Download or read book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization written by Thomas Woods Jr. and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written to highlight the Catholic Church's central role in shaping Western Civilization, this book shows how the Church gave birth to modern science, international law, the free market economy, and much, much more.
Download or read book The Church and Western Culture written by Tom Streeter and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2006-10 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To live meaningfully in the present, and to plan wisely for the future, means building on the past. This kind of understanding is important when it comes to questions concerning both faith and culture. In the development of the Western world there has been a dynamic relationship between the church and civilization in general. This interplay has produced a rich heritage and foundations affecting governments, economics, family life, education, the arts, literature, science, the practice of religion, and many other areas. The church has played a major role and cannot be brushed aside as secondary or irrelevant to our present lives. It is especially important that followers of Christ know the church's history. Today there is neglect, almost disdain, for history. This is sad because history really is about us. There is a common nature shared by people in every age who face over and over the same issues, opportunities, problems, and the same mortality. In our ancestors we see ourselves. They are there for us to learn from, to teach us lessons that help keep us from the same mistakes, and inspire us to strive for the good and the great. The past is more than just names, events, and dates. It is filled with actual people with real lives, possessed of important thoughts and ideas that should be carried into the present. This book claims that knowledge of these people and past events is necessary if we are to know ourselves, maintain our sanity, and find our way.
Download or read book Religion and the Rise of Western Culture written by Christopher Dawson and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Religion and the Rise of Western Culture written by Christopher Dawson and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential work of European history, this classic study sweeps from the fall of Rome to the dawn of the Renaissance as it shows how Christianity, its leaders, and its institutions changed the face of Western culture.
Download or read book Western Culture Today and Tomorrow written by Joseph Ratzinger and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Well known for his important scholarly contributions to dogmatic theology and biblical commentary, Joseph Ratzinger has also written penetrating observations of our times. Formerly titled Europe Today and Tomorrow in a previous edition, this book includes some of his keen insights about the social and political challenges confronting modern Western societies. Writing most of these chapters just before his election as pope, Ratzinger sought to remind Europeans, who at the time were crafting a new constitution, that the civilizational project we call “the West” is a cultural achievement with a history. Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome were the three foundation stones upon which Western civilization was built, he wrote. Their invaluable contributions form the basis for the Western understanding of human dignity and human rights, which spread from Europe to the United States and beyond.
Download or read book The Roots of Western Culture written by Herman Dooyeweerd and published by . This book was released on 2024-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is Dooyeweerd's most accessible work. It provides an understanding of Greek, medieval, and Modern Humanistic life-orientations in their historical development and inter-penetration - throughout confronted with the implications of an integral biblical understanding of the human condition, human society and the place and calling of scholarly reflection. It shows a healthy sense of solidarity and criticism with these various traditions. From a purely historical point of view, Dooyeweerd for example writes, Humanism has done more for the recognition of public freedom for religious convictions than did seventeenth-century Calvinism. Particularly instructive in this work is Dooyeweerd's unveiling of the origin of the modern ideology of community at the beginning of the previous century and its subsequent effects in National-Socialism.
Download or read book Reason Faith and the Struggle for Western Civilization written by Samuel Gregg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gregg's book is the closet thing I've encountered in a long time to a one-volume user's manual for operating Western Civilization." —The Stream "Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization offers a concise intellectual history of the West through the prism of the relationship between faith and reason." —Free Beacon The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high. The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths. We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason. But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.
Download or read book Foolishness to the Greeks written by Lesslie Newbigin and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1988-06-01 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the modern world? This book treats the First World as a mission field, offering a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture.
