Here’s my claim: believing in the American Revolution takes almost as much faith as it does to believe in Jesus. Something I’ve been thinking about for a while, because when you think about it, they’re pretty similar cases.
Similarities:
Neither are here for us to see right now. How can I believe in something that I can’t see? 😉
But you CAN see the results of each very clearly. America is here, so there was a revolution. The Church is here, so there was Jesus.
You can also see physical clues to them as well. There are muskets and clothes and documents (like the Declaration of Independence) left over from the American Revolution. Well, there are fragments of the cross and the Shroud of Turin and writings by people like Flavius Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities:
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.”
In addition, you can go to the actual places where both the Revolution took place and Jesus lived.
There’s the testimonies of people like George Washington of the War. Well, there’s also testimonies of Jesus’ closest friends and followers of Him, the Gospels and Epistles.
Difference:
Jesus was Resurrected. That’s a miracle. As difficult as it was for the Americans to fend off the British, it wasn’t a miracle in the same way. One of the most powerful ways for me in believing it is that Jesus’ closest friends all died for that very reason, their belief in the Resurrection and that He was God. If it was just a good trick, I doubt they would have died really horrible deaths like that, they would have just laughed it off and said “haha, joke’s over guys, we were just kidding.”
What do you think? Anything I missed?
Thoughts from a Catholic 