The Valley Forge Chapel

The most spectacular sight to see at Valley Forge is the Chapel. This is an extremely wierd building that you really have to see to believe. It mixes American history with religion to such an extent that it puts new meaning to that term "civil religion. " I have always been interested in the American phenomenon of considering anything related to our country's founding as sacred. The Declaration is a sacred document. The Founders are like deities in a way. We refer to them as Founding fathers, extending the patriachical symbolism that we create when we refer to God as the father.

In the Valley Forge Chapel George Washington is Jesus Christ. It's an Episcopal Church and there are not a lot of images of Jesus, or crosses. Instead there are images of Washington, continentel soldiers, colonial flags. The number thirteen is repeated throughout the structure as a reference to the thirteen colonies. The stained glass windows depict scenes from the American Reovlution.

For me the Valley Forge Chapel represents someting that I have been interested in for a long time; the equation of americanism with protestantism. America was founded on millenialist ideals, many in the colonial era believed the America would be where Christ returned, and during the revolution writers like Thomas Paine painted the war as a struggle between good and evil. The Chapel portrays the revolution as just this kind of struggle. In fact Valley Forge is in many ways viewed as a part of this struggle. The Continental Army is laid up there suffering all winter before emerging to carry on the struggle for independence. Through suffering they are able to combat evil. This is a christian notion if there ever was one, and that idea is represented visually over the entire Valley Forge Chapel.