"THE CRUSADES: SALVATION OR EXPLOITATION?"

(Insert Name)
(Institutional Affiliation)

A crusade was a term mostly used in the eleventh and sixteenth centuries BC to describe Christian campaigns against Muslim brethren (Oludyke, 2012). Initially, these campaigns were meant as avenues for Christians to affirm their devotion to their faith and to win the hearts of non-believers. The first of such public rally was demonstrated by Pope Urban II of 1095. This was a botched mission meant to restore access to the holy lands around Jerusalem by Christians (Oakland, 2007). This war lasted 200 years in favor of the non-believers. In the modern world, however, rogue evangelists and religious leaders have misused these forums as strategies for exploitation. According to White (2012), unlike the early Church whose lifestyle was one of denial and total devotion to the gospel, our present religious leaders flaunts a flashy and opulent lifestyle. To achieve this standard of living, many evangelists in the modern society organizes highly hyped multinational and expensive crusades designed to arm-twist naïve and poor followers into enriching church coffers (Bravia, 2014). Believers from all walks of life flock at such gatherings in anticipation to finding solutions to their problems or receiving miracles of some form as promised by these selfish evangelists in a bid to woo attendance. Further, these crusaders trick their congregations into making pledges or offering gifts to the church through well calculated Bible verses on the essence of giving back to the church. During the long period of the papal supremacy, prelates, and other church monks walked around extorting believers with a promise of remission of their sins and those of their loved ones in purgatory (White, 2012). The same scenarios occur in our present