# I am disappointed that the Protestants did not do more to crush the Turks



## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2018)

One of the strangest historical providences of God for me seems to be that at the height of the Ottoman Invasion of Europe God began to sow the seeds of the Reformation and to split the Church.

Would there been any way in which Europe could have posed a united front against the Turks even after the Reformation? 

The Catholics seemed besieged on two fronts, the Muslims to the South and the Protestants to the North. And even as a Protestant I celebrate these Christian victories against the infidel such as Malta and Lepanto. And Catholic apologists often speak of the great weakness caused by some nations defecting from a united Europe at the time of its greatest need. The Protestants were traitors in the great civilizational war that was being waged.

Then, even into the 1800s the Protestant nations sided with the evil Turks against Russia in conflicts such as the Crimean War. Russia should have been helped to protect the "Holy Places" but many Europeans, instead, sides with the Turk. Even to this day the evil Turk is accepted into NATO....what gives?

Martin Luther protested against Rome from a position of safety from the Turk in Northern Europe, but this sort of Reformation would have never happened, say, if Luther had been born within the Gates of Vienna.

During the Crusades the Germans did wondrous feats in defeating the Saracen. But why was there little defense of Europe by the Protestants once the Reformation happened? Did they delight to see the infidel and the Anti-Christ fight it out and was there no sympathy for the true believers who might have still been within the walls of the Catholic Church? I still believe that it is possible for some Catholics to be saved despite their errors due to a pure love of Jesus and would believe that aiding Catholic countries against a Muslim invasion would be a just war.

Thoughts?

Were the Protestants opportunists who were glad for the evil Turk to take some of the pressure off of them? For while Catholic armies were arrayed against the Turk they could not have helped crush the Reformation in Northern Europe. While there were Muslim threats to their south and east, Rome could not crush the Protestant threats to their north 

I hate being helped by the devils' hordes.


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## Reformed Covenanter (Oct 7, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Were the Protestants opportunists who were glad for the evil Turk to take some of the pressure off of them?



One thing that I have been struck by of late is just how often our Reformed forebears refer to the menace of Islam in their writings. In early 18th-century Scotland, for instance, which was about as far away from Islam as you could be in Europe, the likes of Thomas Boston and Thomas Halyburton were warning about the threat of Islam. I realise you are referring to an earlier time-period, but there is plenty of material from the Reformation itself on the subject.

To cut a long story short, the Reformed were definitely not glad for the evil Turk. Indeed, the Westminster Assembly's _Directory for the Publick Worship of God_ says that we are to pray for "the deliverance of the distressed churches abroad … from the cruel oppressions and blasphemies of the Turk". We should also note here that those in confessional Presbyterian circles who argue for open-door immigration from the Muslim world today are advocating something contrary to the Westminster Standards. If we are to pray for deliverance from Islamic oppression, we should not be inviting it into our own borders.

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## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2018)

Yes. The open borders folks should suffer church discipline. We are witnessing a suicide of our own culture and heritage. Christianity has equaled weakness now since the advent of feminist power within the church where it is somehow now considered "Christian" to give up your land and heritage to those who have ruined their own countries due to their destructive ideologies and are now fleeing to our relatively well-ordered havens of freedom.

Lord, deliver us from the Turk! And give us back Constantinople!

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## TheOldCourse (Oct 7, 2018)

Which Protestant power had the wherewithal to prosecute any sort of war against the Turks? The strongest of them, such as England and Germany, were always in danger of siege by the Papist nations who were the military superpowers of the age. With their meager ability to render foreign aid, their first priority was the weaker Protestant nations and fiefdoms. The wars of aggression were virtually always prosecuted by the Papists--they cannot blame the Protestants for separating Europe when they were the ones to war against the spread of the Gospel.

There is little doubt that Protestants saw the menace of the Turks, in turning the Papist armies attention away from themselves, as a blessed providence--the full strength of the armies of of the Papist powers could have annihilated them--but by no means did they then regard the Mohammedans as anything but evil.

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## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2018)

TheOldCourse said:


> Which Protestant power had the wherewithal to prosecute any sort of war against the Turks? The strongest of them, such as England and Germany, were always in danger of siege by the Papist nations who were the military superpowers of the age. With their meager ability to render foreign aid, their first priority was the weaker Protestant nations and fiefdoms. The wars of aggression were virtually always prosecuted by the Papists--they cannot blame the Protestants for separating Europe when they were the ones to war against the spread of the Gospel. No doubt Protestants saw the menace of the Turks, in turning the Papist armies attention away from themselves, as a blessed providence--the full strength of the armies of France, Spain, Italy, etc. could have annihilated them--but by no means did they then regard the Mohammedans as anything but evil.


