President Reagan's Speech on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day

President Ronald Reagan's Address commemorating the 40th Anniversary of D-Day at Normandy June 6, 1984 is one of the greatest speeches by one of the greatest orators of the 20th century.  Regardless of one's political views, can anyone deny, as demonstrated in this speech, that Reagan spoke with a warmth, sincerity and humanity virtually absent in our political leaders?  Certainly his oratory dwarfs that of his successors, Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Obama has proven to be fine speaker and if you know me or read this blog, you will be surprised to know that I actually think President Obama gives very good nonpolitical speeches (few though they are).  If you doubt it, go watch at his speech at Tuscon after the Gabby Giffords shooting, or his speech at Ft. Hood following the shooting there, or his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2011.   

But after watching the "Great Communicator," even Obama comes off as flat, even hollow.  I'm not trying to slight President Obama.  I just think Reagan was that good. He was so warm and genuine, it was hard not to like him.  If that sounds like partisan kool-aid Reagan worship, go watch his speeches, and recall he carried 44 states when elected, and 49 states upon reelection.  Think we'll ever see that again?  The point here is there are few people on Earth who could deliver a speech equal to the occasion of honoring the courage and sacrifice of those who landed on Normandy June 6, 1944. But Reagan did.  

The British Are Coming!

Paul Revere's Ride
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Providence and America's Indispensable Man

The religiosity of our founding fathers has become a hotly debated topic among people today. Some claim the founders were not dissimilar from today's evangelical Christians. Others claim the founders were atheists, agnostics and deists, who rejected any notion of a personal God.  I do not claim to be an expert, but I believe I've studied the founders enough to say with confidence that both of these assertions are false.  For one, it's difficult to make generalizations about all the founders.  Today when we talk about the founders, we are usually referring to the six most well known leaders of the American Revolutionary cause:  George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

In reality, the founding fathers included a much larger group of men.  There is no set definition of a founder, but generally it is meant to include the delegates to the second Continental Congress who signed Declaration of Independence, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, as well as key figures like John Jay, Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine.  None of these men could be described as evangelical Christians. Some were fervently pious, religious men, but they were also men of the Enlightenment who, after seeing the corrupt interchange between the church and state in Europe, were extremely critical of religious authority and hierarchies.  They believed in the ascendance of knowledge, science and philosophy to propel society forward.

It would also be a mistake to discount the religious convictions of the founders.  Many of their beliefs were unorthodox, but in no way comparable to atheism or agnosticism (Thomas Paine may have been an Atheist).  It is common today to refer to the founders as deists.  Enlightenment era deists believed in a clockwork universe; one in which God created everything, wound the clock so to speak, and the universe from then on ran independently as the laws of nature took over.  One of the distinctive features of deism is the idea that God is not a personal God, and does not involve himself in human affairs.

But the founders, even the most religiously skeptical like Jefferson and Franklin, steadfastly believed God was playing an active role in the founding of America.  Their writings are filled with references to the hand of providence in shaping the new republic. Many saw America as the new Israel; the "Promised Land" for His chosen people. When designing the nation's seal, Jefferson wanted images of the Israelites being led to the promised land.  Franklin proposed an image of Moses parting the Red Sea.  George Washington ardently believed in the role of providence, not only in building the young nation, but in his own life.  Here's a story that may explain Washington's conviction.

In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Washington was a 25-year old Colonel of the Virginia Militia under the command of British General Edward Braddock.  On July 9, as Braddock's forces approached Fort Duquesne, the British came under attack from both sides.  In what came to be known as the Battle of Monongahela, the young George Washington, who was suffering terribly from dysentery, rode fearlessly across the battlefield trying to rally his shaken men who were under a hail of gunfire from all directions.  Keep in mind that Washington was 6'3"-6'4" at a time when the average height was around 5'5"-5'6."  On horseback, he was a huge target.  When Braddock was shot and killed, the British forces fell apart and began to flee.  Amid the chaos, and despite having two horses shot from under him, Washington gathered some men and formed a rear guard to protect the retreating forces.  When it was over, the young colonel, with four bullet holes through his coat, emerged completely unscathed, the only officer on Braddock's staff to survive the battle.

