Transcript: The Revolutionary Age (Episode 5, How Should We Then Live?)

Transcript: The Revolutionary Age (Episode 5, How Should We Then Live?)

We are in the old Supreme Court building of Switzerland in Lausanne. This painting was done in 1905 by Paul Robert. The judges had to pass it each time they came up to try a case, to remind them of something. The Bible gives a basis, not only for morals, but for law. How should the judges judge? How, indeed, so that the judgment would not be arbitrary? Justice here is not blindfolded; and her sword does not point upward, but down to this book: The Law of God. This was the sociological and legal basis for law in Northern Europe after the Reformation.

As the Reformation emphasis that the Bible is the only final authority took root, the ordinary citizen was increasingly freed from arbitrary governmental power. What Paul Robert painted for the justices in the Supreme Court building in Lausanne, Samuel Rutherford of Scotland put down in writing in 1644, it provided the people with a base for effective political control of their sovereign. Lex Rex, law is King freedom without chaos because there is form or said in another way a concept of law rather than the arbitrary governments of men, because the Bible was there as the final authority, as a base. Samuel Rutherford's work and the tradition it embodied had a great influence on the American constitution even though modern Americans had largely forgotten him and his influence.

John Witherspoon, president of Princeton University, member of the Continental Congress and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence followed Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex directly. Thomas Jefferson picked up this Christian teaching and secularized form from John Locke, the English philosopher, who stressed inalienable rights government by consent, separation of powers, the right of revolution. Lock did not have Samuel Rutherford's Christian base, but he built on this base and secularized it so one must say that not all men who laid down the foundation for the United States were individually Christians for example Thomas Jefferson, however, he lived within the circle of what the Christian consensus brings forth. Many of the men who framed the United States constitution were not individually Christians but what they built rested on the Reformation through their Rex Lex tradition on the basis of the Bible as the final and unique authority is possible for society and government to know form and freedom to the extent to which that society allows the biblical teaching to come to its natural conclusions.

This is the Reformation Wall in Geneva a monument to the leaders of the Reformation. The Reformation in Northern Europe also gave a strong impetus toward the system of checks and balances in government. The men of the Reformation strongly emphasized the fall of man as man revolted against God, they were not romantic about men they understood that every man is a Sinner so there needed to be checks and balances especially for men in power. Calvin himself by no means had the authority often attributed to him either in political or church affairs, his influence was moral and informal as opposed to formalized or institutional authority.

There had to be checks and balances and each of the Reformation countries this took slightly different forms. Switzerland was especially interesting in this regard the Swiss have geographically separated their branches of government. The legislative and executive arms the government are in Bern and the judiciary is in Lausanne. In Great Britain there are the checks and balances of the King, the two Houses of Parliament and the courts. In the United States there is a slightly different arrangement, but the same basic principle. The White House is the executive administration, Congress in two balanced parts covers the legislative and the Supreme Court embodies the judiciary. In the Reformation countries there was a solution to the problem of former chaos in society, in countries without this base there was a more or less bloody conflict to try to resolve the tension between unmitigated power and privilege, and their relatively powerless and underprivileged social groups. The Reformation was not perfect it was no Golden age, but in the Reformation countries the situation was overwhelmingly better and in the area of social relationships these countries are still drawing upon this capital today. The French philosopher Voltaire, often called the father of the Enlightenment, then whose chateau we are here, wrote these words after his years of exile in England, “The English and the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of Kings and resisting them; and who by a series of struggles have at last 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 are the people sharing the government without confusion.”

As you can see in the area of political reform the results of the Reformation are very impressive. The British have been able to control the monarchy with indefinite legal bounds and to do this deliberately. The historians called this the bloodless revolution of 1688. During Voltaire's English exile he was greatly impressed by the bloodless revolution of 1688 in England, but when the French Revolution tried to produce English conditions, but without the Reformation base which gave freedom without chaos using Voltaire's humanist enlightenment base, the result was a bloodbath and a rapid breakdown to the authoritarian rule of Napoleon.