Good points. I do wish that things had been different. A united Christendom could have completely crushed all of Islam, except for the divisions in the Church at that time.

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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 7, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Were the Protestants opportunists who were glad for the evil Turk to take some of the pressure off of them? For while Catholic armies were arrayed against the Turk they could not have helped crush the Reformation in Northern Europe. While there were Muslim threats to their south and east, Rome could not crush the Protestant threats to their north
> 
> I hate being helped by the devils' hordes.



It is clearly the case that the threat of Islam occupied the Holy Roman Emperor and other RCC powers, not permitting them to crush the Protestants. Were it not for Islam, Rome would have been able to extirpate Protestantism. 

Opportunists? What a bizarre way to look at this or history more broadly. "Hate being helped by the devil's hordes?" I accept God's providential overruling so that what men mean for evil (and Islam is evil), God means for good. He is such a great and good God that not only does evil not defeat Him, but He uses it to bring about the greatest good. Witness the cross. Witness the use He made of Islam to keep Rome from wiping out the great Reformation. 

I agree with all that Daniel and Chris say, and we must pray always for the conversion of the Muslim and the defeat of his military might. I also praise God for His use of devil to achieve His purposes: the Devil is God's devil and I would urge you to rethink your lamentation on history, which is frankly misguided and wrongheaded. You need to submit yourself to the Lord in His gracious providential deliverance of our Reformational heirs. 

Peace,
Alan

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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 7, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Good points. I do wish that things had been different. A united Christendom could have completely crushed all of Islam, except for the divisions in the Church at that time.



This is completely misguided, brother. The Reformation of the Church was much more important and just what was needed at the time, more than the crushing of Islam. How can you not see that?

Peace,
Alan


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## py3ak (Oct 7, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> I hate being helped by the devils' hordes.



I am not sure David would share your feelings (1 Samuel 23:26-28).


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## RamistThomist (Oct 7, 2018)

There wasn't too much they could do. They didn't share any common border and many of the Protestant nations didn't have a sufficient navy to reach the Turkish lands.

Cromwell's navy did bloody the Turks a bit, if that helps any.

As to being helped by the Devil's Hordes, one of the reasons the Muslims didn't overrun Europe in the Middle Ages was that Genghis Khan's Mongol armies appeared out of nowhere and put enormous pressure on the Muslims from the East. 

When Timurlane sacked Baghdad he put Muslim civilization back a few centuries, which helped Christendom.

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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> And give us back Constantinople!



Why?


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## RamistThomist (Oct 7, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> Why?



It's a meme on social media. Constantinople was a historic Christian city. And Turkey has routinely genocided a lot of Christians in that city. 

Unfortunately, to whom would Constantinople go? I wouldn't want it to go to the Freemasons in the Phanariot (Greek ruling elites).

Russia seems the logical choice, but that would give Russia control of one of the most important port cities in the world.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It's a meme on social media. Constantinople was a historic Christian city. And Turkey has routinely genocided a lot of Christians in that city.
> 
> Unfortunately, to whom would Constantinople go? I wouldn't want it to go to the Freemasons in the Phanariot (Greek ruling elites).
> 
> Russia seems the logical choice, but that would give Russia control of one of the most important port cities in the world.



This has descended yet further into the absurd.

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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Constantinople was a historic Christian city.



"Christian city"? Only in the loose sense of broader Christian culture. The Byzantines, you'll remember, persecuted the iconoclasts to extinction. The Eastern Orthodox Church has shown itself to be no friend of Protestantism.

So you want Constantinople, the fallen Eastern Orthodox bastion. But what about Geneva, today in the grip of godless secularism? Or London, or Edinburgh? Huge swathes of France and nearly the whole of the Netherlands once professed the Reformed faith. I look at my own country and see godlessness run rampant. How about Pyeongyang, which only a century ago was known as the Jerusalem of the East for all its steeples. Meanwhile, much of the world has still not heard the gospel.

A cry to reclaim Constantinople is far too small.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 7, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> So you want Constantinople, the fallen Eastern Orthodox bastion.



I'm fairly certain I never said that.

As to Christian city, I meant in the sense that it gave us authoritative creeds (381), theologians, etc.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 7, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> This has descended yet further into the absurd.



