Last week two different monuments, on opposite sides of the country, were destroyed by angry vandals, or rather – self-appointed, cultural abolitionists. Somehow, hundreds of years after they were erected, the stone figures of St. Junipero Serra in Santa Barbara and Francis Scott Key in Baltimore managed to offend the sensibilities of some self-righteous savages.
 

East coast, September 13th ~

Century-old Francis Scott Key monument defaced with ‘racist anthem’ in Baltimore ~
A 106-year-old statue honoring Star Spangled Banner writer Francis Scott Key was defaced in Baltimore early Wednesday.
 
Baltimore has seen a spat of vandalism targeting historical monuments in the past weeks including damage to a statue of Christopher Columbus. It also comes following the city’s overnight removal of four monuments linked to the Confederacy last month.

The statue was dedicated in 1911 to honor Key, an attorney who was being held captive aboard a British ship off Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, when he wrote what would later become America’s national anthem.

(The national anthem is suddenly “racist”? Who knew? There are a couple lines in the little-heard third stanza of Key’s original poem that seem to me rather incomprehensible, especially two hundred years removed from the historical context in which they were penned. And taken as part of the whole, it’s a wild stretch to claim that in the midst of a naval bombardment the man was suddenly moved to express an ugly racist sentiment.)

West coast, September 11th ~

Junipero Serra statue beheaded, splashed with red paint in Central California ~

A bronze statue of the Roman Catholic priest Junipero Serra at the Old Santa Barbara Mission was decapitated and doused with red paint on Sunday night or early Monday morning.
 
The statue, on the western side of the Central Coast property near the mission’s office, has since been covered with a tarp. The Santa Barbara mission has been called the “Queen of the Missions.”

The unfortunate sculpture represents Spanish missionary Juniper Serra who established nine missions in present-day California, his first one in 1769. For the “crime” of sharing the Gospel, and saving the eternal souls of thousands of native Americans, his marble effigy apparently deserves to be decapitated.

Serra was a Franciscan friar in the 18th century who founded nine of the state’s 21 missions. He was canonized as a saint in 2015 by Pope Francis — a decision that met criticism by those who believe Serra unfairly treated Native Americans. Some say that Serra “imposed” Christianity upon natives, forcing them convert and then work on building missions while relinquishing their traditions, customs, dress, and language in favor of Spanish ones.

 
Criticizing previous generations from the privileged, progressive perch of the 21st century is short-sighted and arrogant at best – heartlessly ignorant at worst. We can’t possibly imagine what trials, hardships and challenges people faced in previous centuries that informed their view of the world in their respective eras. And apparently there aren’t enough problems in our modern times for these malcontents to address, so they must revisit American history through the lens of their present-day perspective, find that no one meets their incredibly high standards, and assail their predecessors’ reputations – or their statues.
 

Were these dolts capable of critical thought and candid self-examination they would recognize human nature for what it is; deeply flawed – despite the best of intentions. This is evident not only by studying the rise and falls of civilizations over the centuries, but also by looking inward, at our very own daily failures and successes. Which of any of these – the collective or the individual – has ever been perfect?
 
As James M. Kushiner explained in a recent commentary, “America’s past is hardly without sin. But its sins are exposed and seen most clearly in the light of the eternal Word.”
 
The Christian worldview is the only one that makes sense of the human condition as we each experience it; imperfect, capable of incredible good – and incredible evil.
 
Obviously these mindless attacks on statuary are examples of our evil susceptibilities. But they’re also evidence of a culture in serious decline. We used to learn from the past and aspire to improve. Now we just rewrite history and destroy the present. The future looks grim.

 
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Related:
Up-date: 9-20-17 Added –
Hystorical Revisionism ~ An excellent article from Ken Blackwell at The Stream ~

Should we adopt the old Soviet technique of airbrushing out those who fall from favor?
 
[Regarding slavery:] (M)ost of those involved were decent people struggling with their natural imperfections, limited understanding, and deeply-established social constraints. Americans today make their own ugly moral compromises — with abortion, for instance […]
 
We need a statute of limitations on expecting historical figures to be perfect and prosecuting them for thought crimes […]
 
By refusing to acknowledge that we humans are all complex, fallen creatures progressives would deny us the ability to learn from history.