I was surfing a few blogs yesterday when I came across a quote from some article that said, (in effect) “A belief in God is anathema to the very foundation of our culture.” I just laughed. I wondered, has this person taken any world history from 0-2006 A.D.? But enough ridiculing; let me show just a portion of Christianity’s influence on Western Civilization. (Since all of it would overload the server and turn my hair gray)
Did you ever wonder how we got out of the “Dark Ages?” It was the Reformation, simultaneously with the Renaissance, that did that. People got out of the plain old “give your money to the pope and you’ll be saved” mentality and searched the Scriptures for truth. This mindset plowed away the barrier of the pope, to give new life to the people. Nation-States could now develop that were separate from Rome’s power. The well-known Protestant work ethic encouraged a middle class to develop so that there would be a buffer between the very rich and the very poor. When this barrier is taken away, as it was in France in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre when all Huguenots (French Calvinists) were slaughtered; it leaves a gap that leads to envy, strife and conflict between classes. The result in this case: the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Did you ever wonder why the Vikings stopped their raids? It was the influence of Lutheran missionaries who convinced the Norman rulers to stop. Up until the present century, Scandinavia was largely a Lutheran area.
Did you ever wonder why we have separation of powers in the Constitution? It was Calvinist influence. Althusius, (who my blog name is named after) a Calvinist, pioneered the idea of sphere sovereignty in his book Politica. This, along with the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity, convinced men like James Madison to implement separate branches of government.
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” James Madison, Federalist Papers, #51
There can be many more examples, which I will not mention here, but I hope this gives you a taste of Christianity’s influence on our culture. Just scratching the surface.
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