What was absurd about it? Please give examples. I merely explained what others thought. I didn't say what I wanted.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I'm fairly certain I never said that.
> 
> As to Christian city, I meant in the sense that it gave us authoritative creeds (381), theologians, etc.



That Constantinople fell to the icon-worshippers long before the Turks. Why are the Turks alone in getting all the hate?


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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> What was absurd about it? Please give examples. I merely explained what others thought. I didn't say what I wanted.



Actually, you said you wouldn't want it to go to Freemasons, or to Russia. Unless _I _means something other than _I_, you did make it see like you were imagining some fantasy of your own of reclaiming Constantinople.

That's where I'll stop.


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## TheOldCourse (Oct 7, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> That Constantinople fell to the icon-worshippers long before the Turks. Why are the Turks alone in getting all the hate?



And America fell to Nativity scenes. Icons, while grievous sins, did not unchurch the East any more than crucifixes did the West. There is no equivalency between them and the infidel Turks.

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## Tom Hart (Oct 7, 2018)

TheOldCourse said:


> And America fell to Nativity scenes. Icons, while grievous sins, did not unchurch the East any more than crucifixes did the West. There is no equivalency between them and the infidel Turks.



Not equivalency, no. (Although I do think the Eastern Orthodox are no friends, as I have said.) My point is that what some long for is something long passed. It seems to me a foolish exercise.


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

Martin Luther in 1518 wrote an _Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses_, and actually argued AGAINST resisting the Turks, "whom he presented as a scourge intentionally sent by God to sinning Christians, and that resisting it would have been equivalent to resisting the will of God."

That is a pretty despicable attitude given the looting and stealing of European children as future janissaries and all the evils of the Ottomans. That is sort of like letting your unkind neighbor get robbed by thieves just because that unkind neighbor cheated you in the past. A reformed form of schadenfreude that the Catholic lands are finally getting what's coming to them.

Later he modified his position and wrote the treatise _On War against the Turk_ and in 1529 gave the sermon A_gainst the Turk_, encouraging the German people and Emperor Charles V to resist the invasion. This is much better.

Here is an interesting article:
http://www.reformedfellowship.net/martin-luther-the-ottoman-turks-and-the-siege-of-vienna

"Luther also advised the political elite of his time. He began by urging the princes of Europe to unite so that they would confront Suleyman with a massive force, rather than engaging him single-handedly. He reflected on the disaster at Mohacs on August 29, 1526, in which Suleyman obliterated the army of King Louis II, wiping out the Christian kingdom of Hungary. The fundamental problem at Mohacs was that the Hungarians were outnumbered three to one. Suleyman had at least seventy thousand men, while Louis fielded a much smaller force of some twenty-four thousand men. The approach of meeting Suleyman one king at a time was not working. “The Turk devours them one after another,” observed Luther (202)."

So Luther tempered his own views and his later comments are pretty fascinating. His former comments not so good. And there WERE German soldiers at Vienna eventually to see the Turk turned back.

And I am sure some of those disagreeing with me on this post still feel pride swell in their hearts when they hear of the brave defense of Malta by the Knights of Saint John and of Lepanto. These also are our victories.


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

At the root of our disagreements here is this question: Which is worse, the Roman Catholic/Orthodox Church or Islam.

It is little surprise that on the PB some would say the Catholic Church is worse because it is Anti-Christ. But I do not buy that Catholicism is worse than Islam. We share the early creeds, and it is possible for some Catholics to be saved through faith in Jesus despite the system of Catholicism. The system is damning but many of the foundations are saving. 

To prefer to see European lands fall to the Turks rather than fall to the Catholics is idiocy, for the very culture of Europe would then die and the foundational truths of the early creeds would be forgotten. Luther's 1518 declaration was idiocy, which he later modified once we saw the nature of the Turk. 

We now regularly unite with Catholic in Pro-life causes and consider them co-belligerents. We should have done so hundreds of years ago to defend Europe.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 8, 2018)

@Pergamum

You are attacking in all directions at once. It's impossible to reply.


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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 8, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> At the root of our disagreements here is this question: Which is worse, the Roman Catholic/Orthodox Church or Islam.



Not at all, brother. I agree with you that even the Christianity of Lateran IV and Thomas was not the sort of error that Mohammedanism was. I am sure that everyone else here does as well and it seems preposterous to suggest otherwise. 

