The Idol of the Sword: A Refutation of Joachim Osther's "Muscular Christianity"
V.A. Mohamad Ashrof, New Age Islam
23 December 2025
In his 6 December 2025 Jihad Watch article, “A Return to Muscular Christianity,” Joachim Osther offers a review of Raymond Ibrahim’s The Two Swords of Christ that functions less as literary criticism and more as a manifesto for civilizational confrontation. Osther calls for the resurrection of a “warrior monk” ethos, framing Western history as a binary struggle against a monolithic, doctrinally violent Islam. This critique systematically dismantles Osther’s thesis. Drawing upon New Testament scholarship, medieval history, and sociological analysis, it demonstrates that Osther’s call for “Muscular Christianity” is historically reductive, scripturally illiterate, and sociologically symptomatic of a profound modern fragility.
The Rhetoric of Reaction in an Age of Anxiety
The early twenty-first century has been marked by a deep sense of geopolitical vertigo. From the collapse of the Twin Towers to the dissolution of the territorial so-called “Caliphate,” the Western intellectual landscape has increasingly become a battleground of competing narratives. It is within this volatile context that Joachim Osther’s “A Return to Muscular Christianity” must be situated. His essay is not merely a book review; it is a cultural artefact of the “clash of civilisations” paradigm—a reactionary attempt to resolve modern complexity by retreating into an imagined medieval past.
Osther’s core claim is that the West is under siege by an unchanging, aggressive Islamic “jihad,” and that the only adequate response is the revival of the ethos of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller. He presents this revival as a recovery of “courageous truth” allegedly suppressed by “woke historians” and “secular revisionists” who, in his view, have emasculated the Church.
A careful examination, however, reveals that Osther is attacking a straw man. The consensus of modern academic historiography—which he dismisses as “rubbish”—is not the product of ideological collusion, but the outcome of centuries of archaeological, textual, and sociological research. By rejecting this scholarly consensus, Osther does not reclaim “truth”; he retreats into myth. As the religious historian Karen Armstrong has observed, myth often proves more powerful than fact precisely because it offers psychological orientation amid chaos. Osther’s myth is a starkly binary world of “sincere” Christian knights confronting “hegemonic” jihadists. This essay argues that such a worldview constitutes a betrayal of the historical Jesus, a distortion of the historical record, and a perilous prescription for the future. (Quran 2:190: "Fight in the way of God those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed, God does not like transgressors.")
The Hermeneutical Crisis: The “Two Swords” Fallacy
The theological fulcrum of Osther’s argument—and of the book he promotes—rests upon a rigidly literalist reading of Luke 22:36–38, the so-called “Two Swords” passage. Osther writes: “Christians… are to fight two sorts of evils with two sorts of swords – a spiritual sword against spiritual enemies, and a physical sword against physical enemies.”
This interpretation undergirds the entire edifice of “Muscular Christianity.” If Jesus indeed instructed his disciples to arm themselves for physical combat, then the Crusades may be construed as acts of fidelity rather than historical aberrations. Yet a survey of serious New Testament scholarship renders such a reading hermeneutically indefensible.
The overwhelming consensus among scholars of the historical Jesus—including E. P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, and John Dominic Crossan—is that Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet of non-violence whose vision of the “Kingdom of God” stood in direct opposition to armed revolt.
• Jewish Restoration Eschatology: In Jesus and Judaism, E. P. Sanders emphasises that Jesus did not assemble an army against Rome; he gathered a community awaiting divine intervention. Ethical teachings such as “turn the other cheek” were not provisional tactics but constitutive principles of the Kingdom. The “warrior monk” ethos is foreign to the Jewish prophetic tradition in which Jesus was firmly rooted. (Quran 5:46: "And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light.")
• The Galilean Hasid: Geza Vermes depicts Jesus as a Hasid—a charismatic healer oriented towards the poor and marginalised. To recast this figure as a spiritual general presiding over a medieval cavalry charge is a distortion of the highest order.
• Radical Non-Violence: John Dominic Crossan characterises Jesus’s ministry as one of “radical non-violent resistance.” His practice of open commensality—sharing meals with sinners and enemies alike—constituted a direct challenge to the hierarchical violence of the Roman Empire. For Crossan, the Kingdom of God is realised through justice and shared sustenance, not through bloodshed.
How, then, should the “Two Swords” passage be understood? Osther interprets Jesus’s remark, “It is enough,” as divine endorsement of armed preparedness. By contrast, mainstream academic exegesis understands the exchange as ironic or tragically misconstrued.
Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman notes that the disciples repeatedly misunderstood Jesus’s messianic vocation. Jesus refers to being “numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53), and the swords function as narrative devices to fulfil this prophecy, not as instruments for insurrection. The decisive moment occurs in Gethsemane: when Peter uses a sword to sever the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Jesus rebukes him and heals the wounded man. Osther’s account conspicuously omits this unequivocal repudiation of violence. As Rudolf Bultmann observed, to literalise the “sword” is to miss the existential thrust of the Gospel—its summons to radical faith, not armed struggle. (Quran 5:32: "...if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.")
