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Christendom and Western Civilization

Christendom and Western Civilization

Submitted by Admin on Fri, 2006-11-17 03:06.

Christendom and the Church
by Ryan Setliff

M. Stanton Evans observes that "[t]he conservative believes ours is a God-centered, and therefore an ordered, universe [and] that man's purpose is to shape his life to the patterns of order proceeding from the Divine center of life." 1 Conservative luminary Russell Kirk explains the conservative's acknowledgment of an immutable, transcendent Deity:

Christians know that there exists a supernatural power, which we can perceive only dimly with our imperfect senses: a Supreme Being, the creator of heaven and earth, all-powerful. And that Supreme Being, God, made mankind, as He made everything else; but for the human person. He has a special regard and a special mission. God created man in His own image. From time to time in history, God has revealed to man His power and His love. Slowly and painfully, an obscure desert people, the tribes of Israel, came to be aware of the nature of God; and through them, an understanding of God's majesty and intentions—so far as these things can be understood at all by mankind—was transmitted to the Christian world. To Moses on Mount Sinai, to prophets and saints, through miracles—and most important of all to the Christian, through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Redeemer—God made himself and his commandments known to mankind. In orthodox Christian doctrine, God became flesh in the person of Jesus, and suffered on the cross so that mankind might understand His nature and follow in His steps. 2

Christianity remains integral to the Western tradition. Whatever grandeur and greatness may be perceived in the uniquely Western tradition can only be fathomed by reflecting upon the underlying Christian foundation. As Pat Buchanan observed,

Religion is at the root of morality; and morality is the basis of law. Many decades ago, America's intellectual elite privately uttered its non serviam to the God of Christianity. America, meanwhile, continued to live off the inherited capital of the old faith. Now, the dissent from, and disbelief in, traditional Hebrew and Christian values and proscriptions is widespread. The routine deference once accorded the traditional churches is no longer profered.

The health of civil society and the preservation and continuity of traditional structures such as the family needs the sustenance of the church. Christopher Dawson, an independent English scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom opined:

Without Christianity, there would no doubt have been some kind of civilization in the West, but it would have been quite a different civilization from that which we knew; for it was only as Christendom—the society of Christian people—that the tribes and people and nations of the West acquired a common consciousness and sense of cultural and spiritual unity... 3

  1. Bozell, L. Brent, “Freedom or Virtue?,” Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative / Libertarian Debate. George W. Carey, ed., (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 1998), p. 22.
  2. Kirk, Russell, The American Cause, (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books , 2002), p. 20
  3. Evans, M. Stanton, The Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition, (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1994)
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The Puritans

Submitted by Cato the Younger on Mon, 2008-06-02 02:54.

"No man is more relevant to the present condition of Christianity than Jonathan Edwards."
—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Adobe AcrobatPlease utilize Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download the Adobe Acrobat PDF version of this book from Desiring God. A God-Entranced Vision of All Things

The pious Congregational minister Jonathan Edwards knew and preached the beauties of heaven as much as the terrors of damnation. He was a humble and joyful servant of God, striving to glorify God in his personal life and public ministry. His ministry serves a light to future generations. And his renown as a theologian and philosopher is well deserved. A God-Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor chronicles the theological work of the late Jonathan Edwards, and elucidates upon some of the core themes of Edwards' ministry. Lutheran theologian Robert W. Jenson calls Edwards "America's theologian."

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Bible and Government: Public Policy from a Christian Perspective

Submitted by Cato the Younger on Sat, 2008-05-10 08:58.

Bible and Government: Public Policy from a Christian Perspective by John Cobin, (Greenville, SC: Alertness Books, 2003), Softcover: 244 pages. $10.95.

Review by Ryan Setliff

Bible and Government: Towards A Scriptural Understanding of Civil Government

Bible and Government Public Policy from a Christian Perspective

Bible and Government: Public Policy from a Christian Perspective is written by a Christian public policy researcher. The author John Cobin essentially espouses a Jeffersonian libertarian political philosophy while adhering to biblical norms for proper social perspective. Recognizing the tyranny of good intentions and how public policy has gone awry, Cobin looks to alternatives to more state solutions for solving social problems. John Cobin who is presently an Investment Adviser has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University and a Masters in Economics from UC Santa Barbara. Well-versed in the Austrian and Public Choice schools of economic thought, Cobin offers an exceptional Christian perspective on law, government, authority, and public policy considerations. He esteems the vitality of the free-market, private property and constitutionally limited government to civil society. In modern times, the state has tediously concentrated a vast array of power, welding and abusing the power flamboyantly. The state has increasingly displaced and marginalized the traditional non-state institutions of family, church, neighborhood, and voluntary civil associations. Too often, both neoconservatives and statist liberals make the mistake of confusing the state with society (just like the Greeks of antiquity did.) So, Cobin offers a new paradigm to the worn-out status quo which seems posed to evolve into some sort of totalitarian democracy. One of the most prudent public policy considerations often entails not having a "public policy" on particular issue to begin with. By devolving responsibility back to the traditional institutions that have been encroached upon by the State, better solutions to social problems may be mete out. In an age of belligerent statism when more government is always posed as the solution to the various societal ills, Cobin is one of the few prudent policy gurus keen enough to pose civil society and market solutions.

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Western Civilization, the Christianity, and Modern Science

Submitted by paleoroundtable on Fri, 2008-01-11 22:26.
The alliance between Western Civilization, Christianity, and modern science is well documented but not well taught into today's public education system.
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The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

Submitted by Cato the Younger on Sun, 2007-02-11 06:05.
The Lost Soul of American Protestantism by D. G. Hart, Paperback: 232 pages. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), Retail $24.95, Amazon.com: $21.46.

Review by Ryan Setliff

The Lost Soul of American Protestantism The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

D.G. Hart offers this provocative claim, "confessionalism is the lost soul of American Protestantism in the sense that scholars of American religion have largely ignored." His book The Lost Soul of American Protestantism offers a unique and fresh perspective on Protestant religion in the American culture and public life. The common contemporary dichotomy of American Protestantism between evangelicals (or fundamentalists) and modernists (or liberals) is an eggregious bit of reductionism, argues D.G. Hart. According to Hart, we need to take account of an oft-neglected category—namely confessional Protestants. As R. Laurence Moore writes in the introduction:

Hart is committed to what he calls confessional Protestantism—a neglected and almost defeated tradition in American religious history that he skillfully traces from "Old Line" Presbyterians of the eighteenth century to Missouri Synod Lutherans in the late twentieth century. It is grounded in Luther and Calvin and deeply tied to creeds, clergy, and liturgical ritual.
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