Ahmad Alshakargi

HIST 1110

1. In “Freedom of Christian,” (1520) Martin Luther discuss the deep meaning of faith, and what does influence the inner man in producing Christian righteousness and freedom.

Faith is not something that’s easy to understand, like a lot of people think, and it does give the human great courage and strength; once they experience it. Martin Luther himself thinks that he doesn’t have a wealth in faith, but he thinks that he attained a little of faith. The inner man is not influenced by the external things in producing Christian righteous and freedom. The sacred robes that adorn the body of the priest doesn’t help the soul, and neither the scared duties like prays, fasts, or any kind of physical work by the body can help the soul to produce the righteousness or freedom.

There is only one thing that produces the righteousness and freedom, and it the word of god “or the Bible.” As the Christ says, Matt. 4 [:4], “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This firmly established that if the Word of God is missing, there is no help at all for the soul. The soul become rich and lack nothing since it is the Word of life, truth, glory, grace, and incalculable blessing. Since there are so many Words of God, you make ask, “How it shall be used?” To preach Christ means to feed the soul, make it righteous, set it free, and save it. Faith alone is defined as the saving and practical using of the Word of God. Therefore, souls needs only the Word of God, so it justified by faith and not any other work. If you believe in Christ, you may become a “new man” through this faith, and the sins are forgiven and justified by the worthiness of another, or, of Christ alone.

I, personally think that this document is very well written, but it has not quite reached its purpose at some of the points. The main purpose of the document to educate the reader about the true meaning of the faith, and how can using the Word of God influence on producing the righteousness and freedom inside the soul. The document does reach to all of these points, but it doesn’t specifically describe the using of Word of God, what makes the reader finish reading it with some confusing about it, and by considering it as just an opinion. On the other side, this document merits the inclusion in this anthology, because this one of the issue that we have talked about a lot during the reformation period, but we have finished it by understanding that “justification is by faith,” and we haven’t went so deep into that, and this article explain it more deeply and help us understand the issue more. However, this class remains as a history class and it not essential to include a deeply religious document like this; it may need more deeply historical documents instead, about this issue.

2. The Political Cartoon ( n/a , 1815) describe a very critical deep imagination picture which describes the struggle that French people faced under the control of monarchy, or “Louis XVI.”

The picture shows a weak naked chained man carrying three people on his back. The first person is a short man who’s holding a whip and riding the naked weak guy. This person is meant to be the king “Louis XVI,” who carelessly ruling the country for himself, and without caring about the people. The person next to him is the Pope, and he’s holding two papers which describe his powers, the inquisition and the church annual taxes. Behind the pope sits a Judge, who’s being proud of the nobility domination of the regional court, which is “the parliaments.”

This entire load is being charged and loaded on the naked man, who’s the French people. The situation of French people in that period is exactly like the naked man, they were tired, emaciated, controlled under the chains of monarchy, and they were like blindfolded by the rulers of their country. This picture was published in 1815, after the French Revolution ended and it impacted on the French people.

I think that this picture should have been described more specifically in the article, but it have reached its purpose very clearly, because of the picture. The purpose was to connect each figure in the picture with its meaning, and this was very clear and specifically described “inside the picture,” but the article should have needed more description on each part of the picture. In addition, this article definitely merits the inclusion in this anthology, because it covers a very important periodical era that caused the French Revolution to start.

3. In august 1789, the National Assembly releases The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and James Robinson wrote this document in 1906, talking describing these rights.

The National Assembly believed that the ignorance of rights of man is the main reason of the corruption of government, and they have set forth the declaration of natural and sacred rights of man. In order for that, all the members should be reminded of their rights, and the executive power can compared with the object and purpose of all other political institution at any time. Therefore, the national assembly hasproclaimed the rights of man and citizens; under the auspices of the Supreme Being.

These rights stated that all men born and remain free and have equal rights. Also, the main thing that political association is aiming for is the preservation of rights of man; which are liberty, security, and resistance. The principle of authority or “sovereignty is essential, and no individual can exercise any kind of authority, if it doesn’t proceed directly from the nation. Liberty gives the freedom rights for everyone to do everything that doesn’t harm anyone else, but these rights have limits that can only determined by law. In addition, law is the expression of the general will, and it can only forbid actions that harmful to society, no one can be forced to do anything not provided by law. No person can get accused, arrested or punished, except in the cases prescribed by law, and every person is held innocent, until they have been declared guilty. The free communication of ideas and opinion is very important also, but every person should be responsible for abuses of this freedom. Every property has inviolable and sacred rights, and no one can be deprived from it, except when public necessity clearly demands it, and only when the owner has been equitably indemnified.

I think that this article was written in a very complicated way to follow, but the purpose of it was very clearly, and it was only to inform reader about the rights of man of citizen. Also, this was one the most important things that have been discussed during the French revolution that is being described more specifically, and it definitely merits the inclusion in this anthology.

4. In “Klasskamrater (classmates),” (January 22, 2001). Lefi Zetterling draws a picture that depicts the European Union as a classroom, and its political leaders as children.

The children in the classroom represents the prime ministers of Italy, Finland, Luxemburg, Netherland, Sweden (he’s being described as a big figure sitting on the teacher’s desk), Germany, Spain, Denmark, France, Ireland, and Swedish minister of foreign affairs (being described as the girl at the chalkboard). During this cartoon was drawn, Lindh (the Swedish minister) was the chairman for the council of the European Union. On September 10, 2003, she was assassinated, (a few days before the swedes vote on the euro). The rest of the people in class are the prime ministers of Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, and the former prime minister of Italy (who’s now the president of the European Commission.

At the left of the classroom (at the window), there are the counties that got excluded from the EU, and flag; from left to right, are Romania to Turkey. Romania and Bulgaria was admitted to the EU in 2007, Estonia became member in 2004, Malta became member in 2004, and also Slovenia and Slovakia became member states in 2004. Turkey entry is still under negotiation, and the EU membership now includes twenty-seven countries.

I think that this article is very well described, but it didn’t reach the purpose of the article. Besides telling who are the figures in the picture, there should be description the reason of behavior each child “or national leader” is doing, because they’re not all setting normally, and there’s a specific reason for each act they do. However, I cannot really decide if it merit the inclusion in this anthology, because we have reached this time era yet, and I don’t know how well is the European union issue discussed and important in the book.

References (listed from the Sources of the Making of the West: People and Culture, Since 1500)

1. Martin Luther, Christian Liberty, ed. Harold Grimm (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 6-10

3. James Harvey Robinson, Reading in European History, Vol. II (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1906), 409-11

4. Leif Zetterling. Courtesy of Leif Zetterling; From the Professional Cartoonist Index: