Posted on June 16, 2013 by carknow32
“If God and His word can be demoted from their position of ultimate source of knowledge and wisdom – if we can convince the people that all sources of knowledge and wisdom are not in Jesus Christ, then we can undermine God’s Sovereignty over his Creation.”
So Says Bojidar Marinov (see bio below) a Bulgarian reformed theologian. And to illustrate his point, he discusses the small province of Vendée in France during the French Revolution. Marinov states that little is known in America about the Vendée and the Vendeans, and French scholars and the French state itself has self-consciously imposed censorship on the historical studies about this region.
“The people of the Vendée initially supported the revolution in France, but they became disappointed with the Republic a year after the Revolution when in 1790 the National Convention passed the Civic Constititution of the Clergy, which was a law that required all Priests to take an oath to the new republic. An Oath that was supposed to be higher than their oath to God. The Priests of Vendée who refused to comply were replaced by the Republican Government with compliant priests. Local people didn’t like it, and started a limited guerilla war against the government, and against those new priests.” (Note: This has happened here in the United States with Pastors and priests being required to take oaths of loyalty. See Missouri Martial Law)
Marinov continues, “In 1793, another law passed by the National Convention, that followed that attack against the church, was a law for National Conscription. In French, it’s called the Mass Uprising. It required every region in France to contribute it’s share of young men to the army of the Republic. Prior to 1793, the military was a family decision. It was the families who decided if they wanted to send their sons to the King’s army. Even Louis XIV, the Sun King, had trouble assembling his armies because of the reluctance of the peasant fathers to send their sons to war – even if the pay was quite lucrative.”
“The people of the Vendée revolted. They defeated the local Republican Garrisons, and for the next two years thwarted the attempts of Central Government to take the small province back. The response of the government in Paris was spectacular. They sent 100,000 troops. At the time, the Republic was in a war against all of Europe. They were fighting against the British, the Dutch Republic, Austria, the German States – against everyone. And they only had a half million army. Of that half million, they sent 20 percent to the Vendée, the small province there. Think about it. They risked military defeat to send 20 percent of their troops to defeat the Vendée…to pacify it.”
“The Committee for Public Safety gave instructions to the Army generals to exterminate completely the counter revolutionary race of Vendeans without sparing women and children. The twelve army columns marching towards the Vendée were called officially the columns of Hell. No Vendeans were spared. At the end of the campaign, General Westermann reported to the committee that ‘There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have all exterminated. The roads are sewn with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time – claiming to surrender – and we are shooting them non-stop. Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment.’” (Note: This sounds very similar to what happened during the American War Between the States when Federalists violently waged total war against the South. See 150 years of Constitutional Rejection)
The province before the Revolution had an official count of 800,000 population…the realistic estimates of Vendeans slaughtered by the French Government were 400 to 600,000 Vendeans killed. “Vendée never recovered. Modern Vendée has a population of only 600,000 – less than what it had 300 years ago before the revolution. Predictably, the majority of them vote conservative of course. The political left has very little support in the Vendée. They remember, better than us!”
“Why was Vendée so important?” Marinov asks. “What made the national convention risk military defeat against superior foes for the joy of killing hundreds of thousands of its own citizens who were never a military threat to Paris? The answer lies in asking ‘Who is the new sovereign’? This ideological question was far more important to the Revolutionaries than to the military victories on the battlefields. The two laws that they passed about the Clergy’s oath to the Republic and universal conscription were specifically designed to establish the sovereignty of the state over the church and family. An oath to the state by a priest would by necessity invalidate his oath to God. And like we mentioned earlier, historically in France conscription was a family decision. A young man actually needed his father’s permission to join the military. The family and the church had a reason to exist under the sovereignty of God. They were God’s legitimate representatives as much as the civil government was. 
When God was out of the way, they had no reason for their existence – except as creatures and slaves to the state. To allow Vendeans to protect church and family meant to allow them to oppose the new Sovereignty. The Vendeans were not stupid. They knew what was at stake. They knew the ultimate issue. Modern French historians wrongly assume that the Vendeans were Royalists – they wanted the King back – well, they weren’t. Or rather, they were a different type of Royalists. They adopted a symbol, look at the symbol. The symbol meant that ‘Christ is the King of my heart’. And underneath it said ‘God is the King’.”
Transcript of an episode from: Europe as a Mirror For America (from the Christian Culture Builder) with Bojidar Marinov. A reformed missionary to his native Bulgaria for over ten years, Bojidar teaches and preaches doctrines of the reformation and a comprehensive Biblical worldview. He and his team have translated over 30,000 pages of Christian literature about the application of the law of God in every area of man’s life in society. He has been active in the libertarian movement in Bulgaria, a co-founder of the Bulgarian Society for Individual Liberty, and it’s first chairman.
Read more:
Charleston Voice 