James Craik, a physician in the Virginia militia and friend of Washington's, said of the young colonels exploits:

I expected every moment to see him fall. His duty and situation exposed him to every danger. Nothing but the superintending care of Providence could have saved him from the fate of all around him.

Colonel Washington, writing to his brother, describes the events:

Dear Jack: As I have heard since my arriv'l at this place, a circumstantial acct. of my death and dying speech, I take this early oppertunity of contradicting both, and of assuring you that I now exist and appear in the land of the living by the miraculous care of Providence, that protected me beyond all human expectation; 

A few weeks later, Rev. Samuel Davies preached a sermon in Hanover County, Virginia entitled Religion and Patriotism the Constituents of a Good Soldier.  To illustrate the "martial fire" spreading across the country, he singled out Washington in an eerily prophetic way:

As a remarkable instance of this, I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.

Prophetic?  It gets weirder.

Washington's stepgrandson, George Washington Parke Custis writes in Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington of another amazing story.  In 1770, Washington led an expedition to survey land in the Ohio Territory.  One day, while resting in camp near the junction of the Kanhawa and Ohio Rivers, they were approached by a party of Indians.  Among them was a great chief who claimed to have been in command of the Indians fifteen years earlier at the Battle of Monongahela. Upon receiving word of Colonel Washington's visit to the area, the chief immediately set out to meet him. According to Custis, Dr. Craik, who was with Washington on the expedition, related to him the chief's words as he addressed them to Washington:

I am a Chief, and Ruler over many tribes, my influence extends to the waters of the Great Lake and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path, that I might see the Young Warrior of the Great Battle. It was on the day, that the White Man's blood, mixed with the streams of our forest, that I first beheld this Chief; I called to my young men and said, mark yon tall and daring warrior, he is not of the Redcoat tribe, he hath an Indian's wisdom, and his warriors fight as we do, himself is alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies. Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for him, knew not how to miss. `Twas all in vain, a power mightier, far than we, shielded you. He cannot die in battle. I am old, and soon shall be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers, in the land of shades, but ere I go, there is a something, bids me speak in the voice of prophecy--Listen! The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies--he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn, hail him as the founder of a mighty Empire!

Given his experiences, one can hardly blame Washington for his faith in providence, or the men and women of his generation for seeing the hand of God over America.  Today we regard all of the founders and extraordinary men, but Washington may have been the one indispensable man of his generation, and perhaps in all of American history (Lincoln has a case). Without him, the whole American enterprise would have almost certainly failed.  It's remarkable to think a matter of inches determined our nation's fate.

Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

This is probably my favorite Lincoln speech.  Reading his elegant prose, it is just stunning to think that Lincoln only received some 18 months of formal education. Another remarkable feature of this speech is way he invokes God.  Although he was intimately familiar with the bible, Lincoln was for much of his life very critical of the Christian faith.  Born during the Second Great Awakening, Lincoln was turned off by the revivalist movement, and as a young man expressed considerable antagonism toward God.  As he grew older, however, he began to find his way back to God, particularly during the war.  As this speech indicates, Lincoln thought a great deal about God's role in history in light of the wholesale slaughter visited upon the nation during the last four years.

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. 

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

-- Abraham Lincoln

A Time For Choosing

Celebrate Ronald Reagan's birthday with what is arguably the greatest political speech of the 20th Century, and in my view, the most relevant to the challenges we face today. 

George Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

[New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be--That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in thecourse and conclusion of the late war--for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Thank you, Veterans

Why We Fight

Happy Birthday Marines!

The Marine Corps celebrates its 237th Birthday today.  If you've never been to a Marine Corps Ball, you should go once in your life.  It's a fantastic gathering that celebrates the history, tradition and fellowship of a unique brotherhood of men and women who have committed themselves to defending our nation with zeal and distinction since 1775.  If you know any Marines, active or former, show them how much you appreciate their service by wishing them a happy birthday.

