Book: Peter Marshall: The Light and the Glory 3
13 December, 2005 
After taking a break to make Christmas cookies this weekend, I have made it thru a couple more chapters. The prose is a bit over the top; I’d classify the book as a work of propaganda. Nevertheless, like all good propaganda, there is truth to be found beyond the agenda.
Chapter 3 talks about the early Catholic missions to the Americas. Alongside the gold-hungry conquistadors came Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits. Men like Alonso de Benavides, Father Eusebio Kino, Fray Junípero Serra established missions throughout Mexico and the western US. Others, like Samuel de Champlain, Father Jacques Marquette, and Jean de Brébeuf worked in in Canada and the Great Lakes region.
My biggest complaint here is the characterization of native tribes. At the same time Marshall both lauds them for their kindness and generosity toward Europeans who don’t deserve it and demonizes them on the sole account that the name of Jesus is unfamiliar to them. I struggle with this. Some of the Indians were murderous and violent to be sure, but others exhibited what I can only describe as grace, a self-sacrificing love towards those who don’t deserve it. It’s an interesting question, I suppose. To what degree does ignorance prevent one from being saved? If I understand, worship, and serve God as best I can in my ignorance, will it be held against me if I can’t name my savior?
Chapter 4 introduced the English and Jamestown colony. Interesting bits here. In the Jamestown charter evangelism was listed as the colony’s primary purpose, yet only one minister was sent on the initial boat. It seems the call to God’s purpose was just a ruse to garner support back home. Treasure was the real thrust of the expedition. John Smith of Pocahontas fame isn’t portrayed well. This chapter seems to be a set of for the next, an examination of the Pilgrims.
[UPDATE] Seems relevant to mention that a film, The New World (imdb), is opening next month, and it is set in early Jamestown. Here’s an early review by Sr Rose Pacatte. I highly recommend her movie review blog.
It is in the latter part of the book that Rev. Marshall begins to take flight from reality. Contrary to Peter Marshall and other ConFeds (Contemporary Federalists) The Declaration of Independence did not appeal to the Word of God to renew the national Covenant with God. It was not a struggle to restore the governing authority of God, but rather a struggle to assert the rights of man, supposedly God-given, that had been violated. It is all about man, with God called in for the service of man and his alleged rights.
It is not the glory and authority of God that is held up as the standard. Rather it is the offended rights of man that are to be avenged and secured. The justification for independence was thus laid on a foundation of rationalism (self-evident truth) and secularized social contract theory (consent of the governed).
In the culminating chapter, Peter Marshall fails to recognize this same spirit at work in the Constitutional Convention. Regrettably, he treads close to the line of Constitutional idolatry when he states that it is “almost beyond the scope and dimension of human wisdom” (p343).
The author ignores the Constitution’s declaration that it is illegal to require an officeholder to swear to govern by the Bible (Article VI, Section 3). In the teeth of this covenant-breaking provision he draws a mind-boggling conclusion. The Constitution he declares “is nothing less than the institutional guardian of the Covenant Way of life for the nation as a whole.”
This is followed by several pages in which the ring-leaders of this rebellion against God – Washington in particular — are lifted up almost as demigods. The entire concluding chapter (Ch.18) is laced with contradiction. Rev. Marshall struggles in vain to reconcile the inconsistency in his position.
By his own concession he shatters his own thesis: First, he gushes, “The Constitution is the finest contract ever drawn by man for his own self-government.” Then in the very next sentence he confesses, “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)
We can’t say it much better than that. We are left shaking our heads in disbelief. With this single statement the bankruptcy of the ConFed position is laid bare.
When there’s a mist in the pulpit there is a fog in the pew. It is a deadly fog indeed. The church in the 21st Century continues to grope in darkness, following her ConFed guides who can’t decide which god to worship. Rev. Marshall thus led the 20th Century church out of Egyptian bondage directly into 21st Century wandering in the wilderness.