William Wallace #1 (Historical Context)

The Great Bible Reset emphasizes the need for America to return to the original intent of God's law. Israel was meant to be an example to other nations, and we should apply the Old Testament law to our current situation. A book called "In Defense of Christian Nationalism" undermines the authority of the Bible. The Renaissance marked a shift in worldview, and William Wallace resisted the tyranny of the secular state. The age of revolution in the 1600s brought a secular mindset. Wallace fought against the English tyranny and was later betrayed. Robert Bruce continued the fight and led the Scots to victory. Edward I and Robert de Bruce were both Plantagenet descendants. Welcome everybody to the Great Bible Reset. This is where we hammer home the point over and over that the only thing that will rescue America from the wrath of God is a wholehearted return to the original intent of the law of God as summarized in Exodus 20-24. This is the essential Great Bible Reset and the heart of Christian nationalism as originally defined by God himself. According to Deuteronomy 4, Israel was to serve as an example to the Gentile nations who would marvel at Israel's great God and his law and desire to experience the blessing of his perfect law of liberty who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. So we're required to exercise our reason to ferret out the fundamental points of law, i.e. the equity of the Old Testament law and apply it to our current situation. It's the exact opposite of relying on independent common sense or so-called natural law in our political and legal formulations. So political activists must have this theological and historical context clearly in mind or their efforts will be in vain. Now the current egregious example is a book called In Defense of Christian Nationalism in which author Stephen Wolf admits in the introduction he has no ability to interpret the Bible. But he then proceeds to assert that his political theory based on natural law principles will lay a foundation of which to base political theology in the Bible. It's hard to imagine a more presumptuous assault on the authority of the Word of God. This rebellious attitude springs directly from John Locke, the father of the left-wing Enlightenment's second treatise of government in chapter 8. With the publication of this book, In Defense of Christian Nationalism, Canon Press has forfeited all claim to the title of theonomic in worldview or Ventillian and apologetic. If they attempt to make this claim we need to call them on it because this is a giant step in the wrong direction away from theonomy and away from presuppositional apologetics. So we're transitioning now into the era of the Renaissance heading into the 1300s and we find the rule of William Wallace right at the point of transition in the decade between 1296 and 1305. He represents a resistance to the surging tyranny of the secular state. Now it's convenient to look at the modern era in terms of centuries with a label for each century which all happen to start with the letter R. This is not a perfect model because some historians will delay the start of the modern era to about 1450 with the fall of Constantinople to Islam in 1453. That event forced Europe to expand westward and oceanward in the age of exploration. The Mediterranean Sea became increasingly somewhat of a backwater lake as sailors like Vasco de Gama pushed further and further south and then east around the Cape of Good Hope. But that forces us to cut the Renaissance in half or divorce the high renaissance of Leonardo and Michelangelo from the earlier foundation in the 1300s which had been laid by Petrarch and others. But laying that aside for a moment, we've got the age of the Renaissance in the 1300s and 1400s, the age of reformation in the 1500s, the age of revolution in the 1600s, the age of reason in the 1700s, the age of romanticism in the 1800s, the age of relativism in the 1900s, and we trust the age of reset or revival in the 21st century. Now we refer to the 1600s as the age of revolution not only because of the English Revolution but also due to the dramatic shift of worldview perspective that occurred with a secular mindset finally coming to dominance near the end of the century. And we look forward to the great Bible reset of the 21st century. Now William Wallace from 1272 to 1305 was Scotland's legendary deliverer from the English tyranny. Last week you may recall we described the Plantagenet line of fourteen kings starting with Henry II, the father of the common law, and extending over 331 years. One of the most egregious of these was Edward I, known alternatively as the Hammer of the Scots and the great usurper. The Song of Roland was written about the time of the First Crusade in giving patriotic impulse or impetus to the rising nation states but also to the resistance to the rising tyranny. Now we noted in the past that the papal revolution of Gregory VII resulted in a dramatic church-state split with the state freed from the church influence to become increasingly secular. So let's define it more specifically. There were four great kings, I call them second kings, who led the way in the secularization of the state. First we have Roger II of Sicily who ruled from 1112 to 1154, then Henry II of England from 1154 to 1189, then Philip II of France from 1180 to 1223, and Frederick II of Germany from 1208 to 1250, a total of about 150 years, one after the other. It was a legacy of this succession of kings that William Wallace resisted in the late 13th century, about a decade, from 1296 to 1305. Now all of these kings, second kings, all held a devout Christian confession, believe it or not, but they ruled as absolute, as brutal monarchical lawmakers and all were Norman descendants of the Viking invaders. These kings were peripatetic in the sense that they were constantly in the saddle, subduing rebellion and enforcing their royal law, typically based on local German custom, and hence the name common law. However these kings had no commitment to the authority of Deuteronomy 17 and its requirement for the king to rule in humility in accordance with the law of God. And the reason they had no authoritative view of the Old Testament law was because John of Salisbury was there in 1159 with his natural law Polycraticus to excuse their theory of divine right of kings. With John's analogy of the body politic, the mind of the king, or the head, was seen as independent head with the arms available to rule with an iron fist, excuse me, and they were supported in their independence from the law of God by the schoolmen of the newly formed universities. These came together to debate and systematize the recently rediscovered Justinian law code in a Bologna library around 1080. Thomas Aquinas led the way on this and the much-needed great Bible reset did not happen. And so the Roman law of Justinian became more of a systematized code of legal theory, distinct from the more practical common law of the kings. The legal theory belonged more to the universities. Now, in historical context, Robert Bruce had rescued England's young Edward I from a Muslim prison in the seventh century, I'm sorry, in the seventh crusade of 1270. But Edward betrayed him, ignoring Bruce's plantagenet right to the Scottish throne. When invited to serve as referee between the two claimants to the throne, he chose the flattering John Balliol. When the Scots resisted, Edward pressed a bogus claim as Scotland's lord. And he used this to justify an invasion and occupation, thus securing his just title, the usurper. Roused to action by the murder of his wife, Wallace became an aspiring leader of the resistance in a decisive battle at Stirling Castle before he was betrayed and tortured to death. After most of the nobles had caved in, including the wavering Bruce, author Porter picks up the story of Wallace's resistance. But though Scottish chiefs is panegyric rather than a formal history, notes editor Kay Wiggin, it has been accepted by critics as genuine in spirit, if not in absolute detail. At last, Bruce took up Wallace's lost cause and led the Scots to a decisive victory. At the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace had managed to divide the British army on opposite sides of the river by destroying the bridge. Now, Edward I was a Plantagenet descendant of the Normans, but so was Robert de Bruce. The Danish influence had started much earlier in England during the reign of Alfred the Great, north of the Dane line, the Dane line running from about London towards the northwest, northern Wales. Now, you can learn more of this thrilling story in Keys to the Classics, A History of the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, which is available in the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com. And to support the school, please visit the longevity store at boomers-alive.com. And I want to thank you for joining me today and I welcome you back tomorrow for more on the lessons to be derived from the life of William Wallace.