But the most immediate threat to the newly burgeoning and rather fragile Protestant faith was not the Turk but Rome, with which our Protestant forbears most pointedly contested. The sacerdotalism of the Roman Catholic Church was a denial of the gospel, salvation being seen as participation in the essence of God, particularly in the Eucharist. The recovery of the gospel was essential and necessary. I don't doubt that you believe this.

It so happens that in those circumstances the most immediate threat to the Reformation on the continent and England was that of Rome, which condemned the Reformation at every point and, if it had had its way, would have wiped out the Protestants even at the cost of imperiling the battle against the Saracens. It was only the wisdom of rulers like Charles V and other RCC monarchs that realized that a war on both fronts was untenable and some peace needed to be made with the Protestants, although there was plenty of war as well. 

Had there been no Muslim threat, however, the Roman Catholic civil leaders could have made total war against Protestantism (as the papacy wanted and urged them to constantly) and wiped it out. It seems an odd and even churlish attitude for a Protestant not only to recognize this merciful Providence but to bitterly argue against it. It frankly puzzles me. There's no schadenfreude here. Just thankfulness that God, in his customary wisdom, brought about this Reformation at a time when it could not be as fully opposed (it certainly was opposed--witness the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries!) as it would have been absent the Islamic threat. 

Your diagnosis of this is curious and off, brother. I can't believe that you really mean it. 

Peace,
Alan

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## RamistThomist (Oct 8, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> Actually, you said you wouldn't want it to go to Freemasons, or to Russia. Unless _I _means something other than _I_, you did make it see like you were imagining some fantasy of your own of reclaiming Constantinople.
> 
> That's where I'll stop.



LOL. No. I was doing a geopolitical analysis. My point was that retaking Constantinople is fraught with problems.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 8, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> That Constantinople fell to the icon-worshippers long before the Turks. Why are the Turks alone in getting all the hate?



Probably because of all the genocides they have carried out through history, along with their imprisoning Christian pastors today.


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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 8, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> We now regularly unite with Catholic in Pro-life causes and consider them co-belligerents. We should have done so hundreds of years ago to defend Europe.



To lay this at the door of beleaguered Protestants is remarkable. Rome was not interested in making common cause with Protestantism. Co-belligerency? Read the papal decrees calling for the destruction of those who tried to Reform the church (it was Leo X, after all, who split the church; not Martin Luther) and tell me whether Rome was interested in co-belligerency. This is anachronistic in the extreme. Rome wanted to shut down this Reformation and would have had it not had other things occupying it at the same time. 

Peace,
Alan


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## RamistThomist (Oct 8, 2018)

Both Rome and Turks slaughtered millions. Why choose between them?

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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Both Rome and Turks slaughtered millions. Why choose between them?



Rome slaughtered her thousands, the Turks her tens of thousands. There was still a chance of salvation within the Church...but none within Islam. 

Those who would chose to side with the Turk over the Roman is a traitor to their people, their heritage, and to their historic common creeds.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 8, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> LOL. No. I was doing a geopolitical analysis. My point was that retaking Constantinople is fraught with problems.



Perhaps we can keep the LOLs to a minimum while you work on rephrasing your "geopolitical analysis".


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

If I am not mistaken many of the Reformed accept a Catholic baptism as valid. And many of the Catholic Church Fathers are counted as our own, even when they believed in such things as transubstantiation. And yet to take a stand with Rome against the Turk is high heresy? I believe that is highly inconsistent.

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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 8, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> And yet to take a stand with Rome against the Turk is high heresy? I believe that is highly inconsistent.



Perg, your link to my friend Mark Larson's article does not support what you are saying in any way evident to me. Nor would a link to this, https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/2018/01/how-did-the-reformers-view-islam/, which I also believe properly captures the Reformers' opposition to Islam, while rightly recognizing it as a rod against a faithless Christianity at points, as was often the case when God used Israel's enemies as such a rod against her. 

Maybe we are simply talking past each other. What specifically would you have had Protestants do at the time: have made common cause with Charles I and the papacy in fighting the Turk? How would this not have led to Protestant extirpation? You seem to underestimate how committed Rome was to destroying Protestantism. I simply don't get what you concretely think that the Protestants should have done that would have both defeated Islam and promoted and extended Protestantism. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

In the 1590s the Dutch government openly courted the Ottomans. That is disgusting.

One source states, "As German Protestants started to rebel against Habsburg rule, the situation changed dramatically. Bethlen Gabor's rebels immediately asked for Ottoman help..."

