The Crusades, Church Architecture, and Liberty University's Strangest Student<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hunter Baker has a post up at Evangel on Rodney Stark's new book on the crusades, God's Battalions.\u00a0 Here's what he says about the book by way of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2010\/02\/the-crusades-church-architecture-and-liberty-universitys-strangest-student\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Crusades, Church Architecture, and Liberty University's Strangest Student\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hunter Baker has a post up at Evangel on Rodney Stark's new book on the crusades, God's Battalions.\u00a0 Here's what he says about the book by way of\" 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{"id":2328,"date":"2010-02-27T20:06:48","date_gmt":"2010-02-27T20:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/owenstrachan.com\/?p=2328"},"modified":"2010-02-27T20:06:48","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T20:06:48","slug":"the-crusades-church-architecture-and-liberty-universitys-strangest-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2010\/02\/the-crusades-church-architecture-and-liberty-universitys-strangest-student\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crusades, Church Architecture, and Liberty University’s Strangest Student"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Hunter Baker has a post up at Evangel<\/em><\/a> on Rodney Stark\u2019s new book on the crusades, God\u2019s Battalions<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what he says about the book by way of description:<\/p>\n

Rodney Stark\u2019s God\u2019s Batallions<\/a><\/em> is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades. \u00a0You know the routine. \u00a0You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition. \u00a0This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades. \u00a0Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended. \u00a0All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically. \u00a0Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.<\/p>\n

Check out\u00a0God\u2019s Battalions<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Also, Hunter\u2019s own book, The End of Secularism<\/a><\/em>, looks very good.\u00a0 I am working my way through it and commend it to you.\u00a0 Al Mohler did a whole radio program on it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

************<\/p>\n

An interesting post from Matthew Anderson on church architecture<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Good Chesterton quotation to kife as well.<\/p>\n

************<\/p>\n

Amanda Baker reports on a summer she spent living with unbelievers in Washington, DC<\/a>.\u00a0 Hers was a reverse experience of the kind chronicled in the recent book by non-Christian Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple<\/a>, <\/em>which profiles Roose\u2019s strange semester at Liberty University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I just read Roose\u2019s book and found it provocative on a few points.\u00a0 Nothing too earth-shattering.\u00a0 I think the whole \u201cI studied\u00a0evangelical Christians thinking they were weird and found out they\u2019re actually pretty normal\u201d genre is a bit played out, personally.\u00a0 Many Christians are indeed pretty normal, sometimes too much so, as Roose\u2019s book shows.\u00a0 The guys he pals around with struggle with lust, pornography use, and nominalism.\u00a0 I was reminded just how difficult it is for young men to fight for purity in this world, whether at Liberty or elsewhere, and just how much we need a robust view of Christ, not merely rules, Christian codes, and chapels, good as these things can be.<\/p>\n

Roose\u2019s writing isn\u2019t exceptional, and the book doesn\u2019t unearth anything terribly unusual, but I was glad that he seemed to warm to Christians through his exposure to them, and I hope that he finds the Lord.<\/p>\n

************<\/p>\n

Have you heard of Libera?<\/a>\u00a0 They\u2019re an all-boys choir from England.\u00a0 Not usually my cup of tea, but this is a particularly elegant song.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"