"Crusader" as mascot

I used to like the 1950s cartoon character Cursader Rabbit, particularly the opening shot of him holding his shield and lance. Now *that* would make a great mascot, but probably even those cartoons can't be shown today since they are politically incorrect....

 

Frankly, I have always been uncomfortable with the use of "Crusaders" as a sports moniker or mascot among Baptists. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I was taught that the Crusades were at the impetus of the RCC. I think also of an incident from one of my trips to Israel: Our Jewish guide was pointing out some ruins from the Crusades, and she made some statement that attributed the Crusades to the "Christian Church". I recall how much that irritated most of the group of IFB pastors I was travelling with: a group of them approached her afterwards & stated that she should instead attribute the Crusades to the Catholic Church.


If we are so willing to affix a name so closely associated with the RCC to our school's teams, what should prevent us from seeing the First Baptist Jesuits, or the Victory Baptist Papists? Here's an example of one of our local, Minnesota IFB churches which uses the name "Crusaders" for their athletics:

http://www.fbcrsmt.org/crusaders/index.php

 

I'm with Squire on this one. As our culture becomes more paranoid about offending others or identifying with some lost meaning of a word, we have become afraid of our shadow.

In Wisconsin the Marquette University was for many years the "Warriors." Then ten years ago someone decided that the Indians (native Americans to you who might be offended) might not like it and so they changed their name to the "Golden Eagles." Just this spring due to dissatisfaction by some supporters they decided to change their name again and came up with the "Gold" (that is a classy but nebulous name if I ever heard one) It lasted for one week. Then they backed up and said we made a mistake and held a public poll of Marquette people to choose another name (Warrior was not allowed though many wanted to return to it). Finally after much removing of egg on the face they chose "Golden Eagles" once again.

I say all that to say this. Let's not get to worked up over a sports mascot. Look at a number of schools that have wierd or nonsense mascots, and Crusader is not one of them. None of us should be offended by the name Crusader. Remember "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them."