The National Assembly of France swore to establish a constitution in June 1789. This is the first phase of the liberal bourgeois plan for the French Revolution and in August they issued the declaration of the rights of men. It sounds fine but had nothing to rest upon. Voltaire and the other men in the Enlightenment had no base, but their own finiteness. What was called the Supreme being, equal the sovereignty of the nation, the general will of the people; What a tremendous contrast to the English bloodless revolution, and what a contrast to the results of the declaration of the independence in America thirteen years prior to the French Revolution. The English bloodless revolution and the American Declaration of Independence had a reformation base. The French declaration of the rights of man did not, it took the French national constituent assembly two years to write a constitution. Within two years it was a dead letter and now the second French Revolution was in motion. In order to make their base completely clear rather than counting the years from the birth of Christ they devised their own revolutionary calendar in which 1792 was the year one. They began to destroy the things of the past even suggesting the destruction of the cathedral of Chartres. They proclaimed the goddess

of reason and Notre Dom in Paris and other churches in France including Chartres. In Paris, the goddess they carried shoulder high was a certain demoiselle Candy from the opera. They did this to indicate as graphically as possible that human reason was being made Supreme and that Christianity was being pushed aside. Before it was all over 40,000 people many of them peasants were killed by the government and his agents. Robespierre the revolutionary leader was himself executed. These results were not from outside they were the product of the humanist enlightenment base amended the Enlightenment thought that both men and society were perfectible they held on to this even in the midst of the terror.

Just as in the later Russian Revolution there was no choice given the humanist face except anarchy or repression. Sometimes the French Revolution is related to the slightly earlier American Revolution, but in reality, this is incorrect the American Revolution is related to the English bloodless revolution, and on the other hand in contrast what we find is that the French Revolution is very much related to the Russian Revolution and then by 1799 Napoleon had arrived to governors a one-man elite just as Lenin later did in Russia.

Allowing for local influences it would seem that most of the revolutionary changes which came in the South of Europe came by copying those changes that the reformation brought forth in the area of freedom in the North of Europe even though they contorted them in certain places, and when we think of the Reformation and what it brought forth in northern Europe by natural growth, and when even we think of what was brought forth by borrowing in the South of Europe, it stands in gigantic contrast to that which communistic countries have produced and continued to produce.

Marxist Leninists calmness have a great liability in arguing their case because they've never come to power and continued in power without their materialistic base leading to repression. Don't forget it was not Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, and Stalin that made the break for freedom in Russia. The break was made with Prince George Lvov as Prime Minister, and then Alexander Kerensky a social reformer but not a Leninist in the February revolution. Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin took over this revolution made by others in October of 1917 and built a regime of repression from the beginning. The Bolsheviks Leninists were only a very small percentage of the Russian people and made up only one quarter the constituent assembly, but when the constituent assembly only just elected in November met for the first time in January the following year, 1918, the Bolsheviks dispersed it by force the election of the constituent assembly was the 1st and the last free election in Russia repression engulfed not only political life and political freedom but the whole spectrum of life. What was called the temporary dictatorship of the proletariat has proven to be in reality the permanent dictatorship of the small elite. Communism has to function on the basis of internal repression one can think for example of the repression under Lenin, the Stalin’s purges, the Berlin Wall, the loss of freedom in China.

Russia also holds onto its allies by repression. In Czechoslovakia, the repression did not end with the tanks, later half a million followers of (15:00) Dubcek were purged from the

Communist Party. Communist base has not produced anywhere the freedoms brought forth in northern Europe by the Reformation. Seeing the contrast to the southern European countries and to the Communist countries the rich is provided by the Reformation in the area of society and government should not be minimized and even in those places where the consensus produced by the Reformation people for less was less consistent than it should have been. Nevertheless, the biblical basis did give absolutes upon which to combat injustice. In contrast, the humanist has no way to say that certain things are right and certain things are wrong, because for the humanist the final thing that exists is the impersonal universe, and that silent and neutral about right and wrong in about cruelty, and non-cruelty he has no way to have absolutes. Therefore, consistent with its own position, humanism both in private life, private morals and in political life is left only with the arbitrary, and because there was no basis right and wrong flaws could be exchanged tomorrow for another arbitrary absolute for the sake of expediency.