War Games

In a presentation that is both surprising, eerie and more than a little disturbing, Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a time-lapse map of the 2,053 nuclear explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998.  First thought, I had no idea there were this many nuclear tests.  Second, why is France responsible for so many? And is there anywhere in the old Soviet Union that wasn't the site of a nuclear test?

SR-71 Blackbird

An interesting profile on one of the most incredible pieces of technology ever created. Growing up, this was considered the ultimate machine.  I'm not sure anything has surpassed it.  The part about the heat created by air friction at such high speeds and how it causes the aircraft metal skin to expand is crazy.  Even crazier, is buying the titanium for our top spy plane from the Russians, through a CIA phantom company during the height of cold war!

The Future of 9/11

It's taken way too damn long to get this done, but soon the New York skyline will look like this.  And 9/11 victims will be remembered as they should.

How much we've lost

I came across this letter from Major Sullivan Ballou, written to his wife in 1861 before the Battle of Bull Run and thought it worthy of sharing on Valentine' Day.  As someone who is often clumsy when expressing my love for my wife, I marvel at the literate nature of this man's devotion.  Listening to this beautiful letter, I am reminded that despite our advances in science, human rights and our standard of living, we have become a coarse and cynical culture.  How can one hear the eloquence and passion of this soldier's prose and not recognize how much we've lost?

"Silent Cal" Honors 4th of July

Address by President Calvin Coolidge for the 150th Anniversary of American Independence, July 4, 1926:

"[The Founders] preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. ...Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man . . . are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions.  ...Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. ...We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. . . . If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things which are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped."

Have truer words ever been uttered?

Eaters of the Dead

In the afterword of Eaters of the Dead, published in 1976, author Michael Crichton explains that the book was conceived on a dare. A friend proposed to teach a college course called "The Great Bores," based on the essential writings of western civilization. His friend asserted that these texts were so tedious that no one willingly read them anymore, and the first of the great bores he would address was the epic poem Beowulf. Crichton disagreed, arguing that Beowulf was an exciting, dramatic story and he could prove it.

Crichton began working from the assumption that Beowulf, like other epic poems and pieces of mythology, may have some basis in fact. By peeling away the poetic invention and embellishment of hundreds of years of oral retelling, Crichton suggests that we may return to a kernel of human experience. The result is a modern psuedo-historical fantasy about the original events that inspired the story of Beowulf.

But Crichton refuses to let on. He enhances his illusion by writing the novel from the point of view of a comtemporary eye witness of the events. Rather than inventing this person, the author goes further by "discovering " the eyewitness narrative in the manuscript of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an Arab sent by the Caliph of Bagdad in the year 921 as part of an embassy to the Volga Bulgars. His account of the journey provides one of the earliest descriptions of Vikings.

Crichton begins his book with an introduction intended to familiarize the reader with all of the many translations of Ibn Faldlan's manuscript, along with their backgrounds and respective merits. So convincing is Crichton's invention that I found myself completely perplexed as to what was true and what was not. And lest his readers begin to suspect something, Crichton makes sure to fill his entire book with lengthy footnotes to further legitimize the narrative.

The story begins with Ibn Fadlan's aformentioned mission to northwest Russia. Upon encountering a band of Northmen, he is forced to join them in a quest to destroy a myserious scourge of mist monsters terrorizing the their homeland. These Wendol, as the Northmen call them, turn out to be a surviving relict of Neanderthals who feed on the flesh of their victims (which is far more interesting than the cave people of the film adaptation, The 13th Warrior) .

As an Arab during the 10th century, when the civilization of Islam was by far the most advanced culture on Earth, Ibn Fadlan's perspective serves as an ideal doorway for the modern reader to enter this strange world of Vikings. His descriptions of the lands, people and cultures are detailed and vivid. The reader immediately shares his horror and disgust with the vulgar and barbaric world of the Northmen.

