Alex Christoforou
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
(Paul Craig Roberts) – Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, was constructed during the years 1765 and 1773. It was designed by James Wren, a relative of Sir Christopher Wren, the most famous English architect. The colonial era, pre-Revolutionary War church, is a national historic landmark.
It was my church when I lived in Old Town Alexandria, a colonial settlement along the Potomac River. It was also the church of my neighbor, Henry “Joe” Fowler, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury for President John F. Kennedy and Secretary of the Treasury for President Johnson. Another neighbor was US Air Force General Benton Partin, whose study proved conclusively that the Murrah Federal Office building in Oklahoma City blew up from the inside out and not from the outside in from McVeigh’s truck bomb.
Joe Fowler and I used to talk about how facts were no longer part of any aspect of Washington’s policy or media reporting. And this was long ago in the 80s and 90s. Imagine today when it is the obligation of the US media to lie for the CIA and the DNC.
Christ Church was the church for George Washington and for Robert E. Lee and for other notables of our early history. Robert E. Lee was married to George Washington’s great-granddaughter.
The congregation was proud of the church, its history and simple beauty. In addition to the spiritual dimension, there was the historical one. The Episcopal service was beautiful, and the rector’s sermon was always short. My young son could sit through the service, and the choir and organ were wonderful.
With such fond memories I was astonished to hear from the Senior Warden that Christ Church has decided to remove the “marble memorial plaques to George Washington and Robert Edward Lee in our worship space.” Apparently, our first president’s sin is that he owned Slaves in the 18th century, a common practice at the time when white, Indian, and black slaves were common across the world. Robert E. Lee’s sin is that he “fought for slavery,” a lie that I and Thomas DiLorenzo recently refuted on this website.
I am puzzled by the reference to “marble memorial plaques.” What I remember is small silver plaques, measuring a few inches by a few inches, that designated the pews in which the Washington family and the Lee family sat. I often wondered years ago that no one had yet pried off the silver plaques for souvenirs. Perhaps they have, and were replaced by marble plaques. On the other hand, perhaps I never noticed the marble plaques, which leaves me wondering if the marble plaques are to be removed, what about the silver ones on the pews. Who gets those?
One doesn’t quite know what to make of history being erased like this. Washington and Lee (and there is a university of that name) are probably the two most decent and honorable people the United States has ever produced. But their association with an ancient, by US standards, church, which Washington helped to found, is to be erased.
From the standpoint of its traditional parishioners, the Episcopal Church has departed the Christian religion. The Episcopal Church has gone against the scriptures by ordaining women and LGBT people, and by sanctioning same sex “marriage,” although the Book of Common Prayer still describes marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
But, I mean, really, what is consistency when you have to be trendy?
Being trendy for Christ Church means deep-sixing its own history. The congregation today must be different from the one Joe Fowler, with whom I had breakfast most Sunday mornings, and I knew.
America is disappearing. The country I live in today bears no resemblance to the one into which I was born. Perhaps I should write about what it was like to be an American when America was still present in the world.
Military men are best, perhaps, at appraising other military men. White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly says that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was ‘an honorable man.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5034931/Trump-chief-staff-Kelly-decries-removal-monuments.html
Lee was without any doubt far more honorable than Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and Lincoln, the four first war criminals of the modern era. The US military understands Robert E. Lee’s virtues, and has named in Lee’s honor the barracks at West Point. As Lee’s statues are pulled down by the idiot American leftwing and its violent Antifa fascist thugs, a collection of inhuman nazi scum, without doubt, the West Point barracks will have to be renamed the Obama Barracks, The Hillary Barracks, the Wolfowitz barracks, the Cheney barracks, the Netanyahu barracks.
For a soulless government that continues to bomb innocent people around the globe, calling the barracks of the US military academy after the most honorable Robert E. Lee is a total affront to Lee’s memory.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
I think this is a swing and a miss, a mash note to Robert E. Lee, slave owner, traitor, oath breaker, war criminal and reprobate. Kelly is a sexist racist and needs to apologize to the Member of Congress. But the description of the USG is correct. the most expensive and losingest military in the history of the world. cheers
Please, share with us your qualifications to judge anyone let alone heroes of the moral stature of General Lee or warrior statesmen of the quality of General Kelly. I rather doubt that you have the strength of character, much less the commitment to honor, that would be required to stand in the shadow of either man. However, you must have known William Shakespeare for he did speak of you, “An idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The only qualification required is to be honest and truthful. This wave of iconoclasm differs little from its predecessors. Anyone who has ever been in a rural church in England will have seen the beheaded saints, the signs of rood screens having been torn down and other signs of the Reformation. In France many of the old churches still carry painted slogans put on them by the atheists during the revolution. No doubt the pattern is repeated in Russia. Then we have the work of the muslims. As to Lee he was undoubtedly a slave owner, put John Brown to… Read more »
I share your views on the majority of subjects that you mention. However, Lee did not put John Brown to death; Brown was tried, sentenced to death, and hung by the state of Virginia. Lee did capture Brown in that he was commanding in his capacity as a Federal Lt. Colonel. I don’t know of any orders that Lee issued that singled out Blacks for mistreatment. However, he did not provide for Blacks who were in need because his own men were existing of very short rations. Abolitionists were the enemy; they were the terrorists of their day, and they… Read more »
Thank you for your interesting response. You might be interested to learn that the IRA man who blew up Nelson’s Column in Dublin- a famous act of iconoclasm- recently died.
I almost mentioned Andrew Jackson among the dead Generals with mixed records, as someone of Cherokee heritage you will understand why the continued existence of Jackson memorials-and then there is Jefferson!- is at least as surprising as those to the gentlemanly and courteous Lee.
I’ve always thought of Jefferson as a splendid example of the gentleman genius. However, all of the others pale before the complexity of Andrew Jackson. Jackson: A murderous war criminal, loving husband, valiant solder, superb leader, devout patriot, and a man possessed by a righteous lust for revenge. The British murdered his father, and brother with starvation, and mistreatment while they were imprisoned in a concentration camp. New Orleans was his pay back. We could continue on Jackson for pages, and never begin to unravel his mystery.
Slaves have always existed until the 19th century. All civilizations had slaves; Greec, Romans, Byzantin, Ottoman, even the Africans had slaves. Will you destroy churches in Athens, Rome and marble statues of Roman emperors because they owned slaves ? Will you detest Africans nowadays, because their own chiefs sold their population to Arabs who brought them to African harbors where Dutch, Portuguese and Eglishmen shipped them to America? History is history and times change. In Athens and Rome was pedosexuality very normal too. Will you detest nowadays Greec and Italian people for that ? Will you destroy their heritage for… Read more »
Slaves have always existed until the 19th century. All civilizations had slaves; Greec, Romans, Byzantin, Ottoman, even the Africans had slaves. Will you destroy churches in Athens, Rome and marble statues of Roman emperors because they owned slaves ? Will you detest Africans nowadays, because their own chiefs sold their population to Arabs who brought them to African harbors where Dutch, Portuguese and Eglishmen shipped them to America? History is history and times change. In Athens and Rome was pedosexuality very normal too. Will you detest nowadays Greec and Italian people for that ? Will you destroy their heritage for… Read more »
Slaves exist to this very ‘second’ in Islamic dominated countries…and history IS history…eradicating it is the surest way to repeat it next to ‘modifying’ or altering to suit ones ‘convenience’…some people are too stupid to understand this…
A indepth course in history would help sort out your mythology.