Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

HEATHER MACDONALD - THE UNIVERSITY'S ROLE IN THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEST

"The University's Role in the Collapse of the West" may not be MacDonald's title but it comports well with her alarm at what has happened to Western culture via the universities and in particular the humanities.  Her article, "The Humanities and Us," begins with this paragraph:

In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles decimated its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift in our culture that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself.

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.”

VISHAL MANGALWADI - "The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization"

I have long appreciated the mind and heart of Vishal Mangalwadi, the outstanding Indian thinker who has done much to point out the positive influence of the Bible on the development of the West.  (Previous blog posts here).   Now he has written his 450 page magnum opus (but perhaps there is more to come?), The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization.

Charles Colson is excited about the book.  He writes:

Vishal Mangalwadi, a native of India, is one of the greatest Christian worldview thinkers of our day. He believes that much of modern India, including its language, educational system, and political freedom, developed not out of Hinduism, but out of Christianity.

His newest work, The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization explores the Bible’s impact, not only in leading the West to unparalleled liberty and prosperity, but in helping India and other nations to share in the West’s success.

Mangalwadi carefully examines the intellectual roots of Western concepts of human dignity, reason, morality, science, liberty, and self-sacrificial heroism, explaining how each of these concepts grew out of Biblical principles. He then contrasts the biblical view of life with alternative worldviews like Secularism, Islam, and Hinduism.

Colson writes a lot more, and concludes:

I recommend a lot of books on BreakPoint, but this is a must-read. If Western civilization and our way of life are to survive, we must understand and re-embrace the biblical principles and values they were built on.  [my emphasis]

Many other leaders enthusiastically endorse the book:

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURAL ADVANCE: THE CHINESE SEE THE CONNECTION

Chuck Colson notes that Chinese thinkers recognize more and more that the West's success has been due to its Christian roots.

[...] The Chinese government is studying the impact of Christian entrepreneurs and Christian-run businesses. A professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told Landau that it’s clear to him that the growth of Christianity and economic prosperity are taking place simultaneously in Wenzhou—a city deeply influenced by Christian missionaries in the past.

Colson again:

An American sociologist named Rodney Stark would not be surprised at this finding: He’s been saying the same thing for years. Stark is the author of a wonderful book titled the Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.

Stark writes that 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 “lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos”—not to mention scientists.

Amazingly enough, at the end of his book, Stark quotes a published statement by Chinese scholars, who said they had no doubt that Christianity is the source of Western prosperity! “The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life,” they said, “was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and the successful transition to democratic politics.”

THOMAS CAHILL - THE IRISH SAVED WESTERN CIVILIZATION'S BOOKS

Today is St. Patrick's Day!  I had forgotten until I ran into this little gem of an article that reminds us how much we owe the Irish, and especially St. Patrick!

DESTROYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE WEST

A friend sent me a link to the Bill Muehlenberg essay, "Destroying the Foundations of the West," which I am glad to be aware of .  (He cites sources on my shelf I have wanted to read more thoroughly, rather than only dip into!).  I poked around Muehlenberg's website, "CultureWatch," and found much of interest there.  He has written an astonishing number of essays, plus a great number of book reviews.  He is a Christian writer attuned to the cultural challenges facing the modern world.  American-born, his wife is Australian and they make their home in Melbourne, Australia.  A short bio can be found here.

New Book: "Political Teachings of Jesus" is reportedly a stunner

John Podhoretz over at NRO's Corner calls attention, in a most extravagant way, to a new book saying:

Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, has just published a stunning, eye-opening, and sentence-by-sentence brilliant book called The Political Teachings of Jesus  that is exactly as its title advertises. It is not a tract, nor a polemic, but a study of the political ramifications of Jesus's own words as recorded in the Gospels. It is Lindberg's contention that the Sermon on the Mount, in particular, is the most revolutionary document in the history of the world because it effectively created the notion of equality. You can read the book's close study of the Beatitudes, the opening passage of the Sermon on the Mount, at Policy Review's website. Tod and I studied with Allan Bloom a quarter-century ago at the University of Chicago, and I can't think of higher praise than to say that Bloom (who was a rotten, mean, nasty grader) would have given Tod an A for this. Not even an A-minus.

I am always interested in books that send a man into the stratosphere.  Heaven knows there have been scores of books written on the alleged political teachings of Jesus but this one just might be special.  I like the blurb printed at Amazon.com (emphases are mine):

Since the beginning of the Christian era, people have used the words and ideas of Jesus to justify all manner of political action. Despite these repeated attempts, few have been able to move past the rhetoric and understand the true nature of Jesus's political views.

Now, in The Political Teachings of Jesus, longtime political analyst and commentator Tod Lindberg goes beyond political punditry to address how Jesus's words and teachings—once a radical set of ideas—have come to define our concept of government and our vision for society. With nuanced prose, Lindberg draws a crucial distinction between Christ's religious and political teachings, presenting a detailed discussion of the world transformation that Jesus sought through his words, stories, and sayings.

Guiding readers through the social and political dialogue of the Gospels, Lindberg expertly analyzes how Jesus's principles of universal freedom and equality have combined in our social order to become the unacknowledged bedrock of the modern world. In addition, he offers a provocative look at the role that Jesus's words have played in the formation of the modern democratic ideal, demonstrating how the basic principles of both liberal and conservative thought find common roots in the Christian messiah's words.

Through close reading of the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus's parables, Lindberg offers a sophisticated portrait of Jesus as a teacher of unique insight and perception, one whose political views have transcended time and become essential to the way everyone lives in our society. In an era when people on both sides of the aisle are prone to using Jesus's beliefs for their own ends, The Political Teachings of Jesus is a refreshingly clear-eyed take on our shared concepts of government and society—and their common roots between the covers of the New Testament.

An Amazon reviewer wrote this:

We wouldn't have the country we have today if it were based on any other foundation. Even tho some of the founders, such as Jefferson, were athiests, they were profoundly influenced by the Golden Rule that Jesus taught -- treat others the way we want to be treated. Incidently, as Alli Sina shows in his book, "Understanding Muhhammad," Muslim countries are far different from ours mainly because they are based on the violent and vengeful teachings of Mohhamad.

Me:  That is undoubtedly true.  The great problem we face here in the West is the (false) supposition that the mindset we enjoy is a universal one.  It is not.  It has been nurtured and developed on the foundation and the pervasive influence of Christian thought.  I marvel at the gaping blindspots of the elite opinion makers in the West.