Could a contrast between the American Revolution and the French Revolution be relevant to today’s conflicts? I think so. The attempt to demote historic icons, like George Washington, is a case in point.

George Washington grew up as a gentleman farmer in Virginia and was a fourth generation slave-owner. But by the end of his life, he had decided slavery was immoral and so at his death, he freed his slaves and made provision for them.

But in our day—where the alleged “right to not be offended” often seems to trump the constitutional right to free speech—some are calling for images of George Washington to be torn down, like statues of Confederates.

The dailywire.com (5/2/19) reports on how “George Washington High School” in Northern California is contemplating tearing down two 1930’s panels featuring George Washington because the pair of murals allegedly “traumatizes students and community members.”

This is in San Francisco, so the outcome seems likely.

How long will our historical iconoclasm last? The cultural Marxists are working overtime to cut Americans off from our history.

I believe that despite his flaws, including being a slave-owner, there are many heroic aspects of our first president. Dr. Peter Lillback and I wrote, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, which puts all this in context. Recently we discussed Washington and slavery.

Our founders fought the American Revolution, led by Washington, so that we could enjoy our God-given rights. Though slow in coming, recognition of those God-given rights eventually gave the slaves their freedom. What is happening in the culture wars today is a revival of the French Revolution, which waged war against God.

France in 1789 fought against injustice, even in the church; but their godless “cure” ended up being worse than the disease. The French Revolution was anti-God and pro-tyranny—leading to death in the streets. The American Revolution was pro-God and pro-freedom.

America’s founders mentioned God four times in the Declaration of Independence. They identified King George III’s tyranny as illegitimate—because he was violating our God-given rights. The founders, with a firm reliance on the Lord, laid down “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” in support for their declaration as a new nation.

When George Washington first read the Declaration to his troops, one of his first acts was to hire Christian chaplains—systematically, throughout the army. He felt that if we were to win this war, it would only be with God’s help.

And he and the other colonists felt that God did help. To paraphrase Washington in his First Inaugural Address, no people should be more grateful to the Lord than we Americans because God aided us at every step to become an independent nation.

Consider a few further contrasts between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Our framers signed the Constitution in “the year of our Lord” 1787. The French Revolutionaries got rid of the Christian calendar; and so they declared 1791 as Year 1 of their new non-Christian calendar.

The French Revolutionaries desecrated Notre Dame Cathedral, disallowing Christian worship there and placed a half-naked woman on the altar, calling her “Reason,” whom they worshiped.

In contrast, our founders hired Christian chaplains for the military and also for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Since there weren’t enough church buildings in Washington, D. C., they held Christian worship services in the U.S. Capitol building. Presidents Jefferson and Madison attended those services.

The French Revolution eventually consumed its own. Since then, France has had 17 different governments, while the U.S. still lives under one—the U.S. Constitution.

I predict that today’s social justice warriors, who are consuming our past heroes, will one day be consumed themselves by future revolutionaries. Future generations could look back at us and say things like: “You had 4D sonograms documenting the humanity of the unborn and yet you allowed millions of abortions on demand?” or “Science has documented genuine differences between men and women, yet you allowed boys who claimed to be girls to compete and dominate in sports, winning valuable scholarships?”

Every generation has its flaws and blind spots. Our generation has yet to recognize its own.

Slavery was evil. Thank God for those strong Christians who defeated it. Thank God for William Wilberforce’s Christian anti-slavery crusade, which took him about five decades to complete. That crusade inspired abolition here in America. Interestingly, in his day, Wilberforce was sometimes called “the George Washington of Humanity.” Both men worked hard to liberate others.

Slavery has plagued humanity from the beginning of time and can even be found in some places today, places where the gospel of Christ has no sway.

Too bad the children of the French Revolution are rising up today to cut us off from our past heroes. There is a reason Washington continues to be a hero to millions. Enough with the historical revisionism.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

Even many who are little disposed to viewing life’s vicissitudes symbolically found themselves wondering about the meaning of the inferno that consumed much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during Holy Week. What does the gutting of this magnificent architectural symbol of man’s adoration of the Creator of all things beautiful signify?

What we know is that France, indeed all Western Europe, has lost its spiritual way. While man-made symbols fashioned of wood and stone remain of a once-substantive and sustaining faith, the substance of that faith is long gone, burned away by impoverished philosophies and fallen man’s appetites. All that has remained of the fervent faith that animated the early church is a burned-out shell.

Truth was replaced with truthiness. Beauty was replaced with ugliness. Love that means death to our fallen natures and much that they desire was replaced with saccharine affirmation of any and all God-denying confusion and libidinous hunger.

America—always in thrall to all things European—is sashaying benightedly after our uber-cool Parisian brothers and sisters. Recent studies have revealed the tragic irreligiosity of Americans. Is it any wonder that as we have lost our faith, marriage—the picture of Christ and the church—has been destroyed; millions of women have ordered the deaths of their own babies; children are being raised without mothers and fathers; homosexuality is celebrated; teens are being chemically sterilized and surgically mutilated; perverse men are reading stories to toddlers in our public libraries; government schools teach our little ones that in order to be compassionate, they must undress in front of opposite-sex peers; obscene language and images pollute the American landscape; and the ravenous appetite to be rendered insensate grows.

Early this week, a writer in the Chicago Tribune wrote about the symbolism of Notre Dame, saying it “symbolizes survival” and “it connects people through the centuries and… from all over the globe.” She continued, “Even the most casual tourist can’t help but feel in the presence of something far greater than a building. At Notre Dame, you’re in the presence of time itself.”

Not once did she mention the Creator of time itself. Her glaring omission neutered her lament for the calamitous destruction of Notre Dame .

Maybe we don’t deserve such symbols of beauty and creativity that have their source in God, whom we have forgotten or worse, replaced with idols. Maybe we needed a shocking event to show us that the church in Western civilizations was gutted long ago.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matt. 7: 24-27).

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/New-Recording-3.mp3