From the outset I will admit that I found
this book difficult to read. It was a book that I had long wanted to read and
having received a copy as a Christmas present, expected to peruse it in the
space of a short time. As it happened it took many readings over a period of a
couple of months to complete it all, for several reasons. The scope of its
venture is huge, the prose style is somewhat academic, also there is much to
meditate upon throughout its pages. Yet I would recommend it as a work which is
both simple and profound, enlightening and thought provoking.
The Bible has been the catalyst for shaping
Western culture as we know it and is responsible for the prosperity of the
west. This is an audacious premise, hypothesized by Mr Vishal Mangalwadi, an
Indian lecturer, philosopher and writer, himself a descendent of a tribe of
warring head-hunters, evangelised in the 1900s by a single Welsh missionary. Like the great Indian apologist Ravi
Zacharias, Vishal lives in a country impacted by the British Raj, who
introduced their language, religious beliefs, business practices and culture on
a country which already had its own, and Vishal compares and contrasts some of
these aspects specifically in relation to India. Most of the book however is a
more general historical account of how the Bible and Christians living
according to its principles shaped and developed the societies in which they
lived.
In chapter after chapter Vishal provides
accounts of Biblical impact over a wide range of subjects and there is
something to interest everyone, from morality to technology, literature to
education, law to science, ethics to economics. It asks the big questions: what
shapes a culture? Are all religions the same? Where is Western democracy
heading? How do the answers to these questions affect a nation and an
individual?
There are many interesting stories and
personal accounts documented in the book, and so many ideas presented that it
is difficult to single out particular examples, but I would like to share just
three quotes:
“Every civilization is tied together by
a final source of authority that gives meaning and ultimate intellectual, moral,
and social justification to its culture. For Marxists it may be Das Capital or the Communist Party. For
Muslims it could be the Qur’an or the caliphate. Rome created the core of what
we call today the West. From the fall of Rome to the Reformation, the papacy
had been the principal authority for Western Christians. To the present time,
Western civilization has had at least five different sources of cultural
authority: Rome, the pope, the Bible, human reason, and the current
individualistic nihilism whose future will be determined by quasi-democratic
culture wars.” P138.
“Those
who saw the resurrected Jesus had empirical grounds for believing that death
was not the end of human existence. Resurrection meant that we continue to
exist beyond our death and remain accountable to God. Just as the consequence
of sin was death, the consequence of faith and obedience was resurrection life.
The death and resurrection of Jesus became good news – the gospel- because they
were more than historical events. They were a demonstration of God’s redemptive
intervention in our history………If God does not come into this world to save
sinners, then other sinners-dictators and tyrants – have to do the dirty work
of restraining our sinfulness. But by cleaning us from the inside, Jesus makes
possible inner self-government, socio-political freedom, and clean public life.”
Pp258-259
“What he [Thomas Dixon, Cambridge
doctoral student] was sure of was that changing our beliefs can transform
negative, harmful or destructive emotions into life-affirming ones. We also know
that not every belief is equally conducive to a happy and hopeful life. Every
day, therapists confront beliefs that make life a tortuous hell. What a person
chooses to believe strongly influences whether he lives in peace or in torment.”
p375
This is a book for our times, one that I
would wish that some of my atheist friends would read. In our post-Christian
society, one frequently described as “secular”, where Christianity is
frequently derided, it is well to be reminded of where some of our cultural
norms have their origin.
“The Book That Made Your World- How the
Bible created the soul of Western civilization” By Vishal Mangalwadi, Thomas
Nelson, 2011
