Alan Storkey: The Deep Western Worldview Change

For the last few centuries Christianity and Enlightenment views have formed western culture. The contribution of Christianity has been downplayed by modern secular thought, but it has been seminal in area after area — personal formation, economics, social life, politics, art, music, learning, science and healing, yet its influence has receded.

In the 20th century the secular movements of Fascism, Marxism, Modernism and State Socialism flourished. The Fascist belief in the pure power to shape history glorified militarism. Marxism sought salvation in the proletariat and Modernism posited belief in the human ability to capture and control the future without faith. They all tried to write Christianity out of the script, but failed, partly because the fruits of these movements were political evils like the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulag and Fascist self-belief. The costs of these failures were enormous, and Europe forfeited the right to cultural leadership. Its self-congratulation was expressed in imperial movements of conquest around the globe and these too faltered as the self-glorification of empire turned out to be hollow and destructive. By contrast the Christian missionary movements, often self-sacrificial and largely committed to local language and culture (for example, with the Wycliffe Bible Translators), produced fruit that has flowered in every continent of the globe.

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/

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