There has been a movement throughout the land for sports teams to give up their long-standing traditional nicknames and logos if they are found to be offensive because of race, religion, ethnicity or national origin.

You have heard of the titanic battles that have been waged to try to get the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves to change their names.

Earlier this year, baseball’s Cleveland Indians announced that they would not use their “Chief Wahoo” logo — a grinning red-faced caricature of a Native American used since the 1940s — on the field beginning with the 2019 season. The team will, however, still sell merchandise with the logo in the Cleveland area. The team will still be known as the Indians, too.

On the professional level, five teams in three major sports have names that refer to Native Americans. In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association banned Native American mascots, but eight colleges, after getting support from local tribes and nations, appealed the decision and retained their names and logos.

The state reports that 1.13 percent of all of the high school sports teams in Pennsylvania, including the Lehighton Indians, reference Native Americans. East Stroudsburg University is known as the “Warriors,” once depicted by a Native American warrior, but more recently by a bear and now a warrior of undetermined origin. There has never been much of a fuss over the “Indians” or the “Warriors” names locally, even after all of the attention that pro, college and high school teams were getting for their nicknames.

Not far from here, at Neshaminy High School in Bucks County, there was a major dispute several years ago when the editor of the school newspaper refused to use “Redskins,” the school’s nickname, in the publication. Then-editor Gillian McGoldrick said the staff printed an edition of the paper without the name, causing the principal to seize copies and later suspend McGoldrick for a month.

Now, a new name has come under attack — Crusaders. Scratching your head? I was, too, until I did some deeper research. I found that the name is offensive to many non-Christians, especially Muslims, because of what occurred during the Crusades.

First of all, Alvernia, a Roman Catholic university in Reading, dropped the name “Crusaders” in favor of “Golden Wolves.” School officials said the move wasn’t done to become politically correct; rather, they indicated that the change was to create a stronger tie to the college’s patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi. You see, the new nickname ties in with the story of St. Francis taming a wolf that had terrorized a city in Italy.

Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin, also sent its “Crusaders” nickname to the junk pile. Executive Vice President Matt Davis said the world has changed since 9/11, and we are part of a more global society. He said the motivation for the change was not political correctness but “expanded opportunities for our students.” Not sure what this means.

Earlier this year, the board of trustees of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, a team in the Patriot League with Lafayette and Lehigh, decided that it will continue with its nickname of “Crusaders,” even though the school newspaper dropped its name “Crusader” the day before the board meeting. The board at the same time asked its president and administrative team to come up with recommendations of how a Holy Cross Crusader logo can best mesh with the college’s missions and values statement.

Locally, a school administrator at Notre Dame High School of Green Pond, Bethlehem Township, Northampton County, said “Crusaders,” also this team’s nickname, has not been an issue.

So what’s behind this newfound hostility about the name “Crusaders”? The Crusades — six of them in all — were a series of battles beginning in 1095 and lasting several centuries designed to claim the Holy Land for Christians.

According to researcher Molly Edmonds, when we think about the Crusades today, we are heavily influenced by historians’ varied interpretations of the battles.

“We may picture knights righteously galloping off to protect the land connected with the life of Christ,” Edmonds said, “or, we may envision murderous barbarians who caused blood to gush like a river through the streets of Jerusalem. Some may connect the Crusades with greedy popes thirsty for power and land, and cast judgment on the Catholic Church for condoning such violence.”

This is at the heart of the soul-searching going on now at Catholic and other Christian educational institutions, because many see the term “Crusades” as an affront to non-Christians. Many Christians, however, charge that this is yet another case of revisionist history that casts them as the bad guys.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com