Save the Crusaders? They Haven’t Got a Prayer

If Jesus owned a football team, what would he choose for a mascot? That’s the dilemma facing Wheaton College in Illinois, a Christian school that recently dumped its Crusader nickname as too barbaric for modern times.

It’s the latest twist in campus political correctness. Although several universities have ditched mascots deemed offensive to ethnic groups, Wheaton is perhaps the first to drop one on religious grounds. And other Christian schools are following suit.

Notre Dame is replacing its Fighting Irish character with a new “Somewhat Argumentative but Usually Sensitive Anglo-Saxon Male Who Always Remembers to Leave the Toilet Seat Down” mascot. OK, not really, but Wheaton definitely isn’t alone in rethinking its religious sports imagery.

The hand-wringing began two years ago with a student newspaper editorial tweaking Wheaton’s knight-on-horseback emblem. It wasn’t the first time the issue had arisen at the conservative 140-year-old campus, whose alumni include the Rev. Billy Graham. But on this occasion, administrators took the matter to heart. After reviewing a history of atrocities committed during the medieval battles, college president Duane Litfin decided the mascot was history.

For many Muslims and Jews, “particularly overseas, the symbol of a Crusader is an unrelievedly negative one,” he explained in a four-page memo posted on the school’s Web site. “They view the Crusades as negatively as most of us view the infamous Spanish Inquisition, and they can no more understand choosing a mascot that seems to glorify the Crusades than we could [understand] a mascot related to the Inquisition.”

Litfin also said he was “hard-pressed to find anything in these disastrous waves of fighting that our Lord might have approved, despite the fact that the conflict was ostensibly carried out in his name.”

However, selecting a suitable replacement for the Crusader might prove problematic.

“Almost any [mascot] you’re likely to pick has injured or hurt someone,” says James F. Powers, a history professor at Holy Cross, a Catholic college in Massachusetts that also bears the Crusader nickname. “Must Detroit drop its Lions mascot because lions are eaters of human beings and other animals?”

Indeed, many of the suggestions for a new Wheaton mascot carry their own potentially negative baggage: The Chargers? That’s an insult to the credit-impaired. Cyclones? An unrelievedly negative symbol to trailer park residents and/or wicked witches of the West.

Rams? Upsetting to Los Angeles football fans. Ambassadors? Offensive to political donors who can’t afford to buy a diplomatic post.

Even the Eagle, which Christianity Today magazine describes as the most common mascot among religious colleges, could be regarded as an icon of U.S. imperialism.

“You have to travel a fine line,” says Carolynn Van Namen of Trinity Christian College in Illinois, which adopted a steroid-pumped blue troll as its athletic team mascot. “You want something that has a positive image but still looks a little intimidating to competitors.”

That eliminates some of Wheaton’s other proposed mascots, such as Cherubs, Shepherds, World-Changers, Narnians (from the children’s books by C.S. Lewis) and Salt.

Salt? Well, maybe if the opposing team’s mascot is a snail--or suffers high blood pressure.

Wheaton officials could also seek inspiration from other church-affiliated colleges, but those mascots aren’t necessarily better. For example, California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks is home to the Kingsmen, which brings to mind the 1960s group that sang “Louie, Louie.”

And the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Ill., calls its teams the Fighting Saints, a name that conjures up weird images of Teresa of Avila and Francis of Assisi as tag-team wrestlers.

Which brings us back to Crusaders.

Powers, who teaches a course on the Crusades at Holy Cross, says Wheaton is “going overboard” branding the mascot evil. “Nothing is all good or all bad,” he suggests.

For example, Italy’s economy revived because of the Crusades, setting the stage for the Renaissance. “Should we condemn Renaissance art as an indirect byproduct of Crusade prosperity?” he asks.

Another positive development came from renewed ties between Eastern and Western Christians, who had split in the 11th century. When Byzantium asked the Western Church for aid, the pope saw a chance to regain leverage with the Orthodox church, Powers says. That effort failed, but when Crusaders arrived in Constantinople, they discovered libraries full of books unknown or lost to the West, such as Aristotle’s works. Those books were translated into Latin and helped fuel an intellectual revival in the West.

On the other hand, the Crusaders later sacked Constantinople. And they massacred thousands of Muslims and Jews while trying to reclaim the Holy Land from Islam.

So it’s hardly surprising that plenty of people don’t exactly get warm, fuzzy feelings when the C-word is mentioned.

That’s why Billy Graham decided in 1988 to change the name of his “Billy Graham Crusades” to “Billy Graham Missions” outside the U.S. Crusade has a negative connotation overseas, he explained at the time.

And this year, when Pope John Paul II apologized for various dark chapters in church history, Holy Cross alumni fired off letters to the school magazine urging the campus to rethink its Crusader mascot.

Valparaiso University in Indiana, a Lutheran school, has heard similar rumblings about its Crusader nickname. And Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego debated the issue a couple of years ago but decided to stick with its Crusader logo.

At Point Loma, one chief consideration was the fact that during the past 30 years, the school has relocated once (from Pasadena) and had four different names. Officials felt another major change would alienate alumni and hurt the university, says associate professor Ben Foster, the school’s former basketball coach.

Meanwhile, back at Wheaton, the Crusader symbol has been erased from the football field and banished from T-shirts sold at the campus bookstore. The new mascot is scheduled to be announced Sept. 29, and nominations are still being accepted at the school’s Web site, https://www.wheaton.edu.

Is it possible to find a name that communicates unconditional love, gentleness and athletic prowess? How about the Exorcists? No, that discriminates against demons. Or maybe the Meek? It’s humble, yet also formidable (since they’re supposed to inherit the Earth). Then again, inheriting the entire Earth could be interpreted as a monopoly under antitrust laws. . . .

*

Roy Rivenburg can be reached at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.