Never did I see a people so gigantic: they are tall as Palm trees and florid and ruddy in complexion... They are the filthiest race that God ever created. They do not wipe themselves after going to stool, or wash themselves after a nocturnal pollution, any more than if they were wild asses... Now it happened that this Buliwyf, who was drunk as the rest, commanded that I should sing a song for them. He was most insistent. Not wishing to anger him, I recited from the Koran with the translator repeating my words in their Norse tongue. I was received no better than their own minstrel, and afterward I asked the forgiveness of Allah for the treatment of His holy words, and also for the translation, which I sensed to be thoughtless, for in truth the translator himself was drunk.

Despite his role as a simple chronicler, Ibn Fadlan emerges as a real character. In the course of the story, he grows from a pampered and fearful ambassador to a courageous warrior willing to fight to the death for his Norse companions. More subtle and interesting is the way he begins to embrace their way of life during his journey.
The plot moves at a brisk pace without feeling shallow. And in only 250 pages, Crichton manages produce equal amounts of action, suspense, horror as well as humor and genuine sorrow. All told, Eaters of the Dead is a clever and thoroughly enjoyable adventure story that I highly recommend.

The Hysteria Channel

Has anyone watched the History Channel lately? I'm having a hard time finding much history in its programming. In fact, the History Channel has disintigrated in recent years into sensationlist, tabloid-grade tripe. Since its inception in 1995, the History channel has gone from showing seeminly non-stop WWII documentaries to a popular, ratings driven enterprise. Don't get me wrong. There are some good shows (Modern Marvels and and Dogfights are excellent), but most of the programming today is just silly.

For example, Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers are reality shows that document the on the job drama of timber workers and truckers. History? Yes, according to History Channel execs. Apparently, they couldn't ignore the ratings of shows like The Deadliest Catch over at the Discovery Channel (Why a show that chronicles the day to day lives of Alaskan crab fisherman is a mainstay of the Discovery Channel, I'll never know either).

A more curious trend has been the History Channel's strange, fatalistic obsession with end of the world scenarios, as evidenced by shows like Mega Disasters, Last Days on Earth, Life After People, and Comets: Prophets of Doom. It seems as though the only history the network is interested in is the end of history. It's depressing. At least there's programs like Gangland, Shockwave and Tougher in Alaska to enrich my understanding of human history.

Surely the same can be said for shows like the Lost Book of Nostradamus, Vampire Secrets, MonsterQuest, and UFO Hunters. Apparently, the History Channel needed to nail down that crucial black helicopter demographic, as well as fans of the X-Files.

Seriously, isn't the History Channel essentially endorsing the notion that history is boring and has no bearing on our lives if they feel the need to sensationalize it and substitute Bigfoot for the British Empire?

The Cross versus the Crescent

To follow up my last post, here's a link to Steven D. Greydanus of decentfilms.com who gives an excellent review of Kingdom of Heaven where he considers many of the issues of brought up in my previous post.

One of my biggest gripes about the media, academia, and pop culture in general is the way it views the past. Rather than viewing history in its context, we take a presentist point of view. That is, we view the past through the lens of the present. In doing so, we press the past into the service of the present for the purpose of justifying our points of view. For hollywood, this means applying modern ideas or notions to past events, judging by those standards, and making conclusions.

In the case of this movie, we use our standard of right and wrong, apply it to a time and place whose concerns were so completely different than our own as to make it virtually unrecognizable. While I can understand the need to find a connection to a modern audience and appeal to as many people as possible by not suggesting anything that would advocate one theology over another, I cannot stomach the main character preaching like an ACLU spokesman; not because it is right or wrong, but because its so contrived and disparate from reality. Worse, the filmakers don't trust their ability to tell a story, so they have to tell us what to think rather than leave the conclusion up their audience.

Kingdom of Heaven does a better job than most of getting right the names, places, and events. But the movie suffers from 21st century ideas applied to the 12th century. In other words, if we want to look to the past to understand the current struggle between Christians and Muslims (which was clearly a goal of the movie), then we must view the past in its own context, not as we would like to see it.