The Victory of Reason

Post Christmas and no doubt the Salvation Army and other good Samaritan organizations are inundated with calls for food parcels, budgeting services and emergency payouts from Government departments as people blowout their personal budgets.

Sadly, it is not only these services that will be in demand in the aftermath. There will no doubt be an increase in workload for grief councillors and therapy, legal services, coroners, and the emergency services- police, fire and ambulance- will all be heavily engaged as the consequence of people embracing the "festive" season with overmuch gusto. The careless, the substance abusers, delinquents and stressed out people not only kill themselves and others on our roads, they do it at our beaches and in our maritime environment. The over exuberance also culminates in our homes as domestic violence peaks.

How this has affected us on a personal level started with a simple phone call on Boxing Day. An unfamiliar voice on the other end was trying to contact a local church official to get a food parcel. Somehow our number was dialled. She offered no indication of how she had got into the predicament of having no food, not even bathroom tissue- and I didn't ask. I got some details from the distressed woman and then spoke with my family about it. Our conscience was pricked, our philanthropic impulses swung into action.

As I drove with my two Latin American son-in-laws to the supermarket they both spoke of their shared desire to bring other extended members of the family to this country imbued with Western values. They recognized the value of security, opportunity and the shared egalitarian ideals that permeate our society. Of course it isn't perfect, but nonetheless they seemed to appreciate the difference from the perspective of their own respective cultures- Chile and Colombia.

Why is it that, as a culture, our own people seem unable to appreciate all the good that Western culture promulgates? Why is it that as a culture we seem to be all too eager to cut from the roots the very influence that has infused us with these inestimably valuable ideals?

In recent decades movies have been replete with stories of the West raping and pillaging not only indigenous cultures, but also the local resources to such an extent that we seem to collectively wear a guilt complex as if nothing good ever came of Western influences. We not only forced "white man's religion" on other cultures, we introduced alcohol, sophisticated tools of war, disease, greed and all manner of evils not the least of which was colonialism. All of which maybe true- to some extent. But what is overlooked- in fact studiously ignored- is the good that came along with it. The benefits that so influenced for good, and to such an extent that countries and cultures infused with Western culture became the envy of the world.

John M. Njoroge gives a telling example of this cultural influence for good:

So profound was the transformation of British society that Bertrand Russell, one of the most prominent and influential atheists of the last century, could later write, “It is doubtful that the method of Mahatma Gandhi would have succeeded except that he was appealing to the conscience of a Christianized people.” The process of Christianization did not occur by accident but as the result of a careful understanding of the Scriptures and the application of God’s Word to all of life. The Christian leaders who had laid the foundation for the moral rebuilding of their nation understood what a community of committed believers should produce: people of deep seated character and integrity who can discern the times in which they live and who can influence others, including their leaders, not only to become believers but also to live their lives and conduct their Christian witness with biblical wisdom in spite of cultural pressure to the contrary.

An overtly public and outspoken atheist of enormous influence extols the virtue of a Christianized country which made it possible for a renowned Hindu leader to realize his goal of independence for India! Think of the incongruity of it all, the unlikeliness of it happening in any other circumstance...

Conversely we have had a complete diet of stories extolling the virtues of native religions, values and conservation ethics- but how accurate is that? What species became extinct from exploitation quite apart from "white devils" influence? What resources were killed over because of their perceived value, before ever a white man set foot on the land? When people express a genuine desire to "return to their roots" and "retrace the old paths" is it not with Christian values? Do they not forgo killing each other for revenge? Do they not forgo raiding parties for fresh wives? Have they not given up cannibalism, human sacrifice, witchcraft,and all manner of other harmful traditions like female genital mutilation, binding women's feet, self immolation, burning alive the wife alongside the body of the deceased husband? Truth be told these were very much a part of the old ways, and such has gone on in all societies from time immemorial.

The history of migration patterns tells the truth. Why are we so blind to it all?

The visionary C.S. Lewis, in his classic work "Mere Christianity" gave us valuable insight into this problem:

"A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet."

Although in this instance he was speaking of his personal antagonism towards the idea of the existence of God because of the obvious problem of all the injustice in the world- the idea carries over perfectly into our current discussion. The real issue that connects the two is subjectivism. The simple reality is that our nearness to our own culture prevents us from viewing it objectively. We cannot see the wood for the trees.