"...the French king Francis I attempted an alliance with the Ottomans, which succeeded in several joint actions against the Habsburgs. This included a joint siege of Nice, and an Ottoman fleet wintering in Toulon in 1543."

In a thesis by Kenneth M Setton, "Lutheranism and the Turkish Peril" he writes:

"Through most of the long reign of the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
(1520- 1566) the Turks were much assisted in the westward expansion
of their empire by the religious and political conditions which obtained in
Europe. While the dynastic wars of Hapsburg and Valois distracted the
attention of Christendom from the Turkish menace, the religious revolt
from the dominance of Rome was contributing notably to the same effect.
It might well be, of course, that even without the absorbing struggle with
King Francis I, the Emperor Charles V would have spent his resources
consolidating the Hapsburg position in Europe rather than combatting the
Turk, but such a policy might nevertheless have kept the Turk east of the
Theiss and south of the Danube."


This is a powerful apologetic against the Protestant Reformation that the Reformers would side with the Turk over the Catholic, and I find it appalling. I think there was a way of co-belligerancy to both defeat the Turk and also defend the gains of the Reformation, but some European powers looked to the Turk as an ally, asking the devil for aid.

I know I will get a lot of opposition on this thread. But this topic is one failure of some of the Reformers and we need to own up to it. 

We can look at God's strange way of providence: God sending an evil enemy to aid the Church. This has happened many times. I acknowledge that. A very strange working of providence, but it has happened in the past...for example...God calls a Persian monarch Cyrus his "servant" even as he is the enemy in our history books as he opposed the Greeks and there is no evidence Cyrus was a believer. Yet he helped the Church. 

But for the Church to directly ask aid from that evil enemy is inexcusable. And some of the Protestant powers asked the Ottomans for help against the Catholics. It is hard for me not to consider these appeals to the Ottomans as them being traitors to their people, their heritage, and their culture. To prefer a Turkish Europe over a Catholic one is a dreadful consequence. While a new Reformation might arise within Christendom because we share the same creeds, most of the same Scripture, and the same early Father,s no such common family relation exists with the Turks. Yet some of the Protestants were willing to sell out their estranged family and side with the evil Turk, instead.


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

Alan D. Strange said:


> Perg, your link to my friend Mark Larson's article does not support what you are saying in any way evident to me. Nor would a link to this, https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/2018/01/how-did-the-reformers-view-islam/, which I also believe properly captures the Reformers' opposition to Islam, while rightly recognizing it as a rod against a faithless Christianity at points, as was often the case when God used Israel's enemies as such a rod against her.
> 
> Maybe we are simply talking past each other. What specifically would you have had Protestants do at the time: have made common cause with Charles I and the papacy in fighting the Turk? How would this not have led to Protestant extirpation? You seem to underestimate how committed Rome was to destroying Protestantism. I simply don't get what you concretely think that the Protestants should have done that would have both defeated Islam and promoted and extended Protestantism.
> 
> ...


Dr Strange, I really do not know what the Protestant SHOULD have done at the time. I am merely reading the historical records and am somewhat shocked at the willingness to align with the evil Turks. I posted this thread, in part, to process this shock and to try to figure out what to do with it. My initial response is one of disgust at some of the Protestants (even Luther at his 1518 writings). But maybe the Protestants felt they had no choice and felt they were fighting for survival.


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## Alan D. Strange (Oct 8, 2018)

@Pergamum

Let me try it this way, brother, because I really quite agree that it was a shame that Rome expended energies going after Protestants that it should have turned entirely to fighting the Turks. I agree with that.

Why do you see this as the fault of Protestants? Why is it not Rome's fault, in resisting the truths brought to light by the Reformers? Rome should have welcomed reform (note particularly Lateran V, 1512-17) and if it had, Christendom could have provided a united front against the particular Muslim onslaught of the 16th century.

It was within Rome's power not to resist reform. It was not in the power of the Protestant's to keep Rome from resisting reform. Had Rome not gone after the Protestants, the Christian church in the West could have provided a united front.

My oldest son is in US Army Intelligence and I fully support his and the present U.S. government's aim to destroy Isis and radical Islam (huge progress has been made on this front in 2017-18). I carry no brief for smiling on the radical Islamists so I want to clear up this matter, dear brother!

Peace,
Alan

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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2018)

Alan D. Strange said:


> @Pergamum
> 
> Let me try it this way, brother, because I really quite agree that it was a shame that Rome expended energies going after Protestants that it should have turned entirely to fighting the Turks. I agree with that.
> 
> ...



Ah.....thank you so much. 

