How Civilization Will End

Dear Crosswalkers,

It's time for my latest book report. I recently finished reading a fascinating account of world history, which of course is "His story." The author is Niall Ferguson, who is a life-long atheist. His wife is an atheist activist whose recent article on the persecution of Christians across the globe was appreciatively featured in my post a month ago. Sometimes I like to read from atheist/agnostic authors to see the perspective of those on the other side. In this case, it was eye-opening in a surprising way!

Ferguson's work is entitled Civilization: The West and the Rest, and it's a vast, big picture look at the history of the world. His aim is to answer the question, "Why, for the past 500 years, have the civilizations of the West dominated the civilizations of the East ("the Rest")?" Put another way, "Why did Western Civilization become the greatest civilization in the history of the world?" The answer is presented in six factors: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.

The book is loaded with wise and thought provoking statistics and quotes. For example, he writes: "The current world population makes up approximately 7 per cent of all the human beings who have ever lived... we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind to our peril." In reviewing the history of the colonization of the Americas, Ferguson says it was one of history's biggest natural experiments: "Take two Western cultures, export them and impose them on a wide range of different peoples and lands - the British in the north, the Spanish and Portuguese in the South. Then see which does better." The reason why North America vastly outpaced Central and South America, he writes, is "an idea about the way people should govern themselves." 

He also launches into a fascinating account of the history of how clothing, especially blue jeans, has been instrumental and indicative of the ascendency of the West!

Getting more quickly to the point, this atheist author, taking an honest look at world history and tossing political correctness to the wind, ends up repeatedly praising Christianity, more particularly Protestant Christianity. In reporting on the vast missionary activity of Protestant Christians to the developing world, the author writes: "The level of Protestant missionary activity has also proved to be a very good predictor of post-independence economic performance and political stability."

Shockingly, Ferguson details the alarming rate that Western Europeans are leaving the faith that was foundational in making their own civilization great. He also shares why the United States is generally keeping the faith in a culture that proclaimed God dead back in the 1960s. Furthermore, he explores the remarkably deep attraction Christianity has to the Chinese people (not their government) today!  According to one scholar from the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences: "We were asked to look into what accounted for the... pre-eminence of the West all over the world... At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful... We don't have any doubt about this."

Christianity isn't true because it works, it works in people's lives and in civilizations because it is true.

Near the end of his study, Ferguson notes that civilizations are formed by the literature they read. "But what are the foundational texts of Western civilization, that can bolster our belief in the almost boundless power of the free individual human being?" His own answer to this question begins: "I would suggest the King James Bible …."

Lastly, this world class historian deals with the demise of civilizations over the centuries. His conclusion is that civilizations generally end rather swiftly. He affirms the question that he himself asks, a question that should send chills down the spine of every non-believer, but a question that is strangely not worrisome for those who love the Lord:"Above all, what if collapse is not centuries in the making but strikes a civilization suddenly, like a thief in the night?"

Love in Jesus,

Pastor John Christie