Recently, a group of Christian leaders, mostly missionaries to the Muslim world, gathered in Jerusalem, at the spot where 900 years earlier Christian knights and soldiers stormed the walls. They read historical accounts of the Jerusalem massacre. Then they formally apologized for the Crusades. I apologize for their apology.

Not because I’m a cheerleader for the Crusades. I cringe when I think of the centuries of slaughter and pillaging done in the name of Christ, with the blessing of the church. I’m saddened by what Muslims and heretics suffered. As philosopher David Hume put it, the Crusades stand as a “durable monument to human folly.”

But it’s too easy, when we repudiate actions of Christians of other times and places, to subtly repudiate those Christians. They become the distant uncle with the dark and troubled past—someone we don’t talk about. And when we’re forced to, we shift nervously and turn a little red.

For too long, modern Christians have assumed the crusaders are not spiritual ...

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