Download or read book Heroism and Genius written by William J Slattery and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Every chancellery in Europe, every court in Europe, was ruled by these learned, trained and accomplished men the priesthood of that great and dominant body." — President Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom With stubborn facts historians have given their verdict: from the cultures of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Germanic peoples, the Catholic Church built a new and original civilization, embodying within its structures the Christian vision of God and man, time and eternity. The construction and maintenance of Western civilization, amid attrition and cultural earthquakes, is a saga spread over sixteen hundred years. During this period, Catholic priests, because they numbered so many men of heroism and genius in their ranks, and also due to their leadership positions, became the pioneers and irreplaceable builders of Christian culture and sociopolitical order. Heroism and Genius presents some of these formidable men: fathers of chivalry and free-enterprise economics; statesmen and defiers of tyrants; composers, educators, and architects of some of the world's loveliest buildings; and, paradoxically, revolutionary defenders of romantic love.
Download or read book Religious Foundations of Western Civilization written by Jacob Neusner and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Religions Religious Foundations of Western Civilization introduces students to the major Western world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—their beliefs, key concepts, history, as well as the fundamental role they have played, and continue to play, in Western culture. Contributors include: Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, Bruce D. Chilton, Th. Emil Homerin, Jon D. Levenson, William Scott Green, Seymour Feldman, Elliot R. Wolfson, James A. Brundage, Olivia Remie Constable, and Amila Buturovic. "This book provides a superb source of information for scientists and scholars from all disciplines who are trying to understand religion in the context of human cultural evolution." David Sloan Wilson, Professor, Departments of Biology and Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York This is the right book at the right time. Globalization, religious revivalism, and international politics have made it more important than ever to appreciate the significant contributions of the Children of Abraham to the formation and development of Western civilization. John L. Esposito, University Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Muslm-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology, and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. General Interest/Other Religions/Comparative Religion
Download or read book The WEIRDest People in the World written by Joseph Henrich and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A Bloomberg Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2020 A Human Behavior & Evolution Society Must-Read Popular Evolution Book of 2020 A bold, epic account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind that has profoundly shaped the modern world. Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar. Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition—laying the foundation for the modern world. Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history. Includes black-and-white illustrations.
Download or read book Born Bad written by James Boyce and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the doctrine of original sin, all humans are born bad and only God’s grace can bring salvation. James Boyce shows how these ideas have shaped the Western view of human nature, and how the belief that we are all innately sinful retains a firm grip on Western consciousness and culture – even in the writings of avowed atheists such as Marx and Freud. Born Bad traces a fascinating journey from Adam and Eve all the way to Adam Smith and Richard Dawkins in this sweeping story of a controversial idea and its remarkable influence.
Download or read book The Book that Made Your World written by Vishal Mangalwadi and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understand where we came from. Whether you're an avid student of the Bible or a skeptic of its relevance, The Book That Made Your World will transform your perception of its influence on virtually every facet of Western civilization. Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi reveals the personal motivation that fueled his own study of the Bible and systematically illustrates how its precepts became the framework for societal structure throughout the last millennium. From politics and science, to academia and technology, the Bible's sacred copy became the key that unlocked the Western mind. Through Mangalwadi's wide-ranging and fascinating investigation, you'll discover: What triggered the West's passion for scientific, medical, and technological advancement How the biblical notion of human dignity informs the West's social structure and how it intersects with other worldviews How the Bible created a fertile ground for women to find social and economic empowerment How the Bible has uniquely equipped the West to cultivate compassion, human rights, prosperity, and strong families The role of the Bible in the transformation of education How the modern literary notion of a hero has been shaped by the Bible's archetypal protagonist Journey with Mangalwadi as he examines the origins of a civilization's greatness and the misguided beliefs that threaten to unravel its progress. Learn how the Bible transformed the social, political, and religious institutions that have sustained Western culture for the past millennium, and discover how secular corruption