East and West meet in reconciliation

Christy Risser

For most people living in western Europe and North America, the Crusades are but a footnote in the history of our civilization. Few of us even know what they were all about.

People living in the Middle East have a different perspective. Although the first Crusade began just over 900 years ago, the events of those religious wars remain living parts of their culture. When the Gulf war happened a few years ago, headlines across the Arab world referred to the conflict as "the eighth Crusade".

Just over 900 years ago, the first Crusaders set out on a deadly mission, that has created one of the greatest stumbling-locks to peace and reconciliation in history. Serving as representatives of Jesus, they attacked Muslims, Jews and Christians of the Middle East, slaughtering them and taking control of their land. From that time to the present, Jews, Muslims and Eastern Christians have looked to the West and its so-called Christian culture with distrust and fear. Even today, tensions between the Middle East and the West continue, while Western diplomats and heads of state often claim ignorance as to the source of the animosity.

But there is hope. A small but growing group of Western European and North American Christians has begun a Reconciliation Walk. Initiated in 1996 on the day the first Crusaders set out from Cologne, Germany for Jerusalem 900 years before, Reconciliation Walkers have covered the territory traversed by the Crusaders step-by-step. Roughly keeping to the timeline of that three-year march to Jerusalem, they are apologizing to Muslims, Jews and Eastern Christians whose ancestors were slaughtered by the ancestors of those bringing the apology.

Throughout the Bible, the command to believers is clear. In order to bring forth God's Kingdom, we must be willing to work firsthand for peace and reconciliation in this world. "As shoes for your feet, put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace," Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus. Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, "When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift."

Reconciliation Walkers are no one in particular. Participants have included everyone from students to university professors, factory workers to full-time ministers. They gather together the necessary funds to participate in the Walk themselves, arrange for their own travel visas and come to the orientation as individuals or small groups.

Typically, Reconciliation Walk participants do not speak the language of the country where they will share the apology. Armed with the prayers of a dedicated network of Christians and a copy of the formal apology in Turkish, these small teams head out to bridge the chasm between the cultures.

Most come for two weeks; some stay longer. No matter the length of one's involvement, both the participants and the people they encounter are forever changed by the experience.

Michael Scott, an electrical technician from Palm Bay, Florida, said, "We are simply trying to ask forgiveness of the descendants of the Crusaders' victims for the ways in which the Crusaders misused the name of Jesus. We can't change what the Crusaders did, but we can change how we deal with one another now and into the future. I believe in this message. I came here believing God was in it and I should be a part of it, but now I believe it should be a lifestyle."

Although it is called a Reconciliation Walk, most participants do not actually walk the route of the first Crusade. Instead, they are part of what are called message teams. These teams travel to various towns and villages to build relationships with people, and share the message of apology. While a few teams are walking every step of the original route of the Crusades, the Reconciliation Walk staff has discovered that the message teams are having an incredibly powerful impact.

"At first, we were really focused on the walking part of the project," Reconciliation Walk director Lynn Green said. "But as participants got out into the country and met the people, we discovered that the real power of this project is the one-on-one relationships that were being made. The participants became the message themselves. Through the power of the Spirit, their presence in the cities, towns and villages communicated much more than `I'm sorry.' It communicated a humility and repentance that Middle Easterners have never before seen in Western Christians. And it is this message being spread from person to person across the whole of the Middle East that will change our future together."

Completing their time in Turkey in September,1998, the Reconciliation Walkers have continued on into Lebanon and Syria. The Lebanese government has formally invited the Walk into its country as a model of the way reconciling can and should be done. Some Lebanese officials want to see the Reconciliation Walk serve as a model to their own divided people, so that they may find common ground and come together as one country.

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