Americans have long cherished what has been described as a "special relationship" with Great Britain.
Our relationship with France? That's a bit more complicated.
It's true that France was in our corner from the start, serving as our principal military ally during our Revolution.
In 1876, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the French people declared their ongoing affection by sending us an extraordinary gift: the Statue of Liberty, which has become our nation's unofficial symbol of freedom.
French writer Alexis de Tocqueville extolled America's virtues in the early 1800's. In the opening decades of the 1900's, Paris became the creative home base for American writers like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and artists like Mary Cassatt and Gertrude Stein.
Many of America's most famous battles, such as Belleau Wood (World War I) and the D-Day invasion of Normandy (World War II), have been fought on French soil.
We wash down French fries and French toast with French wines.
Even a surprising number of communities in my home state of Indiana express admiration for France. There's Versailles (which Hoosiers unaccountably pronounce "Ver-SAILS");Terre Haute ("high ground"); Notre Dame ("Our Lady") and West Lafayette (French for "only Purdue’s football team could manage to be ranked 14th in the Big 10").
But there are other respects in which France and America have traveled very different paths.
The American Revolution of 1776 was lavishly successful and the envy of the world. The French Revolution of 1789, which in spirit was a conscious imitation of what had happened on our shores, was considerably more painful and disruptive. Historians widely regard it as the revolution that failed.
Groups of radicals vied with their rivals for control of the emerging new order in France. The Revolution quickly became self-destructive, then was swallowed whole by Napoleon’s dictatorship.
The status quo sometimes changed overnight. The king and queen were tried and executed. Tens of thousands of politically suspect citizens went to their deaths during the subsequent Reign of Terror. Maximilien Robespierre, who had orchestrated the Terror, was himself arrested and sent to the guillotine within 24 hours.
Along the way the French sought to throw off the shackles of everything that seemed to stand against the Revolutionary core values of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
For most of the revolutionaries, that meant the Church had to go.
Thus began what historians have called the “radical dechristianization” of France.
Churches became public property. Priests were relieved of their duties. Some were compelled either to join the Revolution or go to the guillotine. More than 1,400 streets in Paris were renamed in an effort to erase the memory of Catholic saints.
On November 10, 1793, the most famous church in France, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, was renamed the Temple of Reason. A popular opera star portrayed Liberty. Robed in white, she bowed to the flame of Reason at the very spot where Christ had been honored for over 600 years.
Whereas America has become arguably the most religious nation in the West over the past 200-plus years, France has arguably become the least.
In their search for a new source of meaning and purpose, the French have tried a little bit of everything.
After World War II, native sons Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus became the world’s most celebrated existentialists. When secularism became official government policy, religious garb of all kinds was banned from public schools – outraging immigrant Muslims. Today the country has more registered witches than Christian clergy.
It was hard not to notice the “anything-goes” spirit of last Friday evening’s opening ceremonies of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris. Let’s see how many feelings we can rankle. The official explanation of the drag queen diorama? It wasn’t lampooning DaVinci’s “Last Supper,” but represented the gods and goddesses of Olympus.
Which merely begs the question: What nation would spotlight pagan deities before an international audience with a troop of gender-bending actors? Only France.
Then came April 15, 2019.
Onlookers watched in horror as flames engulfed Notre Dame, long since reinstated as the Cathedral of Paris. Its medieval tower and wooden roof collapsed into the sanctuary.
Church officials admitted there was only a 50/50 chance the beautiful Gothic structure would ever be fully restored. Worldwide donations for the project have since topped $1 billion.
For many, the most poignant scenes during that time were Parisians holding lighted candles just outside the blackened walls of the church. Those weren’t just lovers of art and architecture. Many were worshipers, longing to offer praise to the God who has never been dethroned by fire or revolution.
It was a scene that touched the hearts of Americans and French alike. Tears flowed again when the ancient bells rang during last week’s opening ceremonies for the first time in almost 2,000 days – a renewed call to faith in a culture that has spent the past two centuries casting about for a spiritual Center.
In a demoralized world, we yearn for spiritual truth to throb at the center of public life.
The French philosopher Voltaire, who died in 1788 - just one year before the Revolution he helped inspire - once remarked that Christianity would no longer be taken seriously a century after his death.
By 1888 his own house had become, in part, a Bible distribution center.
It's a good bet that Voltaire himself would have smiled at that wonderful irony.
Not to mention the never-ending wonder that God, even when intentionally pushed outside the boundaries of a society, simply refuses to stay there.
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