Dr. Lecaque will be speaking about his research and has provided a description of the lecture below:
Apocalypticism has never gone away in Christian-influenced societies, and the political, social, cultural and religious implications seem too often ignored. In 1099 outside the walls of Jerusalem, the First Crusade processed, barefoot, penitentially, around the walls, calling for God to grant them victory, in an oblique ode to Joshua 6, the fall of Jericho. The army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, lord of southern France, took up positions on Mount Zion, occupying David’s tomb and facing the city. Warned that taking the crown of Jerusalem led to one of two paths—either Last World Emperor, destined to surrender his power to the re-descended Christ, or Antichrist, setting himself up on David’s throne as tyrant—he refused the crown when the city fell. 650 years later, preachers in New England would summon their congregations to take up arms in a new holy war, marching north to face the armies of the antichrists of the Catholic French and Natives in the 7 Years War—and fifteen years later applying that same rhetoric to the British in the American Revolution. 920 years after the fall of Jerusalem, crowds led and organized by far right religious leaders surrounded the US Capitol in a Jericho March, preaching the apocalypse in December and leading an insurrection in January. Looking at a thousand year span of Christian history, stopping in at three particular moments in time—the First Crusade, the 18th century in the British Colonies of North America, and the month-long lead up to the January 6th insurrection in Washington D.C., we will look at the long roots of the enduring religious violence that exists at the heart, rather than the fringes, of our society.