Debate already under way on big Crusades film

Next year 20th Century Fox will release a $130 million epic film about Christians battling Muslims in the Middle East.

Sound contemporary? Is it based on the current armed struggle in Iraq? No, “Kingdom of Heaven” is about the 300-year-long Crusades of the Middle Ages. It will focus on the climactic battle in 1187 in Jerusalem when Saladin and his Muslim forces defeated the Christian Crusaders led by Balian, a French knight.

But already the 21st century battle lines are drawn — not in the sand, but in the ricocheting press statements of Christian and Islamic leaders. The New York Times provided the film’s script to five scholars, including Jesuit priest George Dennis, a history professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and Khaled Abu el-Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Dennis has reassured moviegoers: “Historically, I found it pretty accurate. … I don’t think Muslims should have any objections. There’s nothing offensive to anyone in there.”

But el-Fadl disagreed: “I believe this movie teaches people to hate Muslims. There is a stereotype of the Muslim as … stupid, retarded, backward, unable to think in complex forms. … (the film) really misrepresents history on many levels.”

It all sounds so familiar, given the recent battle over alleged anti-semitism in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” However, “The Kingdom of Heaven” debate is already way ahead of “The Passion” controversy, which intensified only after Christian and Jewish critics screened a rough cut of Gibson’s film.

The word “crusade” always triggers harsh reactions from both Muslims and Jews. The term is linked to the European Christian soldiers who left their homes beginning in 1096 to capture Jerusalem, especially the Holy Sepulcher, from the “infidels,” aka Muslims. But along the way, the Crusaders — a motley crew of religious idealists, sadistic thugs, professional soldiers, sordid criminals and raunchy adventurers — stopped long enough en route to Jerusalem to murder thousands of other “infidels,” aka Jews. The murderous Crusades represent a pivotal tragic event in Christian-Jewish relations and set in motion much of the anti-Jewish feeling that still remains alive.

Unlike today, Jews had no army to defend themselves, but the Muslims did. The Islamic forces were ultimately victorious against the Crusaders. It is no accident that Muslim enemies of the United States refer to today’s American military as “Crusaders.”

For Jews, there is one significant change from that time. In the Middle Ages, Crusaders branded both Jews and Muslims “enemies of Christ” and “infidels,” and they killed members of both faith communities. Today, Osama bin Laden and many other Muslim extremists lump Christians and Jews together as satanic “infidels.” In an eerie way, Jews are the “swing vote” in the ongoing struggle between Christians and Muslims — a struggle we will see portrayed when “Kingdom of Heaven” opens next year.