endangers the stability and longevity of Western civilization. Endorsements: “This is an extremely significant piece of work with huge global implications. Vishal brings a timely message.” (Ravi Zacharias, author, Walking from East to West and Beyond Opinion) “In polite society, the mere mention of the Bible often introduces a certain measure of anxiety. A serious discussion on the Bible can bring outright contempt. Therefore, it is most refreshing to encounter this engaging and informed assessment of the Bible’s profound impact on the modern world. Where Bloom laments the closing of the American mind, Mangalwadi brings a refreshing optimism.” (Stanley Mattson, founder and president, C. S. Lewis Foundation) “Vishal Mangalwadi recounts history in very broad strokes, always using his cross-cultural perspectives for highlighting the many benefits of biblical principles in shaping civilization.” (George Marsden, professor, University of Notre Dame; author, Fundamentalism and American Culture)
Download or read book The Aeneid Workbook Old Western Culture written by Callihan Wesley and published by . This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures written by Joseph Ratzinger and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Marcello Pera Written by Joseph Ratzinger shortly before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures looks at the growing conflict of cultures evident in the Western world. The West faces a deadly contradiction of its own making, he contends. Terrorism is on the rise. Technological advances of the West, employed by people who have cut themselves off from the moral wisdom of the past, threaten to abolish man (as C.S. Lewis put it)whether through genetic manipulation or physical annihilation. In short, the West is at war-with itself. Its scientific outlook has brought material progress. The Enlightenment's appeal to reason has achieved a measure of freedom. But contrary to what many people suppose, both of these accomplishments depend on Judeo-Christian foundations, including the moral worldview that created Western culture. More than anything else, argues Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the important contributions of the West are threatened today by an exaggerated scientific outlook and by moral relativism-what Benedict XVI calls "the dictatorship of relativism"-in the name of freedom. Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures is no mere tirade against the moral decline of the West. Razinger challenges the West to return to its roots by finding a place for God in modern culture. He argues that both Christian culture and the Enlightenment formed the West, and that both hold the keys to human life and freedom as well as to domination and destruction. Ratzinger challenges non-believer and believer alike. "Both parties," he writes, "must reflect on their own selves and be ready to accept correction." He challenges secularized, unbelieving people to open themselves to God as the ground of true rationality and freedom. He calls on believers to "make God credible in this world by means of the enlightened faith they live." Topics include: Reflections on the Cultures in Conflict Today The Significance and Limits of Today's Rationalistic Culture The Permanent Significance of the Christian Faith Why We Must Not Give Up the Fight The Law of the Jungle, the Rule of Law We Must Use Our Eyes! Faith and Everyday Life Can Agnosticism Be a Solution? The Natural Knowledge of God "Supernatural" Faith and Its Origins
Download or read book Disappearing Church written by Mark Sayers and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When church and culture look the same... For the many Christians eager to prove we can be both holy and cool, cultural pressures are too much. We either compartmentalize our faith or drift from it altogether—into a world that’s so alluring. Have you wondered lately: Why does the Western church look so much like the world? Why are so many of my friends leaving the faith? How can we get back to our roots? Disappearing Church will help you sort through concerns like these, guiding you in a thoughtful, faithful, and hopeful response. Weaving together art, history, and theology, pastor and cultural observer Mark Sayers reminds us that real growth happens when the church embraces its countercultural witness, not when it blends in. It’s like Jesus said long ago, “If the salt loses its saltiness, it is no longer good for anything…”
Download or read book The Decline of Established Christianity in the Western World written by Paul Silas Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Church attendance in the West is often cited as being in decline, it is argued that this applies primarily to the older established forms of Christianity. Other expressions of the faith are, in fact, stable or even growing. This volume provides multidisciplinary interpretations of and responses to one of the most complicated and controversial issues regarding the global transformation of Christianity today: the decline of "established Christianity" in the Western world. It also addresses the future of Christianity in the West after the decline. Drawing upon historical research, sociology, religious studies, philosophy and theology, an international panel of contributors provide new theoretical frameworks for understanding this decline and offer creative suggestions for responding to it. "Established Christianity" is conceptualized as historically, culturally, socially and politically embedded religion (with or without official established status). This is a dynamic volume that gives fresh perspective on one of the great social changes taking place in the West today. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious sociology, history and anthropology, as well as theologians.