The Historical Distortion: De-Romanticising the Crusades
Osther implies an unbroken continuity between the apostolic Church and the “warrior monks” of the twelfth century, suggesting that the martial ethos was a dormant Christian virtue reawakened by necessity. He extols the “dramatic arc” of the Crusades, likening the Hospitallers to “modern Navy SEALs.” This represents what might be termed the “Netflixification” of holy war—an aestheticization of violence that effaces its brutal, squalid, and morally compromised reality.
The militarisation of Christianity was not a recovery but a rupture. As Peter Brown demonstrates in The Rise of Western Christendom, the early Church was overwhelmingly pacifist for its first three centuries. Early Christians understood themselves as milites Christi—soldiers of Christ—but solely in a metaphorical sense involving prayer, endurance, and martyrdom. Military service was explicitly rejected, as the shedding of blood was deemed incompatible with participation in the Eucharist. The turn towards violence emerged not from the teachings of Jesus, but from the Constantinian fusion of Church and empire. (Quran 2:256: "Let there be no compulsion in religion.")
Osther portrays the Knights Templar as paragons of pious sincerity and martial virtue. This romanticisation obscures their political and economic reality. The Templars were not merely monks; they were the medieval world’s first multinational corporation. As bankers and feudal landlords, they accumulated immense wealth, provoking envy and ultimately persecution at the hands of European monarchs.
Moreover, Osther’s binary of “Christian defender versus Islamic aggressor” collapses under scrutiny. The Fourth Crusade (1204) did not reclaim Jerusalem but instead sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city of its age. Crusading fervour also ignited waves of anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe. A “muscular” Christianity incapable of distinguishing between the “infidel” abroad and the “heretic” or Jew at home is not a guardian of civilisation; it is a menace to it.
The Essentialist Trap: The Myth of the Monolithic Enemy
At the heart of Osther’s argument lies the portrayal of Islam as a static, doctrinal engine of conquest. He commends Ibrahim for demonstrating that “jihad is doctrinal,” implying an unbroken continuum of aggression “dating back to the seventh century.” This essentialist framing grossly simplifies Islamic history.
Scholars such as Karen Armstrong have long argued that jihad has been profoundly misunderstood by Western polemicists. While armed struggle is one dimension, it is counterbalanced by the Greater Jihad—the internal struggle against moral failure. Osther further ignores the extraordinary diversity of Islamic jurisprudence and thought. To reduce fourteen centuries of civilisation—replete with poets, philosophers, scientists, and mystics—to a single doctrine of violence is an act of intellectual bad faith. (Quran 30:22: "And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge.")
Osther also depicts Christian life under Islamic rule as one of unrelieved persecution, thereby justifying the Crusades retrospectively. This narrative disregard the historical reality of Convivencia in regions such as Al-Andalus and the Near East. Though far from egalitarian by modern standards, the dhimma system afforded a degree of religious pluralism unknown in medieval Christendom.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews translated one another’s texts, traded in shared markets, and debated philosophy together. The very intellectual inheritance Osther seeks to defend—Aristotle, Plato, and the classical tradition—reached Western Europe largely through Islamic scholars such as Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina). To frame a “Return to Muscular Christianity” as a defence of the West against Islam is to forget that the West itself was built upon Islamic intellectual foundations. We are not civilizational enemies, but estranged relatives. (Quran 29:46: "And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best... and say, 'We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.'")
Osther dismisses any link between modern violence and colonial history as “secular revisionist rubbish.” Yet historical causality cannot be dismissed by fiat. Contemporary Islamic extremism cannot be disentangled from colonial borders, Cold War interventions, and mass displacement. By ignoring these realities, Osther indulges in a simplification that conveniently absolves the West of responsibility for present geopolitical crises.
The Psychological Root
If Osther’s history is flawed and his theology hollow, why does his message resonate? The answer lies not in the twelfth century, but in the twenty-first. The appeal of “Muscular Christianity” reflects a deeper sociological malaise.
Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of “liquid modernity” describes a world in which identities are unstable and perpetually renegotiated. In such conditions, the self becomes fragile. Osther offers a “retrotopia”—a nostalgic fantasy of a past where roles were fixed, enemies clearly delineated, and hierarchies unquestioned.
For the modern man unsettled by this formlessness, the “Muscular Christian” narrative provides a rigid exoskeleton. As Davie Grace observes, this is a form of “performative orthodoxy.” It prioritises the spectacle of strength over the substance of faith—prayer, charity, humility. It amounts, in effect, to theological live-action role-play, in which medieval symbols of violence compensate for modern impotence. (Quran 13:28: "Unquestionably, by the remembrance of God hearts are assured.")