You changed the perspective. Why DID the Catholics CONTINUE to expend so much energy trying to put down the Protestants while the Turk was at their Southern door? Even while the Ottomans advanced the Catholics were STILL trying to obliterate the Protestant movement instead of asking for mutual aid from them.

That is an excellent question. And a very good response. Thank you brother. I am going to wait a while and mull over this question. Your response changed the whole tenor of the argument and I am blessed for it. 

Thanks..

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## RamistThomist (Oct 8, 2018)

Tom Hart said:


> Perhaps we can keep the LOLs to a minimum while you work on rephrasing your "geopolitical analysis".



No. What I said made perfect sense. I calmly analyzed the available options and found them problematic. Hence, no need to go forward with Operation Retake Constantinople.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2018)

I suspect one of the reasons that God allowed the Turks to survive is that the modern-day country of Turkey is probably Gog or Magog according to end-times bible prophecy.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2018)

and to be fair to many Protestants, there really wasn't anything they could have done. It's like my being guilty for failing to outlaw abortion in Russia.


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## Scottish Presbyterian (Oct 9, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> In the 1590s the Dutch government openly courted the Ottomans. That is disgusting.
> 
> One source states, "As German Protestants started to rebel against Habsburg rule, the situation changed dramatically. Bethlen Gabor's rebels immediately asked for Ottoman help..."
> 
> ...



Would you agree that Romanism is a false religion just like Islam, and that the Papacy is the Antichrist?

Would you be any less appalled if the Reformers had sided with Antichrist against the Turks (or anyone else)?

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## Pergamum (Oct 9, 2018)

Some might think I am being too hard on the Protestants here. 

This is a discussion board. Bantering, pushing, asserting, are all means of discussion.

Also, we often don't enter into the discussion and leave the discussion with the same perspectives (or at least we should be open to correction or a change in our views). I often use the PB to test ideas or to bounce ideas off of others. In these cases, it is best just to state my feelings up-front openly, "I am disappointed that the Protestants did not do more to crush the Turk." There it is....let's test this hypothesis.... is it a justified or unjustified sentiment?

Dr. Strange put it in a perspective I had not seen before. His post above was most excellent and changed some of my thinking. I can better sympathize now and not fault the Protestants so much. And so, therefore, the former faults of the Protestants in this area might be mitigated. 

Yet, the Dutch DID engage in negotiations with the Turk. That does seem pretty bad on the surface. I am STILL disappointed that the Reformation did not do more to wrest the stolen European lands back from the Turk...and some powers even seemed to prefer the Turk over the Catholic, which I believe was wrong. This is not slander, but a historical critique. 

Although, as others have rightly said, what COULD the Protestants have done anyway? They were fighting for mere survival in many cases. 

I believe siding with the Catholic against the invading Turk was to be preferred since we have a shared history. And...exactly at what point in history did the Church STOP being the Church and start being Anti-Christ? God still had his own within those conquered nations fighting the Turk alone.

Any sense of joy in a Turk victory over the Catholics seems sinful to me. But a sense of relief might have been well-justified.

And I rejoice over the outcome of the siege of Vienna and Lepanto and the brave Catholic knights who defended Malta. They were on OUR side in a very real sense.


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## Pergamum (Oct 9, 2018)

ScottishPresbyterian said:


> Would you agree that Romanism is a false religion just like Islam, and that the Papacy is the Antichrist?
> 
> Would you be any less appalled if the Reformers had sided with Antichrist against the Turks (or anyone else)?


Those are some of the reason I posted this thread. I am wrestling with this.

Catholics err, but there is hope of salvation among them. Many will be saved despite the system. Their early creeds are 100%. We share a heritage, a history and we quote many men who believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist when it suits us. Many of their damning errors were not solidified until after Trent. Don't the Reformed accept Catholic baptisms even?

But there is no hope of salvation for the Turk. 

So yes, and no. Romanism both is and is not a false religion just like Islam. One represents truth that veered slowly off-course through the ages, and one seems a Satanic counterfeit directly given to mankind by demons (Muhmd in his cave speaking to an "angel").

We can rejoice in the Catholic victories over the Turk, but cannot do the reeverse, I believe. If you do, I believe you to be a traitor to your culture, heritage, and civilization.


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## Pergamum (Oct 9, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> and to be fair to many Protestants, there really wasn't anything they could have done. It's like my being guilty for failing to outlaw abortion in Russia.



