(upbeat music)
- Hello, what a privilege to be with you.
I've always thought that the
William Wilberforce weekend
is about the most stimulating
weekend in Washington.
So I'm terribly sorry that
we're not together live.
But this is a great privilege.
Wilberforce was actually born,
the same year that our
Guinness brewery was founded.
And my ancestor Arthur Guinness
knew Wilberforce and supported
him when he was older.
So he's always been a
great hero of our family.
And I'll say more about that as we go on.
As you all know, the pandemic broke out
at the same time as lent and
then the Jewish Passover.
Which are both times of self
examination and reflection.
And I think the pandemic has asked us all
to really think through where we are,
and if we really are all that
we should be before the Lord,
at this extraordinary moment in history.
Above all, in terms of our personal lives,
we live in a world of comfort
and convenience and choices.
And the angel of death has flown over.
And we realize our lives are short
and fragile and vulnerable.
And we need to live well
in the light of that brevity.
And then again, you take our modern world,
the heart of the modern world is control,
through reason, science,
technology, management, punditry,
and the virus reminds us,
we can very easily be overwhelmed
and we need to live much more humbly.
In terms of self reliance,
and sense of mastery.
Or take the Western world,
you can see in a lot of
discussion of the virus,
we are cut flowers, civilization,
and notions like human dignity or freedom,
have had their foundations undermined.
And the question is,
will they be restored, or severed forever?
But I want to focus today
on the American crisis.
Because the theme of this year's series,
truth and love, obviously
grows out of the heart
of where we are in the American crisis.
And I think we have to
understand the crisis
to really see the significance
of this magnificent theme.
And while we, as followers
of Jesus are contributing
and standing for, at
this particular moment.
The climax of the Revolutionary
War Was Yorktown in 1781.
And tradition has it when the
British and the Halcyon troops
marched out to surrender,
they were ordered to play,
a world turned upside down.
Now that was a ballad that went back
to the English revolution.
And the idea was deeply biblical.
Some of the English
revolutionaries said that,
"Freedom is the man
"who dares to turn the world upside down."
The idea is biblical.
We all know that the agitators
when Paul came to emphasis
the agitation said, "These men
"who have turned the world
upside down, have come here."
Now what was the biblical idea?
God created order.
Humans through sin create disorder.
So God is Working to restore his world.
And as we come to know him
with our gifts and callings,
we become partners with him covenantly,
to help restore the world.
So when we turn the world upside down,
we're turning upside down
the status quo of our day
in order to turn the
world the right way up.
Now, that was the idea in
the English revolution,
which of course failed.
It's called the lost cause.
But it was the first of the five
great major revolutions
of the modern world,
the English 1642, the American
1776, the French 1789,
the Russian 1917 and the Chinese and
I as a small boy, was there 1949.
Now the significance of those is
that the first two are very close.
The English revolution failed.
The American Revolution succeeded.
But both were biblical.
Through the invention of printing,
and the power of the reformation,
the 17th century was called
the biblical century.
And the great model
was the Hebrew Republic
from the book of Exodus.
So both of those were biblical.
But the French was
expressively, anti-biblical,
anti-christian, anti-religious,
and anti-clerical,
and that hostility to religion,
and certainly to the
Christian faith in the church
has been a characteristic of
the French and the Russian
and the Chinese ever since.
Now, why does that matter?
It is the deepest key to the
crisis of the Republic today.
Many people point out that
America's as deeply Divided now,
as at any moment since just
before the Civil War, but why?
Some blame the president,
but he's not the cause.
He's the consequence of it.
Some look into social
media, but the social media,
the reinforcements of it, not the route.
New York, against the heart-landers,
the Midwest and so on.
And that's partly true.
Others say that the clash
is between the nationalists,
and the populists over
against the globalists
George Soros like people who
believe in a border-less world,
and that's partly true, too.
But I would argue, and I'm not alone.
The deepest division of all
is the division of those
who understand the Republic
and freedom from the perspective of 1776
and the American Revolution.
Which was largely, but
sadly not fully biblical.
And those who understand American freedom
from the perspective of
the French Revolution, and its heirs.
Now you say the French Revolution.
What's happening in France?
No, the French Revolution
lasted 10 years only.
And then in came Napoleon and a dictator.
And he said the French Revolution is over.
But like a huge volcanic explosion vesuvin
the lava, as it were,
the revolutionary faith
has flowed out ever since then.
If you take the three great ideals,
liberty, fraternity, egality,
the French Revolution
did almost nothing for liberty,
think of the reign of terror
but the idea of fraternity
or brother hood was the
first to be picked up.
And it flowed into what was called
revolutionary nationalism
in the 19th century.
