History – Page 26 – Gregory Scott Blog

Seine River Cruise Travel Journal—Day 4

Place of Joan of Arc's Execution — Place of Joan of Arc’s Execution

We left Vernon at 6 a.m. this morning for the town of Rouen, France.

After an excellent lecture on the life of Joan of Arc and a nice lunch we were off on our walking tour of Rouen.

Rouen is all about Joan of Arc. The references to her in Rouen are everywhere. She would probably be surprised to learn of her now favorable reception in the town that burned her at the stake.

Joan of Arc was a devout, single, seventeen-year-old when she claims she received instructions from God that Charles VII of France was to be crowned king and that God would be with him if he went to battle against the English to free France from English control. Joan convinced Charles she had heard from God when she told him something personal he had told no one else and she could not have known except God had revealed it to her.

Inspired and emboldened, Charles began to successfully engage the English in battle, was crowned King of France at Reims and reclaimed much of France from the English. In the end, however, Joan was captured by the English, who, for obvious reasons, were more skeptical of the source of her visions. They tried her, found her guilty of heresy, and in 1431, Joan was burned at the stake in the town square at Rouen. In 1920 Joan of Arc was canonized by the Catholic church as a saint. Continue reading “Seine River Cruise Travel Journal—Day 4”

Seine River Cruise Travel Journal—Day 2

We spent our morning on a walking tour through Le Marais, the historic district of Paris.

We saw the remains of the 12th century that had protected Paris, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Victor Hugo’s house in Place des Vosges, the mansion where Mozart stayed while performing in Paris, and tucked away on an otherwise insconspicuous side-street, a Jewish memorial commemorating the Righteous Among the Nations—those who at great personal risk took action to protect Jews from the Holocaust during World War II.

The names of the Righteous were listed on a wall ironically juxtapositioned across the street from a small plaque on a government building acknowledging the responsibility of The Vichy Government in the deportation (and ultimate murder) of thousands of Jews during World World II. The acknowledgement on the plaque was dated December 15, 2001. Our tour guide told us it took that long for the French to formally acknowledge their complicity in the Holocaust. It began with one of the great appeasements in history and ended in genocide. Slippery and steep is the slope of moral compromise. Continue reading “Seine River Cruise Travel Journal—Day 2”

Same-Sex Marriage, America, and the Kingdom—1

Well, it’s been a week since five lawyers on the Supreme Court decided they had “new insight”—their words—that no society since the dawn of man has had and declared same sex marriage a constitutional right.

Predictably, many Christians, as they have erroneously done throughout history, declared this the sign the end is near and that maybe Harold Camping was right after all.

Those who do so, though, have ignored the lessons of the past. Christians throughout history who have declared the end of the world near have a perfect record—they have been wrong every time. Those at the end of the first millennium who were convinced the end was near had a much better argument than those today, and not only were they wrong, but within fifty years the tide had completely turned. Continue reading “Same-Sex Marriage, America, and the Kingdom—1”

On Thanksgiving

Today millions of Americans will gather with family, eat turkey and watch the Dallas Cowboys . . . and they will completely miss the point of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has its roots, not in Irving, Texas, and not even in the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts, but in the English Reformation.

English Reformers sought to reduce the numerous traditional Catholic church holidays that had accumulated over the centuries, while Puritans called for their elimination completely, to be replaced by days of fasting and thanksgiving. Days of fasting would be called in response to evidence of God’s judgment, a drought for example, and special days of thanksgiving in response to God’s providential blessing, such as a particularly good harvest. Continue reading “On Thanksgiving”

Carolingian & Crusader Travel Journal: Epilogue

The trip is over and we are back home.

I’ve had a few days to reflect.

If there is a common thread between the First Crusade and the Carolingian Renaissance that is applicable today for Christians it is the importance of Christian leadership to the kingdom of God.

But for the Church, the Middle Ages would have been a dark ages.

The Church, through its system of monasteries preserved a common language (Latin), preserved classic literature through its libraries and copying of manuscripts, created new literature and art, and provided for the education of society.

What other government or institution in West would have been in a position to do that? What other government or institution did so? The answer to both questions is “None.”

Charlemagne was a visionary. He recognized the importance of education, even though he never learned to write (he could read). He established schools in every dioceses, and he expanded educational opportunities to those outside of the nobility so that education was available not just based on birth but merit. Continue reading “Carolingian & Crusader Travel Journal: Epilogue”