Osther equates masculinity with domination and derides meekness as weakness. Yet the Franciscan writer Richard Rohr contends that the fixation on domination is characteristic of the uninitiated male psyche. Genuine strength lies not in the capacity to inflict harm, but in the ability to serve and protect the vulnerable—the archetype of the gardener, not the gladiator. Osther’s “Two Swords” ideology flatters the ego by defining worth in terms of conquest rather than compassion.
Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic rivalry further illuminates this dynamic. Communities, he argues, often forge unity by projecting internal anxieties onto a scapegoat. Osther constructs “Islam” as that scapegoat. By attributing Western decline to a monolithic external enemy, he generates a superficial cohesion among Christians. This sacrificial logic is profoundly anti-Christian, for the Cross was intended to expose and dismantle the scapegoat mechanism, not perpetuate it.
The Alternative: A Theology of Alliance
Osther insists that without a “muscular” defence, the West will disintegrate. We contend the opposite: that civilisation’s survival depends not upon a revival of medieval antagonisms, but upon the cultivation of a civilizational alliance.
Osther fears that engagement with Islam leads inevitably to syncretism or capitulation. Such anxiety betrays a lack of confidence in one’s own faith. A robust Christianity requires no fortress; it is capable of dialogue without dissolution. (Quran 3:64: "Say, 'O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you - that we will not worship except God and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of God.'")
Hans Kung famously argued that there can be “no peace among nations without peace among religions.” This peace rests upon the recognition of a shared global ethic across the Abrahamic traditions—commitments to justice (mishpat), compassion (rahma), and stewardship. Where Osther accentuates doctrinal fissures, an alliance emphasises ethical convergence. (Quran 5:48: "...so race to [all that is] good. To God is your return all together, and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ.")
True muscularity is not the reflex of violence but the disciplined courage of non-violence. Writing from a Nazi prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer envisaged a Christianity oriented towards responsible action on behalf of the Other. A genuinely “muscular” Christianity today should be modelled not on the Crusader who kills in God’s name, but on the Confessing Church that shields the vulnerable from the state’s sword.
The “Two Swords” are obsolete in a pluralistic age. Contemporary threats—climate collapse, nuclear proliferation, pandemics—recognise neither Christendom nor Ummah. They demand coalitions of conscience across religious boundaries.
Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital” signals a necessary shift in theological and educational priorities. The curriculum of the “clash of civilisations” must give way to an education in complexity—one that cultivates the capacity to hold tension and ambiguity. The aesthetics of the fortress must be replaced by those of the open hand.
This is not utopian idealism. It is the lived reality of the monks of Tibhirine, who remained with their Muslim neighbours during the Algerian Civil War, embracing martyrdom through presence rather than the sword. It is embodied in initiatives such as A Common Word between Christian and Muslim scholars. (Quran 41:34: "And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend.")
The Choice of the Century
Joachim Osther’s “A Return to Muscular Christianity” is ultimately a document of fear. It seeks to address the complexities of the twenty-first century by retreating into the blood-soaked fantasies of the twelfth. As this refutation has shown, such a retreat rests on unstable foundations.
The “Muscular Christianity” Osther promotes is:
· Historically false: It ignores the pacifist origins of the Church, the mercenary reality of the Templars, and the long history of Christian–Muslim coexistence.
· Biblically unsound: It depends upon a crude misreading of Luke 22 that contradicts the life and teaching of the historical Jesus.
· Theologically dangerous: It substitutes the theology of the Cross—suffering love—with a theology of the sword—redemptive violence.
· Sociologically fragile: It reflects modern insecurity, offering a costume of strength to those who have lost a sense of purpose.
The “Two Swords” Osther seeks to extract from the stone of history are corroded relics. They belong in a museum, not in the hands of believers. To wield them today is to sever ourselves from the Spirit, from our neighbours, and from the lived reality of the Gospel.
The truly “muscular” Christian of our time is not the one who draws the sword to defend a collapsing cultural hegemony, but the one with the strength to lay it down, extend an open hand, and undertake the arduous labour of building a table at which all may eat. (Quran 7:199: "Take what is given with freely, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the ignorant.")
This—and only this—is the return worth pursuing: a return to the radical, unsettling, and salvific love of the Nazarene.
Bibliography
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. London: SCM Press, 1953.
Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Crossan, John Dominic. God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. New York: HarperOne, 2007.
Girard, Rene. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.
Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.
Vermes, Geza. The Changing Faces of Jesus. London: Penguin, 2001.
(V.A. Mohamad Ashrof is an independent Indian scholar specializing in Islamic humanism. With a deep commitment to advancing Quranic hermeneutics that prioritize human well-being, peace, and progress, his work aims to foster a just society, encourage critical thinking, and promote inclusive discourse and peaceful coexistence. He is dedicated to creating pathways for meaningful social change and intellectual growth through his scholarship.)
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