Revolutions.

Shane Morris

What do 18^th century revolutions have to do with our 
daily lives? 

A very great deal according to Os Guinness. The
 American Revolution 

was notably influenced by the biblical understanding 
of humanity, of

 good and evil, and of justice and reconciliation. Its 
French counterpart

 was a very different thing, focusing on a perfectionist
 ideal of a world

 where justice would be meted out by an all-knowing elite.

While the French Revolution eventually went down to
 defeat with the

 rise of Napoleon, it inspired the horrors of the 20^th 
century’s totalitarian

 regimes and continues to echo in the contemporary 
debates in the

 West about critical theory and cultural Marxism. As 
America moves

 further and further away from its original vision, the
 more tribalism

 and viciousness will come to characterize our public
 acts.

Below is as an edited excerpt from Guinness’ recent
 talk with 

the Colson Center’s Truth, Love, Together online
 conference, 

where he goes into greater detail on these themes.
 You can check 

out the entire talk, or see more like this by registering
 for this totally

 free conference.

Think of the way the two revolutions address wrongs.
 They both

 agree there are wrongs, there are injustices, oppressions 
in the world, but in the French style and according to the

 understanding of critical theory, what you look for is the

 majority and the minority. The oppressors and the
 oppressed.

 People have the power and people are the victims of power. 

And then there’s no truth, remember? Following Nietzsche’s

 God is dead, truth is dead, everything is only power.

Critical theory becomes a way of exploiting victimhood 
in order 

to change the status quo to a new one, but of course 
based only

 on power. And so, they become the new problem, 
replacing the 

old problem. And that retaliation of wrong answered
 by revenge 

goes on and on and on. And you have a Corsican
 blood feud writ 

large in the cultural warring of America. And that’s 
where we are

 today. And quite literally, there will be no end to it 
with the talk 

of reparations and so on.

Now, compare that with the biblical way of putting
 things right

 and addressing wrongs. Evil is addressed as evil, but 
there’s 

the possibility of repentance, which both in Hebrew, 
teshuva, 

and in Greek, metanoia, has that idea of a radical and 
complete 

about turn. But this repentance is followed by 
forgiveness -forgiveness,

 freeing, and cutting off the past completely, and 
forgiveness freeing 

the future from the burden of the past. You work
 towards finally

 a reconciliation in which enemies can be made truly 
friends, 

as Abraham Lincoln used to say, as we see very much 
in the Early Church.

Think of the Early Church and their idea of the Pax 
Christi, 

peacemaking under God. This is far better than Pax 
Romana, 

the Roman peace. The Roman peace, as many of the
 historians 

like Tacitus said, was a peace through power. Though
 you have

 peace when one power or another dominates all the 
other powers,

 but of course you have oppression and dictatorship
 and imperialism, 

whereas PAX Christi, the peace of Christ, peace made
 with God 

through the blood of the cross is a completely different
 understanding.

I can mention lots of other differences, but you can see 
as things 

have played out. The 2016 election, the Kavanaugh 
hearings,
 the Russian collusion case, the Mueller hearings, and 
various things like this, you can see almost daily in American 
daily lifeand politics, the clash between the American
 Revolution and the French Revolution.

The tragedy being, as I said, there’s no Lincoln addressing the

 better angels. Now, I’m not American. I’m European. I’m 

a great admirer of this country, but to me, this country has 

done so much for the gospel around the world, and so much 

standing for principles like religious freedom, that it would be 

a tragedy of historic proportions if America turns away from

 the groundings of true freedom and goes away, that will be

 a disaster for freedom and humanity in the future. Breakpoint.