Are All Revolutions the Same?

            The American revolution began on April 19, 1775, with the “shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington and Concord, and General George Washington and his army were soon skirmishing with British soldier. However, the Declaration of Independence was not signed until July 4, 1776. Americans fought for the idea of liberty and the belief than human beings can govern themselves.

Washington and many other Americans felt in their hearts that they were doing the work of God and often prayed for wisdom and protection. After winning the Revolutionary War, powerful Americans – such as Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and many others – worked to create a government that could maintain the liberty they had purchased at such a great cost of life and property. They did so with a document known as the Constitution. The Declaration was the description of what they wanted, and the Constitution was the way to get it.

More than 244 years have passed since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. America grew into the most powerful nation in the world, and it stands strong today because its revolution was followed with a powerful Constitution that brought the rule of law.

            According to Joseph Loconte at The Daily Signal, the French Revolution began on July 14, 1789, under the banner of “liberty, equality, and fraternity.” The revolutionaries sought to destroy all institutions, such as the Bastille prison in Paris, the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Christian religion. Political instability, social chaos, and violence followed the execution of the monarchy. Ten years after the revolution, the French installed a dictator for life named Napoleon Bonaparte who brought war to the continent of Europe.

Near the heart of America’s cultural crisis today is a failure to grasp the profound differences between the two great revolutions for freedom in the 18^th century – between the events of 1776 and those of 1789.

Intoxicated by lofty visions of an egalitarian society, the revolutionaries in Paris took a wrecking ball to the institutions and traditions that had shaped France for centuries. Virtually nothing, including the religion that guided the lives of most of their fellow citizens, was sacrosanct….

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, by contrast, did not share this rage against inherited authorities.

Although the Americans, in the words of James Madison, did not suffer from a “blind veneration for antiquity,” neither did they reject the political and cultural Inheritance of Great Britain and the Western tradition. They did not seek to invent rights, but rather to reclaim their “chartered rights” as Englishmen.

From both classical and religious sources, the American Founders understood that human passions made freedom a vulnerable state of affairs: Political liberty demanded the restraints of civic virtue and Biblical religion.

The French revolutionaries took a different view. Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron D’Holbach, one of the most influential French philosophers of his day, spoke for many: “To learn the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or gods: They have need only of reason. They have only to enter into themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, [and] consult their sensible interests.”

            The current problems in American society are mostly caused by modern-day revolutionaries who desire to “fundamentally transform” America. These revolutionaries are trying to tear down all the institutions in American life – starting with marriage and the family and continuing with Christian churches, police departments that provide law and order, and any other institutions with which they disagree. They do not like the history of our nation and seek to destroy it by destroying statues and other historical items that help us to remember our history – both the good and the bad.

            Our forefathers fought and many of them died to bring liberty and freedom to America. Our Founding Fathers created a republic to protect and preserve our independence. It is our responsibility today to protect and preserve our Constitution and our American way of life. If we are to be successful, we must have good leadership; we must have civic virtue. All Americans must have the ability to govern themselves and to work for the common good of all citizens.

            The American colonists fought for eight years against the most powerful military in the world at that time and won. They won because God was with them and helped them to overcome the British. Our nation has been preserved for the past 244 years because most Americans believe in God. America will survive and thrive in the coming years only if we worship the God of this land who is Jesus Christ.