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September 23rd, 2005 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Presbyterian Church

Peter Marshall Leads the Church From Cultural "Egypt" to 40 Years of Wilderness Wandering

Peter Marshall and David Manuel penned one of the earliest Christian America books addressed to the Boomer Generation -- The Light and The Glory. The book was published in 1977 by Fleming H. Revell Company.

Over 50 years had elapsed of the church's media-imposed exile from the public square following the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925. Christians were still wandering in the cultural wilderness. "Cultural Egypt" might describe it more accurately. Almost to a man, the church was oblivious to any doctrine of civil government or sense of cultural obligation.

The Light & the Glory was a wakeup call for the church to resume her leadership role in the nation. Christians were aroused by the call to arms. Peter Marshall and co-author David Manuel were there when we needed them.

A City Set On A Hill

The book accurately portrays the role of covenant in the life of the Pilgrims and Puritans. Marshall captures their vision of being a "City set on a Hill" based on covenant obedience. This famous phrase was taken from John Winthrop’s "Model of Christian Charity" speech.

Seeds of Pluralism Planted

Peter Marshall understands the threat that Roger Williams posed to the covenant model. Williams' stress on "Liberty of Conscience" was an attack on the covenant heart of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Marshall describes Williams' rebellion as a "Nobody is going to tell me what I should do or believe" attitude. The Puritans saw it as a dangerous spirit of liberty apart from law.

Williams rejected his excommunication and fled into the wilderness rather than board the ship back to England. He was not driven into the wilderness by the "heartless puritans." That same spirit of rebellion was visited upon Williams as founder of Rhode Island. As Peter Marshall puts it "Providence now became a magnet for every crackpot, rebel, misfit, and independent on the Atlantic seaboard." Williams' schismatic rebellion ensured the ultimate failure of government under God in America.

The Declension

The book is a cross between historical fiction and an historical narrative. Character development is set up more like a traditional novel than a History Book.

Peter Marshall does a good job reporting on the Puritan declension from the covenant. However, he misinterprets the Great Awakening of the 1740s as the return to "a deep national desire for the covenant way of life." According to Peter Marshall, this would "produce a new generation of clergymen who would help to prepare America to fight for her life."

In a sense this may be true, but at a deeper level the Awakening undermined the covenant. The English crown described The Revolutionary War as the "Presbyterian Revolt."

A Destructive Fire

But the Awakening seriously crippled the church. Making very little effort to collaborate with local clergy, the itinerant preachers usually set up their makeshift pulpits outside of town in the open field. They viewed the church as a hopeless impediment to revival, ignoring the passage that "repentance must begin with the household of God."

The Awakening marked the beginning of the end for the church as a voice of authority in America. As an institution the church came to be seen as irrelevant to anything of real substance in the culture. The strain of individualism introduced by the revivals is largely to blame. It strengthened the Enlightenment spirit of independence that animated the Revolution.

The Enlightenment

The spirit of the Awakening offered no resistance to Enlightenment doctrines such as unbridled freedom of conscience, the individual rights of man, rationalism and natural law. Enlightenment doctrines were less virulent in America than Europe, but they were still influential, especially with colonial leaders.

Unfortunately, Peter Marshall fails to recognize this influence. To him the Christian revival alone animated the Revolutionary era.

Flight From Reality

The offended rights of man must be justified and secured. The Declaration says nothing about defending the glory and authority of God as the standard or purpose for civil government. The grounds for Revolution were thus laid on a foundation of social contract theory (consent of the governed) and rationalism (self-evident truth).

In the last chapter, Peter Marshall turns to the Constitution, but fails to recognize this same Enlightenment spirit at work. When he states that it is "almost beyond the scope and dimension of human wisdom" (p343), he comes close to Constitution-worship.

The author treats the blasphemous exclusion of any religious test for public office (Article VI, Section 3) as if it did not exist. Apparently oblivious to this covenant-breaking provision he concludes that the Constitution "is nothing less than the institutional guardian of the Covenant Way of life for the nation as a whole." This is a startling conclusion, given the Constitution's replacement of the governing authority of God with that of "we the people."

The leaders of this conspiracy against God – Washington in particular -- are extolled almost as demigods. In the final chapter Peter Marshall wrestles with the confusion inherent in his position.

At one point he inadvertently contradicts his own thesis: First, he gushes, "The Constitution is the finest contract ever drawn by man for his own self-government." Immediately he contradicts that statement with the admission, "But as precious as the Constitution is, it is nonetheless a secularizing of the spiritual reality of the covenant. It can thus never be the substitute for a covenant life totally given to the Lord Jesus Christ" (p.348).

It's hard to say it much clearer than that. We can only shake our heads in amazement. You Can't have it both ways, but the Christian Constitutionalists want to eat their cake and have it too. The paucity of the Christian Constitution outlook is exposed in this single paragraph.

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About the Author

For more information about the anti-Christian features of the U.S. Constitution visit http://www.america-betrayed-1787.com Dennis Woods is webmaster and also a political pollster and fundraiser in Oregon. Copyright: you may freely republish this article, provided the text, author credit, the active links and this copyright notice remain intact."