Jacob,

As a Slavo-phile what is your take on the Crimean War? There was a real opportunity to have seen Russia retake many Byzantine lands and cities, even Constantinople. But what did England do, instead? We got a cool poem from it (the charge of the light brigade, which, in itself, was a pretty dumb military blunder), but why would the Western Christian powers take the side of the Ottomans?


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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> As a Slavo-phile what is your take on the Crimean War?



To paraphrase the worst president in American history, "It made the world safe for the Rothschild banking clan."

Everyone in Europe knew that the Ottomans--like today's Saudis--were the sick and dying man and existing only because the West allowed them to. Having rail stations from Baghdad to Europe was just too important, along with the key shipping lanes.


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## Scottish Presbyterian (Oct 9, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Those are some of the reason I posted this thread. I am wrestling with this.
> 
> Catholics err, but there is hope of salvation among them. Many will be saved despite the system. Their early creeds are 100%. We share a heritage, a history and we quote many men who believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist when it suits us. Many of their damning errors were not solidified until after Trent. Don't the Reformed accept Catholic baptisms even?
> 
> ...



I understand where you are coming from, and I certainly would not rejoice in a Muslim victory over Romanists (and am thankful for Romanists victories over Muslims such as those in the Crusades, Lepanto, Vienna etc). A few points though:

We should distinguish between individual Romanists and Romanism as a religion. An individual may be saved if they are resting on Christ's finished work alone for salvation, and yet for some reason be in the communion of the Papacy - this does not negate that Romanism is a false religion.

Yes the Reformers generally allowed RC baptism as valid - I'm not sure they were correct here, and I certainly wouldn't use it as a basis for doubting that Romanism is a false religion.

Maybe we are too prone to see Romanism as just another Christian denomination that holds some heresies, rather than seeing it as anti-Christian, and perhaps seeing Romanism as it truly is would help us understand out forebears better, and make us more cautious in things like treasuring heretics of the past or admitting a baptism performed by the agent of a false religion as valid.

One more thought (I realise this is more a stream of consciousness now, I'm sorry): Romanism is specifically described in the Bible as Satanic (2 Thessalonians 2:9) so it is just as much a Satanic religion as Islam is. To posit a scenario which is sadly not unrealistic in this generation, suppose a liberal church (think Church of Scotland, PCUSA etc) invited an imam to perform a baptism and the imam agreed to use the standard words (the trinitarian formula), would we consider this baptism to be valid? If not, what justification do we have to consider one performed by a priest of Rome to be valid?

Reactions: Like 1


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Oct 9, 2018)

*Moderator Note*:

Let's let the moderators moderate. If someone has an issue with a post, use the Report feature.


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## Edward (Oct 9, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> but why would the Western Christian powers take the side of the Ottomans?



Because Britain maintaining trade routes was the priority for them.

The whole thing started out as a dispute between Catholics (France) and Orthodox (Russia) over influence in the Holy lands. The Ottomans took advantage of the situation. And then the British did. (The underlying dispute still crops up from time to time - here's a story from 2012 that might give you some perspective https://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=47107 )


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## Pergamum (Oct 9, 2018)

Edward said:


> Because Britain maintaining trade routes was the priority for them.
> 
> The whole thing started out as a dispute between Catholics (France) and Orthodox (Russia) over influence in the Holy lands. The Ottomans took advantage of the situation. And then the British did. (The underlying dispute still crops up from time to time - here's a story from 2012 that might give you some perspective https://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=47107 )


Interesting. Thanks.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2018)

No one had a really good reputation.

Rome repeatedly stabbed Constantinople in the back before 1453. Even the Turks bought their cannon technology from Italians!.

And it's debatable whether the East always wanted to survive. True, Tsar Lazar broke the back of the Islamic invasion in 1389, even if Serbia lost its independence. But a few years later when the Mongol hordes were decimating the Turks, praise be to thee, O Christ, the Serbs provided rear-guard relief that more or less guaranteed the continued existence of the Ottoman Empire.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 9, 2018)

The victories at Lepanto and Malta, and other such victories, I would count as victories on behalf of Western Civilization. The Roman Catholic powers that made up the Holy League might easily have used their forces to fight the schismatic Protestant as well as the Turk. (In fact, King Philip II of Spain did just that, his armies slaughtering tens of thousands of Dutch Protestants, including many civilians.) So your thesis that the Protestants ought to have sided with them is historically uninformed, to say the least.