We have just seen what happened in those countries which did not have biblical absolutes, which did not have a reformation base, but we must not forget that as the centuries past weaknesses did develop in those countries which did have a reformation history. People often did not act consistently upon the biblical teaching which they said they held, and today's Christians must feel profoundly sorry for these places of inconsistency a when biblical Christianity had more influence upon society than it has today and of course the most effective apology is for today's Christians to act more consistently upon the biblical teaching at these crucial points. There were various areas where the Bible was not followed as it should have been but two stand out glaringly. First, a twisted view of race and second, a non-compassionate use of accumulated wealth. A twisted view of race took two forms slavery based upon race and race prejudices such. Slavery based upon race was of course the most blatant and race prejudice continues right down to our own day. Arab slave traders such as those seen in this drawing captured the Africans whom they then sold into slavery. Many Englishmen, Europeans and Americans indulged in the arbitrary fiction that the black man was not a person and could therefore be treated as a thing. Here the United States must bear special criticism as slavery based on race continued to such a late date. We just cannot Passover the conditions that existed on these slave ships in which thousands died crossing the seas and the treatment these slaves often received. Slavery based upon race and racial prejudice are wrong we must acknowledge that often both were present when Christians had much more influence on the consensus than they have today and the church as such do not speak out sufficiently.

The beginning of the industrial age was the harnessing of waterpower in new ways after water steam was harnessed. This cold burning steamer which we are on is a relic of the industrial revolution. The age belonged to the inventors and the engineers. Industrialization produced a steady stream of better things for example better pottery for the workingmen's table and a steady flow of more goods for everyone. If industrialization have been accompanied by a compassionate use of accumulated wealth and an emphasis on the dignity of each individual man both of which are stressed in the old and the new testaments the industrial revolution

would have been a revolution for good indeed but unhappily there was two often silence on these two crucial points. They were acts of individual charity help to the poor, but the church often was simply silent on the bible's command for the compassionate use of wealth both in England and in other countries. It wasn't that most people were worse off than in the previous mostly agrarian society but the wealth the industrial revolution produced was often not used with compassion. The slums grew in London and the industrial towns, the average working day was between 12 and 16 hours, women and children were especially exploited. The central reason the church should have spoken on these issues with courage and clarity is that the Bible commands it. If the church had spoken out clearly against the cruel use of wealth as a kind of a survival of the fittest probably this concept would not have been so automatically accepted when it was put forth by a secularized science. All too often the church did not speak out clearly against utilitarianism a teaching that the measure of all ethical questions is that which is useful. To keep the matter in balance it must be said that there were many non-Christian forces at work and also that many who would have called themselves Christians were not Christians at all in the biblical sense. It was fashionable to bear the name and to go through the forms. It was the church as the church that did not take a clear and vocal stand when it had the voice to do so. Individually there were many Christians who fought for the truly Christian teaching which should accompany a Christian consensus and had a vital and vocal part in the battle against these abuses. The Bible makes plain that there should be a result in these areas from the preaching of the gospel there were many voices raised and lives given to illustrate it.

John Wesley, spoke out strongly against slavery including slavery in the United States. John Newton was a slave trader he became a Christian he quit the trade and spoke out against it. Thomas Clarkson, spoke out strongly against slavery and William Wilberforce following the pioneer work of Clarkson fought on and on against slavery and for the basic recognition of the humanity of the black man under God. Wilberforce the Christian and because he was a Christian was the overwhelmingly outstanding voice in England against the slave trade. The slave trade was prohibited in England in 1807 and as Wilberforce lay dying in 1833 slavery itself was abolished in England. I wish there had been someone in the United States as consistent to Christian principles as early as 1833 and as influential as Wilberforce someone who could have brought forth the same results in the United States. In Britain, John Howard, friend of John Wesley, labored tirelessly for Prison Reform. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker, had a profound and practical compassion for the prisoners of Newgate prison. Lord Shaftsbury, as a Christian, fought on and on against the exploitation of children in the factories. The preaching of George Whitfield and John Wesley revived biblical Christianity in Britain this had a strong impact on the grassroots which inspired political education and economic reform as a matter of fact it is not too strong to say that without this influence England could not have escaped its own version of the French Revolution.

The Reformation did not bring about perfection but gradually on the basis of its return to its biblical teaching it did bring forth a unique improvement a vast and tremendous freedom in society without chaos. The biblical absolutes provided a basis for consensus of values and

within this there could be this tremendous freedom without these freedoms leading to chaos. The biblical teaching meant that there was something by which the society and the state could be judged namely the biblical absolutes. The little man the ordinary citizen with the Bible in his hand could jump up and say that the majority was wrong so to the extent in which the biblical teachings were practiced the despotism of the 51% vote, the despotism of an individual, or the despotism of a group could be controlled the basis by which there could be this tremendous freedom without chaos here's the fact that the Bible gives a base for law.