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January 12 - April 6, 2022
Vishal Mangalwadi’s immense contribution over the course of the following pages may appear counterintuitive. If so, it is precisely because his arduous research establishes the fact that the Bible and its worldview, contrary to current prevailing opinion, combined to serve as the single most powerful force in the emergence of Western civilization.
At first glance the Bible appeared to be a collection of unrelated books of history, poetry, rituals, philosophy, biography, and prophecy held together only by a binder’s stitch and glue. But I only had to read Genesis 11 and 12 to realize that seemingly unrelated and different books of the Bible had a clear plot, a thread that tied together all the books, as well as the Old and the New Testaments. Sin had brought a curse upon all the nations of the earth. God called Abraham to follow him because he wanted to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s descendants.6 It didn’t take
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I had always heard that the nineteenth-century “Indian Renaissance” began with Raja Ram Mohan Roy. I was amazed to discover that it actually began with the arrival of the Bible. We were always told that India’s freedom was a result of Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle; it was a surprise to learn that, in reality, India’s freedom was a fruit of the Bible. Before the Bible, our people did not even have the modern notions of nation or freedom. Hindu generals sustained the Mogul rule in India. But that was just the beginning.
Nonbiblical cultures need more than technology; they need a philosophy that values people.
The larger point is that abolitionists, whether popes or evangelists, spoke almost exclusively in the language of Christian faith . . . Although many Southern clergy [in America] proposed theological defences of slavery, pro-slavery rhetoric was overwhelmingly secular—references were made to “liberty” and “states’ rights,” not to “sin” or “salvation.”26
The church saw the cross of Christ as the only way to salvation. The apostle Paul wrote that Jews were looking for a demonstration of miraculous powers and that the Greeks considered his gospel foolishness because they sought knowledge. He was, however, determined to preach nothing but the cross of Christ, because the weakness of God on Calvary’s cross was more powerful than the mightiest man. The foolishness of the gospel was wiser than all the wisdom of Greek philosophers.14
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.
When Europeans became literate, the only book most families owned was the Bible, and it became the source of their language and their worldview. The idea of “government of the people, for the people, by the people” became possible only because the people’s mother tongue became the language of learning and governing.
One way to keep government of the rulers, for the rulers, and by the rulers is to run it in a language not understood by the ruled.
