THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN WEST – THE FALL OF THE SECULAR WEST

It has almost become a career-killer for a professor to laud the fruits of the Christian faith. Instead, it is common to hear about how Christianity is the source of almost every evil, even a major obstacle to scientific advancement. As these errant ideas take root in the now secular West, people are more tempted than ever to abandon the church. Therefore, a counter-narrative should be considered.

Historian Rodney Stark writes that:

• The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians (The Victory of Reason, xi)

Secularism is often erroneously associated with science and scientific advancement. However, regarding the Scientific Revolution, Stark writes:

• Some wonderful things were achieved in this era, but they were not produced by an eruption of secular thinking. Rather, these achievements were the culmination of many centuries of systematic progress by medieval Scholastics, sustained by that uniquely Christian twelfth century invention, the university. Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable – the rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars. (12)

Many people cite Greece and Rome as proof that democracy has little to do with Christianity and even that our democratic roots aren’t Christian but Classical. However Stark reflects that:

• The rules that Plato laid out concerning the proper treatment of slaves were unusually brutal, for he believed not that becoming a slave was simply a matter of bad luck but that nature creates a “slavish people” lacking the mental capacity for virtue or culture, and fit only to serve. (26)

Consequently, only the worthy were suitable for Greek “democracy.” Aristotle likewise:

• Drew upon Plato’s biological claims – slavery is justified because slaves are more akin to dumb brutes than to free men: “From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” (27)

In contrast, democracy finds its sufficient and enduring foundation in the Biblical concept of human respect and our essential equality, as the third century Christian theologian L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius wrote:

• The second constituent of Justice is equality. I mean this…in the sense of treating others as one’s equals…For God who gives being and life to men wished us all to be equal…But someone will say, “Don’t you have poor and rich”…Not at all! This is precisely the reason that we address one another as “Brother,” since we believe that we are one another’s equals [despite the superficial differences]. Since human worth is measured in spiritual and not in physical terms, we ignore our various physical situations: slaves are not slaves to us, but we treat them and address them as brothers in the spirit, fellow slaves in devotion to God. Wealth, too, is no ground for distinction, except insofar as it provides the opportunity for preeminence in good works. To be rich is not a matter of having, but of using riches for the tasks of justice…By conducting oneself not merely as the equal of one’s inferiors, but as their subordinate, one will attain a far higher rank of dignity in God’s sight. (77-78)

It is no surprise that, given the Classical understanding of humanity, democracy couldn’t endure long. Sadly, now as our Christian roots are decaying, so too are our democratic principles and productivity. Stark concludes:

• Without a theology committed to reason, progress and moral equality, today the entire world would be about where non-European societies were in, say, 1800: A world with many astrologers and alchemists but no scientists. A world of despots, lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos. A world where most infants do not live to the age of five…The modern world arose only in Christian societies. Not in Islam. Not in Asia. Not in a “secular” society – there having been none. And all the modernization that has since occurred outside Christendom was imported from the West, often brought by colonizers and missionaries. (233) 

It is amazing that these same “apostles” of secularism continue to confidently wave the banner of “progress” as the West implodes.

The West is experiencing an auto-immune reaction. It has virulently turned against its own roots. In its arrogance, it believes that it can create a superior world by demolishing the old. For example, it has replaced Christian mercy missions with secular NGOs. However, in an article entitled “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God,” British Journalist and professed atheist, Matthew Parris, argues that to “leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete” instead of Christian missionaries is an act of violence:

·       “Africa needs God…Missionaries, not aid money… [They] are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem—the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.”

·       “Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good” (50).

·       “Christians, black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.”

According to Parris, there are hardcore secularists who will not give credit where the credit is due. However, Parris, who had spent his childhood in Malawi, knows otherwise:

·        “It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my worldview, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/as-an-atheist-i-truly-believe-africa-needs-god-3xj9bm80h8m

The West too is “trying to banish” this belief. It does not want to be reminded of the fact that the supporting institutions of the West had been built with Christian hands. The vast majority of colleges founded in the USA were founded by Christians for Christian purposes:

·       Of our 119 first colleges and universities, 104 were founded to teach biblical values…Even public universities commonly had Christian roots. (Michael Hickerson, Hickerson.com)

These same schools have not only disowned any association with their Christian roots, they have turned virulently against the mother who birthed them. Meanwhile, some non-Western scholars look incredulously on. Former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson, in a review in the Sunday Times of Niall Ferguson's new book, “Civilisation: The West and the Rest,” carries a quote from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in which explains the success of the West”:

·       He said: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.

·       We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

·       Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

·       But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful.

·       The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

Note the source. It isn't from a religious leader or a religious think-tank. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an instrument of the Chinese Communist government, which spends a considerable amount of time and money persecuting Christians and is officially atheistic. If this is the conclusion it has come to, perhaps the West needs to reconsider its own biases.

Just to drive home the point, Lawson also refers to the fact that Wenzhou, the Chinese city which is rated as the most entrepreneurial in the country, is also home to 1,400 churches.

Lawson refers to a quote in the book from a prominent Wenzhou business leader, a Mr Hanping Zhang, who argues that “an absence of trust had been one of the main factors holding China back; but he feels he can trust his fellow Christians because he knows that they will be honest in their dealings with him.”

Trust must be the cornerstone for business, development, and all of our endeavors. However, it is a child that Secularism believes it can rear without her mother.

***

A recent graduate from Yale Divinity School had expressed her outrage at this “chauvinistic” thinking: “You have no right to claim that Christianity has borne better fruit than other religions or cultures.” She then cited its predictable catalogue of misdeeds – the witch trials, the Crusades, colonialism, and even the World Wars.

However, even today, the fading Christian West is still regarded as foremost according to many measures like justice and social justice. If this is so, we have to ask “why.” If it is because of its Christian roots, we have to examine why these roots have so nourished us. Could it be that these roots are being fed by the wellsprings of a God who loves us and is showing us off to the world as an example of His love?

If this is so, then we should expect to see the drying-up of this wellspring as the Christian faith is rejected and marginalized. This is exactly what we find in cycles of decay – revival – decay, as the next chapter illustrates.