Revolution, Renaissance versus Reformation based

Bill Fleming left this comment on a previous post:

The Renaissance triggered the open mindedness that fueled the enlightenment that triggered the French and American Revolutions.

You don't get to win this on a philosophical plane, Sibby. If you want to go backwards into magic and dubious metaphysics, fine. But at least have the courage and the integrity to admit that yours is an irrational position.

The Renaissance did trigger the French Revolution, but it was the Reformation based Puritans that triggered the American Revolution. I will use the "philosophical plane" of Francis Schaffer who said this on page 120 from his book, "How Should We Then Live?":

The French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), often called "father of the Enlightenment," was greatly influenced by the results of this bloodless revolution in England during his time of exile there (1726-1729). The impact of the Bloodless Revolution and the ensuing freedom of public expression is shown in Voltaire’s Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733). He wrote, "The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of the Kings by resisting them and who, by a series of struggles, have at leas established . . . that wise government where the prince is all powerful to do good, and at the same time is restrained from committing evil . . . and where the people share in the government without confusion.

While Voltaire is sometimes overflattering about English conditions, he may be excused because of the terrible contrast in France. There were indeed vast areas in France which needed righting, but when the French Revolution tried to reproduce the English conditions without the Reformation base, the result was a bloodbath and a rapid breakdown into the authoritarian rule of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).

Schaffer continues with this from page 122:

Like the humanists of the Renaissance, the men of the Enlightenment pushed aside the Christian base and heritage and looked back to the pre-Christian times. In Voltaire’s home in Ferney the picture hung (in such a way on the wall at the foot of his bed That it was the first thing he saw each day) was a painting of the goddess Diana with a small new crescent moon on her head and a very large one under her feet. She is reaching down to help men.

How Quickly all the humanist ideals came to grief! In September 1792 began the massacre in which some 1,300 prisoners were killed. Before it was all over, the government and its agents killed 40,000 people, many of them peasants. Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), the revolutionary leader, was himself executed in July 1794. This destruction came not from outside the system; it was produced by the system. As in the latter Russian Revolution the revolutionaries on their humanist base had only two options—anarchy or repression.

Schaffer directly calls Fleming’s "philosophical plane" incorrect:

The parallels between the course of the French Revolution and the later Russian Revolution, both resting on the same base, are striking. Sometimes the French Revolution is likened to what occurred in the United States at a slightly earlier date. This is incorrect. While there were some historic crosscurrents between the United States and France, the similarities are in the Bloodless Revolution in England and the Revolution in the United States. In sharp contrast to both these are the likeness of the French Revolution and the later Russian Revolution. A factor in the parallel between the French Revolution and the Russian is that by 1799 Napoleon had arrived as the elite to govern France—as later Lenin, also the elite, took over the rule of Russia.

Mention of the later Russian Revolution evokes the observation that a quite different dynamic was involved in the political fortunes of those parts of Europe structurally influenced by the restoration of biblical Christianity in the sixteenth century as compared to those not so influenced.

Over the last few decades, America has been suffering a Renaissance of its own with the humanist worldview taking over education, media, entertainment, and has moved both political parties and the courts to the left. The result has been the growth of government and that is at the expense of freedom. As morality wanes, crime rates increase, government corruption increases, and the result is more government laws. The lost of freedom is coupled with the breakdown of the family, also a result of the humanist attack on morality. Freedom based on humanism leads to chaos, then an authoritative response, and the ultimate lost of true freedom with tyranny.

Now with conservatives in the minority, even within the Republican Party, the effort to correct issues such as abortion can not happen politically as the tyrannical nature moves via mob rule as the majority rules at the expense of minority rights. Now is the time for a reformation process that engages the culture by educating as many as possible on the truth regarding America’s Biblical Christian founding. We should not abandon the political arena, but it will be necessary to form a grass roots movement in order to have long-term success. Another bloodless revolution is in order.

Comments

[Haggs]

"The Renaissance did trigger the French Revolution, but it was the Reformation based Puritans that triggered the American Revolution."

I'm a bit of a history nerd, so I feel the need to chime in.

It was actually taxes that triggered the American Revolution. The British Parliament felt they were owed something for helping defend the colonies during the French and Indian Wars. They were blind to the fact that trade with the colonies actually helped their economy. The colonists hated being taxed without having any voice in Parliament. If they had no say in how they were to be governed then they felt the taxes, such as the ones from the Stamp Act and Townsend Acts, were unfair. They started to defy those taxes with boycotts and smuggling and finally the Boston Tea Party. And that led to the British military getting involved and revolution.

That's not to say religion played no part in the American Revolution. The Great Awakening during the 1730s and 40s helped to set up the idea of rebelling against authority. It was about empowering the laity to study the Bible at home instead of just at church. A generation of "new lights" was created who embraced the revivals of the Great Awakening.