Crusade defenders justified violence by power replacing miracles as Christians gained strength

Evidence

If objectors contrasted the shedding of blood with the behaviour of Christ and His Apostles, the writer contrasted conditions in his own day and in the early days of the Church; then the powerless Christian people had proceeded by humility, but now, having become powerful, quite otherwise, by the power of the sword, and as possessing arms where it no longer had miracles. In the last resort the appeal was pragmatic; who was prepared, by not resisting, to see all Christians perish? — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 648

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s theme from later church history and from ‘On Sacrifice’ — the shift from martyrdom-by-humility to killing-by-power. — connects to: Centuries of Christian violence served protecting power and privilege — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 447; Power-over-others Christianity repeatedly drives believers toward atrocities — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 65