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Vacation in Williamsburg

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Last week, my family and I had the opportunity to spend a week in Williamsburg, Virginia for our vacation. We had a great time. Being a history buff, I especially enjoyed the time in Colonial Williamsburg and visiting the historic sites of this past capital of Virginia.

The days can get pretty warm there and it is pretty rough on younger children to spend all day at the place, so we tend to generally take in things in "chunks" instead - in other words, go a few hours at time and then go swimming or something else. We did spend a couple of longer days on Monday and Friday, but overall we had a great time. The children really enjoy the activities at the end of the day, as they are generally military in nature and include the marching and the fife and drums and some type of shooting.

On Friday, Josiah and I had the opportunity to sit on some re-enactments of some actual items before the court of that day. We were seated in the jury (although none of the items on the docket were actually jury trials) and we able to see how various types of issues may have been resolved in that day.

I found the petitioning of the court for permission to have a Presbyterian Meeting House to be particularly interesting. The Chief Judge reminded the petitioner that, while they could have a meeting house due to the Act of Toleration, there were some things they could not do - such as have meetings and night and proselytize. It is important to remember, of course, that there was a "State Church" at this time in Virginia, as the Anglican Church was the official church. The concern for prosolytizing (or "fishing" as the judge also called it) was because they may take members away from the official state church. Today, we are finding an increased objection to "proselytizing" as well, and I wonder if at least part of that objection has to do with the fact that in witnessing, we may be seeing fruit among those who are part of our nation's current (but unofficial) state religion - radical secular humanism.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our family vacationed there last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it--despite the intense heat you mentioned.

Tis true that there is an increasing objection to proselytizing. We are not guaranteed to always have the freedoms we now enjoy. I fear for my children and the America they will grow up to live in.