Lepanto and other such battles are only our victories in the sense that our side might have benefitted in some way. It certainly wasn't our side doing the fighting. (Yet I can't see the diminishment of Spain's maritime power as a bad alternative outcome.)

I feel something similar when, for example, I read of Song China's spirited defence against the Mongols, or of Roman battles against the Huns. In those stories, the apparent underdog, lacking strength and supplies, takes on and sometimes defeats an apparently unstoppable barbarian foe. It makes for good reading.

Maybe Lepanto is closer in time, and it could perhaps, in a general sense, be considered a defence of Western Civilization. (But of course we must not forget the routine barbarism of the victors.) But it's still not my team playing.

My side? The Huguenots, the Dutch Protestants, the Covenanters. (I like the Anglo-Saxons, too, as I am descended from them. Alfred the Great is a real hero.)


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## Tom Hart (Oct 9, 2018)

Another fellow that deserves laurels as an underdog defender of Europe against the Turk is Vlad Tepeş of Wallachia.


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## arapahoepark (Oct 9, 2018)

Yay Dracula?


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## RamistThomist (Oct 9, 2018)

arapahoepark said:


> Yay Dracula?



I don't think he was actually a Christian, but he did help keep the Turks from overruning Europe with his shock tactics.


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## ZackF (Oct 9, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I don't think he was actually a Christian, but he did help keep the Turks from overruning Europe with his shock tactics.


Didn’t people kind of stick around from his tactics?

Reactions: Like 1 | Funny 2


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## Edward (Oct 9, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I don't think he was actually a Christian, but he did help keep the Turks from overruning Europe with his shock tactics.



He was for the Turks before he was against the Turks. 

He appears to have come from a Christian family.


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## Tom Hart (Oct 9, 2018)

Edward said:


> He appears to have come from a Christian family.



Eastern Orthodox.


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## jw (Oct 9, 2018)

ZackF said:


> Didn’t people kind of stick around from his tactics?


Reminds me of a song:

Vladislav!
Baby don't hurt me
Don’t hurt me
No more!

Reactions: Like 2 | Funny 3


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## RamistThomist (Oct 10, 2018)

Edward said:


> He was for the Turks before he was against the Turks.
> 
> He appears to have come from a Christian family.



He was a prince and his dad sent him and his brother to the Sultan and the Sultan sent his kids to the Wallachian prince. It was sort of guaranteed good behavior. Vlad learned war from the Turks.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 10, 2018)

Here is a review I did on the history of Vlad Tepes.
https://cocceius.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/dracula-prince-of-many-faces/


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## Pergamum (Oct 10, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Here is a review I did on the history of Vlad Tepes.
> https://cocceius.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/dracula-prince-of-many-faces/


Excellent!

He was a member of the Order of the Dragon. Wasn't that outwardly a Christian order modeled around the Christian orders that came about during the Crusades to fight the Turk? Would the Order have merely winked at his atrocities since it helped defend Christian lands? 

And do you have any book recommendations about Vlad?


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## RamistThomist (Oct 10, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Excellent!
> 
> He was a member of the Order of the Dragon. Wasn't that outwardly a Christian order modeled around the Christian orders that came about during the Crusades to fight the Turk? Would the Order have merely winked at his atrocities since it helped defend Christian lands?
> 
> And do you have any book recommendations about Vlad?



It was outwardly Christian in the sense that it wasn't Muslim. And the King Sigsimund, if I remember correctly, is the same one at the Council of Constance who oversaw the burning of Jan Hus, so there's that.

As to winking at his atrocities--that's how Eastern Europeans fought even until 1995 when the Bosnian Serb army flattened Sarajevo and then summarily executed the entire Bosnian Muslim 7th Infantry.


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## SolaScriptura (Oct 10, 2018)

Well, I think you've lost your way re: the Gospel, but when it comes to the threat posed by Islam, I think we're on the same page.


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## Edward (Oct 10, 2018)

Pergamum said:


> Would the Order have merely winked at his atrocities since it helped defend Christian lands?



You are still viewing the history through the wrong lens. He used the same tactics against the Christians as he did against the Muzzis. No mushy rules of engagement in those days. 

His concerns were to preserve, and if possible expand, his realm. He didn't care where is enemies, nor his friends, worshiped. Religion wasn't really a factor.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Pergamum (Oct 10, 2018)

SolaScriptura said:


> Well, I think you've lost your way re: the Gospel, but when it comes to the threat posed by Islam, I think we're on the same page.


Well, thank you that I am only a heretic but you are willing to fight the Turk next to me!


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