Mr. President, You Know, the Crusades have been over for 566 Years

In 2012, during a Presidential Debate, President Obama infamously called Mr. Romney out on suggesting Russia as the "biggest geopolitical threat facing America" - his famous undercutting words were, "because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years." The President suggested that it was wrong for a Commander-in-Chief to consider geopolitical threats based on past history. This is the basis for my title, "Mr. President, You know, the Crusades have been over for 566 years."

At the beginning of February, at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama called Christians out, "and lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition..." Excuse me? Even the Inquisition's been over for 189 years - the last execution was in 1826. This is in no way an attempt to excuse any executions done in the name of Christ. I'm pointing out that our President has again resorted to playing the "shut up" card. Again, we are faced with The Culture of Shut Up.

Using the language, "high horse," our President insinuates that Christians are self-righteously wrong to consider ISIS terrorist acts to be unique.

So the question remains, is the President correct?

Here's a fact recognized by the United Nations. In 2014, the UN reports that under ISIS, "at least 11,602 civilians have been killed and 21,766 wounded from the beginning of January to 10 December 2014." In light of this, is it wrong of Christians to consider it unique or horrific that within the past few years, thousands of Christians, Jews, Yazidis, and persons of other faiths. have been terrorized, enslaved, recruited, tortured, and/or killed all in the name of a religion... of a prophet? This is what President Obama suggests, and I disagree. Religiously motivated terrorist acts are not only unique, they are uniquely horrific, tragic, and barbaric in 2015.

Historically, ok, religiously motivated mass executions are not unique. Yet, even in this scenario, I know of zero Christian historians or Christian leaders who would even dream of suggesting religiously motivated mass executions to be "unique" to history - they are not. It is deceitful and wrong that the President of our nation would use the past crimes of Christianity in order to silence those who would dare to speak out against the horrifically unique crimes going on today.

It is the culture of shut up, the rhetorical strategy of silencing opposition by proving they are hypocritical. Because Christians have a history of religious terrorism, because Americans have a history of slavery, they are hypocritical if they consider ISIS unique in their terrorist acts. In an exaggerated way, based on this logic, should we simply allow a worldwide Muslim crusade to go on since Muslims were killed in the past by other religions? No. Resoundingly, no. Christians may have executed in the name of religion in the past. They should never resort to such actions again. Muslims have executed in the name of religion in the past. They should never resort to such actions again. The victims of such executions should never resort to such actions as arbitration or vengeance on the crimes of the past. Crimes against humanity must be stopped through a worldwide opposition regardless of race, creed, or nationality.

My title is equally guilty of participating in the culture of shut up in attempting to show that the President's words at the National Prayer Breakfast were hypocritical from what he had said in the past. In the interest of opening dialogue, I would ask the President to reject religiously motivated crimes against humanity and to call, most strongly with Christian and Muslim and world leaders, for a worldwide collaboration to end the crimes against humanity being committed by ISIS.