America doesn't have an established church. But she clearly does have a Christian heritage! Indeed, that heritage lies back of the American concept of unalienable individual rights.... This is what makes the American Revolution so utterly unlike the French....
Actually there are quite a few factors that made the French Revolution different. For one, the colonists were separating from the mother country, while the revolutionaries were overthrowing their government.
It should also be noted that the supremacy of the Pope over the French Church was very controversial in France - the Gallicanist movement was still raging. This is why the revolutionaries demanded that the clergy swear an oath repudiating the Pope and giving their complete allegiance to the state - and why they targeted and martyred the anti-Gallican clergy first. There was no freedom of religion for orthodox Catholics either in revolutionary France or royal England.
I know we are not going to agree on this, betty boop, but there seems to be evidence to the contrary. How else can we interpret the letter signed by John Adams which begins:
? Or shall we split hairs and claim that christian "heritage" is not the same as Christian "religion"? :)
Congratulations! Excellent work.
As betty has shown, the French Revolution is the antithesis of the American Revolution. Whereas the American Revolution was about the creation of many goods, the French Revolution was ultimately about the unmaking, or nihilization of good, beginning with the death (nihilization) of God the Father.
~self ping~ for followup.