades have become a morass of hindsight and historical revision.

Since the Crusades are now widely looked upon as a dark moment in Church history, few look to address them and anti-Christian forces usually cite them as a rhetorical proof against Christianity. Christians usually apologize and accept the accusations at face value. Because of this attitude, much disinformation about the Crusades is now propagated, either fabricated, taken out of context, magnifying evil deeds or interpreting actions through modern thought. What is needed is for the Church and people in general to reexamine the ancient documentation and religious beliefs and attitudes of the faithful at the time and then discern their intentions. Until that time, the Crusades are one more stand that has been swept away in modern Christianity's desire to seem harmless to the modern world.

Answer 2

Some of the first crusades were to take over the Holy lands and restart the faith of Islam while others were trying to convert some to Christianity. The impact of these crusades were pretty amazing.