Figure 1.-- In addition the monumental achievements of the West's Judeo-Christian ethic, there are also a range of social benefits including strenhthening society's family structure. And it is the family that is at the center of so many vital social issues like education, law obidence, drug avoidence, marriage, child care, income, and much more.

It is not just that Marx was so wrong about economics and religion. It is impact of the Judeo-Christian culture not Marxism that is in fact at at the heart of most of the central tennets of Western Civilization. The relation was not always obvious or direct. Western civilization is responsible for modern science, capitalism, democracy, protection of human rights, women's rights, the rule of law all emerged from Christian Europe and America. One of the great questions of history is why modernity did not emerge from China. For melenia. China not Europe was the richest most inventive society. So we are left with the question of why modernity and all the values we today hold so dear today emerged in Europe and not China. Central to answering that question is Chritianity. Here Christianity was important not only for its ethical teachings, but because of St. Paul's fusion of classical thought with the Judeo-Christin ethic, Christinity became the vessel through which the classical heritage was presered and passed on. Many of the critics of Christianity while castigating Christians as ignorant Bible thumpers or making gratuitous statements like 'clinging to their Bibles and guns', are themselves blissfully ignorant of the role of Judeo-Christian faiths in creating our modern world. A strong movement at major universities is to deemphazize Western civilization. In addition to these monumental achievements there are also a range of social benefits including strenhthening the family structure. And it is the family that is at the center of so many vital social issues like education, law obidence, drug avoidence, marriage, child care, income, and much more.

St. Paul's Fusion of the Classical and Judeo-Christian Ethics

The classical world (Greece and Rome) is the beginning of Western Civilization. Important asoects of the modern world including emeged in classical era, including art, architecture, democracy, education, law, literature, mathematics, philosophy, phyical sciences, political science, science, technology, and more. Withall of these towering achievements, the classical world lcked a moral core. they were civilizations with societies and economies based on slavery and exploitation. The pagan gods were powerful, but they were not moral exemplars. They were amoral and capricious. Judaism and Christinity which flowed from it provided the moral core which classical civilization lacked. In addition the Jewish concept of God inherited by Christinity was a much more rational outlook, facilitating the development of science, democracy, law, and other attributes of the modern world. St. Paul played a key role in fusing the two. One author writes, "Christianity has an indissoluble relationship with Greece and Rome. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Romans occupied the Holy Lands during Christ�s ministry and were partly responsible for his death. As Pascal wrote in Pens�es, �How fine it is to see, with the eyes of faith, Darius and Cyrus, Alexander, the Romans, Pompey and Herod working, without knowing it, for the glory of the Gospel.� The apostles, Peter and Paul, founded communities in Rome�where they both died�and those communities which they established and ministered eventually conquered the city that had conquered much of the known world. Rather than conquer by the sword, however, Christians conquered the heart which transformed the mind." [Krause]

Transmission Vessel

All of the pressious classical heritage could have been lost with the Barbarian invasion and the fall of Rome. It was the nascent Christian church that not only assimilated and preserved that heritage but provided the vessel by which it and learning itself was transmitted through the Dark Ages. This was partially accomplished by Byzantiumm but als by the monks who collected nd cioppied clssical works. The Church preserved Latin and education. It was as one historian puts it, a 'light in the darkness,' a flame of learning in an iliterate barbarian world. Some historians have blamed the Dark Ages and post-Roman cultural retrogression not only on the Barbsrins, but on the Church as well. Agnostic historian Will Durant insists that the Church fought to reverse the cultural regression. He writes, "THe basic cause of cultural retrogression was not Christisnity, but bsrbsrism; not religion but war. The human inundation ruined or impoverished cities, monastaries, libraries, schools, and made impossible the life of the scholar or the scuentist. Perhaps the destruction would have been worse had not the Church maintained some measure of order in a crumbling civilization." [Durant, p. 79.]

Western Achievements

It is not just that Marx was so wrong about economics. He was also fundamentally wrong about religion. And because of the left-wing secular orientation of modern society, that attitude has been widely naccepted in the formerly Christian West. The modern trend is to drive religion from the public square. Young people are leaving our schools and universities without the slighst inkling of the role Judaism and Christiuanity has played in the monumental achievements of Western civilization. It is impact of the Judeo-Christian culture not Marxism that is in fact at the heart of most of the major accomplishments of Western Civilization. The relation was not always obvious or direct. Western civilization is responsible for modern learning, science, capitalism, democracy, protection of human rights, women's rights, the rule of law, charity, and much more. And all of this emerged from Christian Europe and America. One of the great questions of history is why modernity did not emerge from China. For melenia. China not Europe was the richest most inventive society. So we are left with the question of why modernity and all the values we today hold so dear today emerged in Europe and not China. Central to answering that question is Chritianity. Here Christianity was important not only for its ethical teachings, but because of St. Paul's fusion of classical thought with the Judeo-Christin ethic. Christinity became the vessel through which the classical heritage was not only presered and passed on but greatly expanded. Many of the critics of Christianity while castigating Christians as ignorant Bible thumpers or making gratuitous statements like 'clinging to their Bibles and guns', are themselves blissfully ignorant of the role of the Judeo-Christian heritage in creating our modern world. A strong movement at major universities is to attack both religion and the Western civilization it played such nan imprtant role increating.

Social Benefits

In addition to the monumental achievements of Western Civilization there are also a range of social benefits including strenhthening the family structure. And it is the family that is at the center of so many vital social issues like education, law obidence, drug avoidence, marriage, child care, income, and much more.

Source

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Collins, Randall.

Durant, Will. Caesar an Christ (New York: MJF Books, 1950).

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Jaki, Stanley L. Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscilating Universe (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1986).

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).

Krause, Paul. "The Classics and Christianity," The Imaginative Conservative (January 11, 2019).

Martian, Jacques. Christianity and Democracy: And the Rights of Man and the Natural Law (French original--New York: �ditions de la Maison Fran�aise, 1943).

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (1848).

Oresme, Nicolas. A Trestise on the Origin, Nature, Law and Alteration of Money (c1355).

[St.] Paul. Epistle to the Romans (Sixth book of the New Testament).

Raico, Ralph. �The �European Miracle�� in The Collapse of Development Planning ed. Peter Boettke (New York: New York University Press, 1994).

Rushdoony, R.J. Law and Liberty.

Scott, Robert A. The Gothic Enterprise (Berkely: University of California Press, 2003).

Schumpeter, Joesph. History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).

Stark, Rodney. Stark is quoted in Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett. Christianity on Trial (San Francisco Encounter Books: 2002)

Swart, K.W. The Miracle of the Dutch Republic as Seen in the Seventeenth Century (London: H. K. Lewis, 1969)..

de Torre, Joseph M. (Manila: Vera-Reyes, 1994)

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904�05).

Woods, Thomas E. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regenerry Publishing: Washington D.C., 280p. The Woods book has been instrumental in rethinking our ideas about the Church'a role in Western Civililization. He writes about bthe Catholic Church. We believe. however, the Protestant Churches have also played vital roles.

Leviticus.

Created: 4:08 AM 2/25/2019
Last updated: 2:23 PM 3/5/2019