As many of you know the first week of our trip was originally supposed to be in North Africa. The point of this first week was for ‘cultural immersion’. Many of the people we came into contact with in France came from North Africa or North African descent, so the trip leaders thought it would be wise to take us to North Africa and be exposed to them there. Due to the change in plans we ended up spending the majority of the first week in the south of France doing ‘cultural immersion’. However, instead of being exposed to strictly North African culture, we were exposed to different facets of French culture and history each day. On the 18th, the focus was on the Roman influence in France.
We woke up around 5:20, which was not a problem for me since I had fallen asleep the night before around 8:30. We ate croissants in the center for breakfast and made sandwiches for ourselves for lunch. We the loaded up two vans and headed down three hours south to the Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is the site of a Roman aqueduct. We walked through a museum that gave us a very thorough history of how Rome came to rule in southern France and the impact that has on the modern day French. We also learned how they made aqueducts and why there is an aqueduct there. We then left the museum and walked out to where the aqueduct was and saw the beautiful site. It was huge! After taking some pictures we ate lunch.
After lunch we drove for about 20 minutes to the city of Nimes. In Nimes we visited another Roman amphi- theater, but this one was much larger than the one in Lyon. At the amphitheater we were given little MP3 devices that would guide us through the amphitheater and tell us about the different things that went on there. Not only did this amphitheater hold real gladiator fights, but it also was a place of Christian persecution and martyrdom. This tour reminded me once again of why this area of the world is so lost. I was unaware that intense Christian persecution went all the way back to the 3-4th century in France. I knew of the French Revolution and how the French had harbored hatred for the Catholic Church for hundreds of years prior. I knew there was intense persecution of Protestants in the 16-17th century (we learned more about this the next day). But I was unaware of the roots of this persecution back in the Roman era. As I began to process this it made sense that France is now basically split up into two groups. The first is the typical Frenchman who accepts atheism and postmodernism as truth. Though this group is emotionally Catholic, they are not practicing and are generally hostile to evangelistic efforts. The second group in France is North African immigrants. The number of North African immigrants is soaring in France and they bring their cultural and religious traditions with them. As we left the amphitheater, my heart was broke for the people of France. We then went to our hotel in the south and had a little bit of downtime to get settled in. We looked for a French place to eat but nothing was feasible on this night due to our late arrival so we ate a Chinese buffet. After dinner we stayed and talked for a long time (which ended being what happened at every dinner, it’s French culture). We had a very interesting conversation about what actually makes up a church. It was fairly late when we got back to the room so I got right to bed.
We woke up around 5:20, which was not a problem for me since I had fallen asleep the night before around 8:30. We ate croissants in the center for breakfast and made sandwiches for ourselves for lunch. We the loaded up two vans and headed down three hours south to the Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is the site of a Roman aqueduct. We walked through a museum that gave us a very thorough history of how Rome came to rule in southern France and the impact that has on the modern day French. We also learned how they made aqueducts and why there is an aqueduct there. We then left the museum and walked out to where the aqueduct was and saw the beautiful site. It was huge! After taking some pictures we ate lunch.
After lunch we drove for about 20 minutes to the city of Nimes. In Nimes we visited another Roman amphi- theater, but this one was much larger than the one in Lyon. At the amphitheater we were given little MP3 devices that would guide us through the amphitheater and tell us about the different things that went on there. Not only did this amphitheater hold real gladiator fights, but it also was a place of Christian persecution and martyrdom. This tour reminded me once again of why this area of the world is so lost. I was unaware that intense Christian persecution went all the way back to the 3-4th century in France. I knew of the French Revolution and how the French had harbored hatred for the Catholic Church for hundreds of years prior. I knew there was intense persecution of Protestants in the 16-17th century (we learned more about this the next day). But I was unaware of the roots of this persecution back in the Roman era. As I began to process this it made sense that France is now basically split up into two groups. The first is the typical Frenchman who accepts atheism and postmodernism as truth. Though this group is emotionally Catholic, they are not practicing and are generally hostile to evangelistic efforts. The second group in France is North African immigrants. The number of North African immigrants is soaring in France and they bring their cultural and religious traditions with them. As we left the amphitheater, my heart was broke for the people of France. We then went to our hotel in the south and had a little bit of downtime to get settled in. We looked for a French place to eat but nothing was feasible on this night due to our late arrival so we ate a Chinese buffet. After dinner we stayed and talked for a long time (which ended being what happened at every dinner, it’s French culture). We had a very interesting conversation about what actually makes up a church. It was fairly late when we got back to the room so I got right to bed.
We do not often associate Christian martyrdom with amphitheatres in France, but rather in Rome. So this is a revelation.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your commentary shows that the rift between Christianity and atheism goes back a long way in France.
Very interesting!