So, I pulled the draft of this post from its original place on September 2006, thinking I'd just re-run it for some current content ... but of course, reading over it, I'm a little concerned that with our country's current political and social climate, my readers might see this as an attempt to spin history in a direction it was never meant to go. But even so, many of my original observations as I plunged into serious study of the American Revolution (aka American War for Independence) still stand.
I normally try to stay away from issue-driven posts. But some
recurring themes—political, moral, spiritual—kept surfacing in my
research, and I had so many thoughts swirling in my
head, it was hard to separate them into coherent threads.
Warning,
then—the posts in this series might be long and rambly as I tried to sort things out ...
and they aren't always a good representation of my political or doctrinal
beliefs, so nobody jump to any conclusions. :-) (It's bad enough that my
husband, a member of the military, staunch conservative, and all around
very sensible man, teased me about being a liberal and a Tory
sympathizer. I'm neither. Well, maybe a little the latter, after years of studying the loyalist mindset!)
Let’s start with the
spiritual. I had an interesting little discussion at a Charleston-area RevWar event with one of the
reenactors—a woman about my age who was dressed in mostly
historically accurate garb, gown and petticoats over a shift, minus the
stays (the 18th century version of the corset), because she was going to
be doubling as a man during the actual battle and needed to be able to
change quickly. Speaking of stays: I've addressed this elsewhere, but this highly restrictive undergarment
was popular for the best part of at least two centuries, if not more.
Babies and young children wore them, as well as girls and women of all
ages—and no woman who cared the least bit for her figure or reputation
would be caught in public without her stays. So that little subplot in Pirates of the Caribbean
involving Elizabeth and the corset? It’s rendered ridiculous by the
simple historical fact that Elizabeth would have been wearing stays all
her life. ;-)
Anyway, this lady and I fell into a very
comfortable conversation about matters historical, so later I braved a
question about “the spiritual life of the camp and troops.” She looked
at me and said, “What spiritual life?” For a split second I was taken
aback, then I understood—on one hand, war is not at all conducive to a
spiritual mindset. But on the other—and she grinned and nodded when I
said this—it can be very conducive indeed, from the standpoint of
“scaring the h--- out of you.” (Okay, I didn't say it out loud. I
mouthed it—my children were present, after all.) She then referred me to
another lady in the camp, who commented on the scarcity of writings
about spirituality in specific regard to the war, unlike the Civil War,
when spirituality was not only more talked about, but openly encouraged
in a soldier’s daily life. It had a lot to do with the interest of the
commander, too, she said, and I can see that—many of the leaders of the
Southern forces in the Civil War were devout Christians. From what I’ve
read so far of the biographies of the military leaders on the British
side, however, I would say there’s a distinct lack of concern about
spiritual matters.
Oh, the irony. I’ve heard for years,
through Christian school curriculums and in evangelical circles, how
devout and godly the “founding fathers” of America were, and how our
nation was founded on Biblical principles—and thus, God blessed them
with victory in the Revolutionary War. I would not argue that our nation
has enjoyed many blessings over the years, or that a strong spiritual
focus is not a good thing, or even that there may be some correlation
with the fervent prayers of George Washington and others and the
eventual surrender of the British. But what about the strong faith of
many Confederate leaders (and I believe Abraham Lincoln was also a man
of deep faith and conviction, despite his seeming faults, and did the
best he could), that God allowed the South to be defeated, while men
like Grant (by some accounts a drunkard) and Sherman (also by many accounts a butcher), led the North to
victory? If it was all about the faith of the leaders, and the strength
of their faith, why did the Confederacy fail?
“Righteousness
exalts a nation.” It’s often told to Christian schoolchildren that the
North won because of the superior nobility of their cause—ending
slavery. Truth is, slavery wasn’t made an end
of for several years into
the war. Many scholars and analysts feel that the real issue was the autonomy of state governments--and I think many of those arguments have merit, despite recent debates to the contrary. But, I'm not here to debate that.
The
early Americans hadn’t behaved with unqualified righteousness, either.
Most of the tales I’ve heard of truly hair-curling atrocities were
perpetrated between colonials of opposing sides (tarring and feathering
was a practice supposedly invented by rebels for use on their loyalist
neighbors), or against Indian tribes. I’ve heard stories of an American officer who moved up the frontier,
destroying every Indian tribe in his path, down to the last woman and
child. I do know that the British were not the ones guilty of burning
civilians inside their church, contrary to The Patriot,
but there was at least one incident where the colonials burned a tribe of
Christian Indians inside a church, the stoutest defensive structure they
possessed.
I feel it’s misleading to teach history
with the view that “XYZ occurred because ABC did what was Right,”
because real life is not that cut and dry. Yes, those of us who
subscribe to the Christian faith believe that ultimately, evil will be
vanquished and good will prevail, but the end has not come yet, and
prosperity on this side of the veil has the unfortunate tendency to make
us think that we somehow deserve our blessings, or to blur the fact
that much of what we do will not have its ultimate reward until all
things come to an end. As the apostle Paul wrote, “If there is no
resurrection, then we of all people are most miserable”—for the simple
fact that our investments should be tied up in eternity and not the
here-and-now.
The more I read, the less I think our
hopes should be in temporal government of any kind. It does all come
down to “God Allowed”—through the choices of flawed, fallen men, for
sure, but His hand is clearly over all.
Later ... thoughts on the Declaration of Independence, and God-ordained authority.
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