The two young men that are now part of our family had no difficulty in appreciating the benefits of our culture because they came from cultures that were significantly different. Comparison is key. Lewis presses the point home:

"A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line."

I suppose there are in fact two invaluable sources that ought to be considered touchstones- vital reference points- in objectively weighing Western culture. One we have already deferred to, the question of Geography, the simple advantage of being born or raised in a different culture gives one a far more nuanced and objective appreciation of the western way of life. It goes without saying that it also works the other way round, the dark side of western culture is also all too apparent to them. But I cannot help but notice- with its weaknesses and vices- of which there are all too many, these people still want their families to come and join them. Not just because of a natural desire for familial closeness- but because they instantly recognize that it will be "better" for them.

But this ability, this advantage of being born in a different part of the world in order to appreciate another culture, as well as being able to more objectively recognize its weaknesses, gives rise to other questions:

If they are able to recognize both its strengths and its weaknesses- does it not reveal that they are weighing the societies values against the desire stemming from an ideal?  A transcendent standard? A perfect culture? A culture that currently exists only within the imagination? Where does this come from? Again we return to C.S. Lewis and his railing against the existence of God because of all the injustice present in the world. He questioned the source of his ideal of perfect justice and realized that this idea had to come from a perfect being. This inbuilt desire for a perfect culture- could it be the desire for heaven? Lewis develops this further and it becomes his "Argument From Desire"

Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft delineates the argument:

• Premise 1: Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire. 
• Premise 2: But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy. 
• Conclusion: Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire. 

This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever."

Lewis thus sums it up:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

But, I digress. I have said that there are two important reference points from which we can more objectively evaluate western culture, or any culture for that matter. We have seen that geography or "place" is one of those dimensions. The other is History or time. Time and place are all important.

For that perspective, we turn now to Historian Rodney Stark, and I want to introduce his work by referring to a communication I received from "The Chuck Colson Centre For Christian Worldview" and an archived piece by Chuck Colson reviewing Rodney Stark's "The Victory Of Reason- Christianity And The Rise Of The West" with an introduction by Eric Metaxas:

Although Western cultural elites deny it, non-Westerners know full well that the key to the West's success over the centuries is Christianity.
This is Eric Metaxas. It never ceases to amaze me how modern western secularists are doing all in their power to purge Christianity from public life. As Chuck Colson told me once, “They’re sawing off the branch they’re sitting on.”

 Today on BreakPoint, we re-air a broadcast from 2006 in which Chuck explains the fact that the freedoms and scientific progress we enjoy in the West are due to the West’s embrace of Christianity. Here’s Chuck.

Chuck Colson:

When you hear the word “globalization,” you probably think of Chinese factories or customer service centers in India. What you probably don’t think about is Christianity. Yet globalization and Christianity are linked in ways you may never have imagined.
Globalization is about more than markets and technology. It’s also about the spread across national boundaries of ideas and values—in other words, culture. While the spread and exchange of culture flows in many different directions, the ideas and values most associated with globalization are those of the West.
And this is where Christianity comes in. In his marvelous book,The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, Rodney Stark writes that “Christianity created Western Civilization.” Without Christianity’s commitment to “reason, progress, and moral equality, today the entire world would be about where non-European societies were in, say, 1800.”
This would be a world “with many astrologers and alchemists but no scientists. A world of despots, lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos.” The “modern world,” to which globalization aspires, “arose only in Christian societies. Not in Islam. Not in Asia. Not in a ‘secular’ society—there having been none.”
Needless to say, Stark’s conclusions aren’t popular with academics and other intellectuals and have been savaged by liberal reviewers. These folks are all too happy to blame Christianity for some of the darker episodes in Western history, but they’re not about to give the faith credit for Western success.
No matter. Non-westerners see the connection. For example, Chinese scholars were asked to “look into what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.” After considering possible military, economic, political and cultural explanations, they concluded that the answer lay in what the Chinese scholars saw as the “heart” of the West’s pre-eminent culture: Christianity.
These non-Christian and non-western scholars had “no doubt” that “the Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and the successful transition to democratic politics.”
Apparently, many of their countrymen agree. Whereas there were approximately 2 million Christians in China when 'sMao came to power in 1949, today there are upwards of 100 million. What’s more, Christianity is especially popular among the “best-educated” and most modern Chinese.
Why? Because like people everywhere, except, ironically, in the West, they see Christianity as “intrinsic to becoming modern.” For them, Christianity is an alternative to a way of life that bred misery and oppression. They understand Christianity’s role in the rise of the West, even as Western elites deny the connection.
Of course, this isn’t the primary reason that Christianity is “becoming globalized far more rapidly than is democracy, capitalism or modernity.” That is due to the proclamation of the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Still, it’s a powerful reminder of how Christianity transforms not only individual lives but entire societies as well.
(This commentary first aired on June 29, 2006).