And that gave rise to
the unification of Italy,
the independence in Greece,
and even to the thinking
behind Theodore Herzl,
and the rise of secular Zionism
and the restoration of Israel.
In the 20th century,
through the work of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century,
it was the third element
of egality equality,
which was picked up in
revolutionary socialism.
Obviously, that's behind
the Russian Revolution,
and the Chinese revolution.
Now we, of course, are
in the 21st century.
What we're seeing is the
French Revolution breaking out
in terms of what's now known
as cultural or Neo Marxism,
with its central
philosophy critical theory.
What do I mean?
Well, in the 1920s,
an Italian Marxist called Antonio Gramsci
sat in jail under Mussolini,
and tried to figure out why
Marxism had never happened,
as Marx predicted,
and basically shifted from
the economy to culture.
And from the proletariat
revolution in the streets,
to what he called the hegemony,
the dominance of the cultural
elites, the gatekeepers.
His ideas flow down into the
Frankfurt School in America,
particularly through the
thinking of Herbert Marcuse,
who was very important in the 1960s.
And it was in 1967,
and then again in 1968,
that Marcuse and Rudi Dutschke
the leader of the red brigade in Germany,
called for long march
through the institutions.
What do they mean?
Well, I first came to
this country in 1968.
Martin Luther King had
been assassinated in April.
Later, Senator Bobby Kennedy,
later still the so called
Chicago police riots
at the Democratic Convention.
But 100 American cities were Blaze.
And yet the radicals knew that
that would not mean victory.
So what was the Long March?
They needed to be more patient
and whin the colleges and universities,
the press and the media
and the world of entertainment Hollywood,
and then they would
have cultural hegemony,
but cultural dominance
in the gatekeeper class,
and of course, a little
over 50 years later,
now we can see they won.
Now, what do I mean?
Ideas like Political correctness,
post-modernism, tribalism,
sexual revolution,
and things down currently
to the rage for socialism.
All of those ideas go back to the years
of the French Revolution 1789
and they have nothing to do
with the American Revolution
1776 and it's biblical roots.
Now the trouble is today,
the big difference
between now and the 1850s
there's no Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln addressed the
evils of the time, slavery
in the light of what he called
the better angels of
the American character.
He appealed to the
Declaration of Independence.
We have people talking
today, as you know, well
make America great again.
But no one talking about
what made America great
in the first place, and
it was not the military,
and it was not the economy.
So it's very important to see
how different the ideas are
which flow from the French Revolution,
and the ideas which flow
from the American Revolution.
You think of St. Paul
right in the Galatians.
He says, "who has bewitched you?
"You switch from the gospel of
grace to a gospel of works."
And in many ways, what
I'm saying today is,
who's bewitched America?
It's in the process of switching
from the gospel that came
from the American Revolution,
to the gospel that came
from the French Revolution,
which is not good news, but bad news.
Now, we haven't time
to go into a full description
of the differences.
Take some of the obvious
ones stated rather briefly.
There's a difference over their roots.
The American Revolution
was rooted in the scripture in Exodus,
Deuteronomy, the Torah.
Through the teaching of Calvins,
Vingely, Pullinger, Knox, Cramwell.
Cromwell says the exodus
is the direct parallel
to what he was trying to do
in the English Civil War.
And of course, that came
over with the Mayflower.
And then John Winthrop,
and then New England.
So what was the last cause in old England
became the winning cause in New England,
the roots are completely
different the French roots.
John Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire,
and later thinkers from
the French enlightenment.
Will take a second difference
the difference in terms of
their understanding of humanity.
The biblical American
Revolution is realistic.
You have a separation of
powers in the Old Testament.
But certainly the idea behind
the American separation of
powers checks and balances
comes from James Madison
through John Witherspoon.
Why, Because we've fallen.
In ambition to counteract
ambition, checks and balances,
because of egotism, and so
on the French Revolution,
utopian, man was born free, Rousseau said,
and everywhere is in change.
So just remove a chain
or do through politics,
education, psychology, whatever,
and humans will be happy,
free, unfulfilled nonsense.
And you can see in the Russian Revolution,
the French Revolution and
the Chinese Revolution,
the utopianism was disastrous.
Whenever there's a gap between
the ideal and the real,
the gap will always be filled
with With force violence,
and that's why utopianism is the father
of the worst evils and violence.
We'll take a third difference,
the whole notion of constitution.
Many Americans don't realize that
the American Constitution
We the People, etc,
comes from the Hebrew notion of Covenant.
And you can see the
incredible difference today.
For people in our secular world
thinking in more of a French style,
constitution is simply
law, contract interest.
No, no, go back to Exodus,
and you can see that the Sinai covenant
is freely chosen consent as the origin,
the consent of the governed.