It would be easy for some to dismiss this as perhaps coincidence, an accident of history, but history has a way of winning arguments if you are willing to set aside cherished ideas and listen with any sense of objectivity. The Chinese scholar's attempts to define the secret ingredient to the "success of the West" is by no means an isolated hiccup in unravelling the mysteries of progress, as Alexis De Toqueville exemplified by eloquently reporting back to the French Senate in the 1800's:

" I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets, and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul- elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave." – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian reporting to the French Senate, (circa 1800)

Still, as history also shows, those that do not heed its lessons are bound to repeat its mistakes. France is now in the unenviable position, as a result of it's extreme liberal politics especially exacerbated by its immigration policies, in now having to beg it's Jewish patriots to either stay in France, or come back to it. All of which is in order to offer some much needed balance to a burgeoning problem which largely stems from a power vacuum caused by secular liberal politics that a particularly strident mix of extremist Islamic factions have been all too ready to exploit.

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy and the targeting of French Jews, French Prime Minister Manuel Vals expressed the desire to maintain the ideals of the French Republic experiment:

"If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure,” Valls said ahead of a memorial rally in honor of those killed in France in recent days.

If France is now lamenting the loss of the Judeo/Christian voice in its political life, what must we think of Great Britain who appears only now to be waking up from the nightmarish effects of an over zealous liberality that made no distinction between extremist Islam and other religions. They too, would do well to remember the lessons of history.

Christopher Bone writes in the Journal of British Studies:

In the past 120 years every state in Europe, except Britain and Sweden, has undergone revolution, invasion, foreign occupation, national liberation, civil war or military coups d'état. What, it may be asked, is the British secret? This question, posed by the contemporary British historian E. J. Hobsbawm was debated by many French historians in the 19th century. The most persuasive attempt to answer this question has come in the works of twentieth century French historian, Elie Halévy.

Encyclopedia Brittanica:

Élie Halévy, (1870-1937), French historian, author of the best detailed general account of 19th-century British history, Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle, 6 vol. (1913–47; A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century). This great work traces the political, economic, and religious developments in Britain after 1815.

While the French Revolution kept the blades of the guillotine descending apace on the heads of the French aristocracy, the very same social upheavals that fuelled the fires of passion burning in the revolutionists, were threatening the status quo in England.

Historian, Élie Halévy:

"If economic facts explain the course taken by the human race," he wrote, "the England of the nineteenth century was surely, above all other countries, destined to revolution, both politically and religiously."

What then, circumvented this inevitable revolution?

Encyclopedia Brittanica:

Halévy was particularly concerned with the rise of nonconformity, and he sought to show that what was basic to the British conception of liberty was a spirit of voluntary obedience.

Nonconformity, as the reader will no doubt appreciate, is the name given to the Protestant movement of dissent with the Anglican Church led by John Wesley, George Whitfield and others. Wesley had been summed up as:

"One of the architects of modern England" 

As many Western nations rush headlong into removing the historically privileged place of Christianity from all forms of public and political life, is it not time to rethink? If Christianity has proven a reliable source of social stability and a fence to ward off all manner of evils, is it not time to heed the wisdom of G.K Chesterton who said:

“Whenever you remove any fence, always ... pause long enough to ask yourself the question, 'Why was it put there in the first place?'”

We delivered our groceries, and asked the lady if she would like to be prayed for, she agreed and after brief prayer we left.

A trolley full of groceries will satiate the hunger for a while, only for it to return, she will experience hunger again. Then what? Our prayer is that she begins to recognize a desire for that "bread" that takes away the leanness of soul. Extrapolate that to a whole culture and we begin to see where we are at. The clamour for things that don't really satisfy. Like the cordial that is designed to instigate thirst, we need to be questioning our need for "junk food" as a culture. We need to recognize that though we may be replete with goods that bloat our bodies, on the inside there is a serious malnutrition that is killing us.