It's a morally binding pledge
and it's a matter of the
reciprocal responses.
ability of all for all.
So covenantal constitutionalism
includes the notion of freedom
and of trust and of trustworthiness
and of course that binds
together the truth and love,
which is the theme this weekend.
Or take another major, major difference.
The way the two
revolutions address wrongs,
they both agree there are wrongs.
There are in justices
oppressions in the world.
But in the French style,
and according to the
understanding of critical theory,
what you look for is the
majority and the minority,
the oppressors and the oppressed.
People have the power and
people are the victims of power.
And then there's no truth remember,
following nature, God
is dead, Truth is dead.
Everything is only power.
Critical theory becomes a
way of exploiting victimhood,
in order to change the
status quo to a new one.
But of course, based only on power,
and so they become the new problem
replacing the old problem.
And that retaliation of
wrong answered by revenge
goes on and on and on.
And you have a Corsican blood feud,
writ large in the cultural
warring of America.
And that's where we are today.
And quite literally,
there will be no end to it
with the talk of reparations, and so on.
Now, compare that with the biblical way
of putting things right
and addressing wrongs.
Evil addressed as evil,
but then the possibility of repentance,
which both in Hebrew teshuvah
and in Greek Metanoia
has an idea of a radical
and complete about turn
But then repentance followed
by forgiveness, forgiveness,
freeing and cutting off
the past completely.
And forgiveness, freeing the future,
from the burden of the past.
And so you work towards
finally a reconciliation,
in which enemies can
be made truly friends,
as Abraham Lincoln used to say,
as we see very much in the early church.
So you think of the early church,
their idea of the PAC's
Christi peacemaking,
under God, far better than Pax Romana,
the Roman piece, the Roman pieces,
many of their historians like Tasador say,
is a piece through power.
There was your piece when one power
or another dominates all the other powers.
But of course you have oppression
and dictatorship and imperialism.
Whereas PACs Christie,
the peace of Christ.
Peace made with God through
the blood of the cross
is a completely different understanding.
I can mention lots of other differences.
But you can see as things
are played out 2016 election,
the Cavanaugh hearings,
the Russian collusion case,
the Muller hearings, and
various things are this.
You can see almost daily
in American daily life
and politics, the clash
between the American Revolution
and the French Revolution.
The tragedy being as I said,
there's no Lincoln
addressing the better angels.
Now, I'm not American, I'm European.
I'm a great admirer of this country.
But to me, this country has done so much
for the gospel around the world.
And so So much standing
for principles like religious freedom,
that it would be a tragedy
of historic proportions.
If America turns away from
the groundings of true freedom
and goes away that will
be a disaster for freedom
and humanity in the future.
If the cameras the other way around.,
I could show you some
of the heroes on my wall
and the signed autographs.
I have one of them.
W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet.
You remember in his great
poem, the second coming,
he talks about, "what ruff
beast is slouching towards
Bethlehem to be born."
a little higher than W.B. Yeats
I have Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
and I have a letter from him personally.
But you remember what he said to Americans
in the 1970s in his warning to the west.
Are you prepared to
gamble your civilization?
That's what America is doing now.
And that's what this series is about,
not for America's sake,
but for the gospel sake.
Because we are the guardians,
not just a truth and love,
and highly radical, distinctive, rich,
deep views of truth and love.
We are the guardians of words
of human dignity, of freedom,
of justice, of community,
and many of the things
that are absolutely essential to the world
and humanity of the future.
One of my prized possessions
which I'll just show you here,
if the camera picks it up is
William Wilberforce's book.
What's interesting is he signed
the book and in the front,
is a letter he is tipped into it.
He saw that some young friends
of his were getting married.
And he writes to them and says,
"I want you to know the secret
of the great change in my life,
so that it can make a
difference in yours."
But what's so moving about this,
to me is the date, February 1833,
just four months before he died.
So he's still fighting against slavery.
And as you probably know,
it was abolished in the British Empire
four days before he died.
But while he's fighting political battle
still right to the end,
he is also reaching out with the gospel.
And you can see at the
end of the book I have,
the young couple have read it, ticked it,
on the date they each finished
it and sign their initials.
And it's a wonderful example.
Our evangelical ancestors were people who
engaged public life.
Were there and all the forefront
of the battles like William Wilberforce.
But at the same time,
they never lost their love for the Lord.
They never lost their reliance on prayer.
And they never lost their passion
to reach out with the good news of Jesus.
May we be the same.
So sorry, we're not together live.
But I trust this series as a whole
is a tremendous help to all
of you, wherever you are,
across America, around the
world, God bless you all.
(upbeat music)
