The Positive Impacts of Biblical Christianity on the World: A Brief Survey Allen Hainline Reasonable Faith UTD April 2, 2015 “I was astonished to discover.

The Positive Impacts of Biblical Christianity on the World:A Brief Survey

Allen HainlineReasonable Faith UTD

April 2, 2015

“I was astonished to discover that the Bible was the source of practically everything good in my hometown, even the secular university that undermined the Bible.” Manglawadi

Evangelicals helped in India by opposing: “widow burning, infanticide, untouchability, temple prostitution, polygamy, and idolatry.”

Other Resources

Outline

• Equality– Ending slavery– Elevating status of women

• Education– Universities– Science– Written languages

• Medical Care– Hospitals– Nursing

• Properity– Influenced by

Bible Promotes Equality

• There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:28

• Jesus came “to proclaim release to the captives” and “to set free those who are oppressed” Luke 4:18

• Paul appealed to Philemon to release the slave named Onesimus

Contrast with Islam• Muhammad bought, sold, captured and owned slaves

What About Old Testament “Slavery”?

• OT slavery was unlike slavery in antebellum south– More like indentured servanthood and POWs

• Apprentice-like positions to pay off debts

– Mandatory freeing of all slaves/servants every 7 years – 3 unprecedented provisions of law in Israel

• Anti-harm laws (release injured serrvants)• Anti-kidnapping laws – punishable by death (Ex 21:16, Deut 24:7)• Anti-return laws – had to offer safe harbor to runaway slaves

– God gave Mosaic legislation to prevent the poor from entering, even temporarily, into voluntary indentured service. The poor could glean the edges of fields or pick lingering fruit on trees after their fellow Israelites’ harvest (Leviticus 19:9,10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:20,21; cp. Exodus 23:10). Also, God commanded fellow-Israelites to lend freely to the poor (Deuteronomy 15:7,8), and to not charge them interest (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36,37)

– Moses permitted you … because of the hardness of your hearts” Jesus in Matt 19:8 (with respect to divorce but I argue applies in that too)

Bible-Believing Christians Led Battle to Eliminate Slavery

• All classical societies were slave societies– “Amid this universal slavery, only one civilization ever

rejected human bondage: Christendom. And it did it twice.” Stark in Triumph of Christianity

• As the ninth century dawned, Bishop Agobard of Lyons thundered: “All men are brothers, all invoke one same Father, God: the slave and the master, the poor man and the rich man, there is no... slave or free, but in all things and always there is only Christ… Soon, no one doubted that slavery in itself was against divine law.”

• Lincoln, Stowe, Wilberforce won battle in 19th century

Status of Women in Other Cultures

• “Most cultures have believed that women are intrinsically inferior to men. For example, Rousseau—one of the fathers of secular Enlightenment and a champion of liberty—believed that woman was unfinished man. Hindu sages taught that a soul with poor karma incarnated as a female to serve males.”

Christianity Elevated Status of Women

Husbands are to lay down their lives for their wives as Christ did for the church (Eph 5:25)First of all, a major aspect of women’s improved status in the Christian subculture is that Christians did not condone female infanticide19 . . . the more favorable Christian view of women is also demonstrated in their condemnation of divorce,20 incest,21 marital infidelity,22 and polygamy.23 As Fox put it, “fidelity, without divorce, was expected of every Christian.” . . . Like pagans, early Christians prized female chastity, but unlike pagans, they rejected the double standard that gave pagan men so much sexual license. Christian men were urged to remain virgins until marriage, and extramarital sex was condemned as adultery. Chadwick noted that Christianity “regarded unchastity in a husband as no less serious a breach of loyalty and trust than unfaithfulness in a wife.”24

“Why did the women’s liberation movement begin in America and not in a Muslim nation under regimes like the Taliban? Was it because American women were more oppressed than their Muslim counterparts? Clearly, the opposite is true. An anemic body cannot fight disease. One has to build up strength in order to fight germs. Women’s lib began in America because the American women were simultaneously empowered and discriminated against.”

Christianity Elevated Status of Women

• Education–Universities–Science–Written languages–Public schools (Luther/Melanchthon)

Have Other Religions Strongly Promoted Education?

“The Buddha, as we have seen, taught that the Ultimate Reality was Silence, or Shoonyta. The human mind was a product of Avidhya (Primeval Ignorance). It was not made in the image of God; human language, logic, and words had no correlation with Truth. The way to Enlightenment was through emptying one’s mind of all words and thoughts. The goal was to reach absolute Silence. Therefore, the Buddhist monks barely studied their own scriptures. They had no religious motivation to take the trouble to turn their neighbors’ dialects into literary languages to make the Buddha’s thought accessible to everyone. The monks’ mission was to propagate meditation techniques to empty everyone’s minds of all thought. They were not out to fill minds with great ideas.”

Christian Impact on Indian Education

“Why did my university in Allahabad have a church, but not a Hindu temple or a Muslim mosque? Because the university was invented and established by Christians. Neither colonialism nor commerce spread modern education around the world. Soldiers and merchants do not educate. Education was a Christian missionary enterprise. It was integral to Christian missions because modern education is a fruit of the Bible. The biblical Reformation, born in European universities, took education out of the cloister and spread it around the globe.”

Christian Impact on Indian Education

“The type of education the British had found when they arrived in India was almost entirely religious, and higher education for Hindus and Muslims was purely literary. Hindu higher education was almost a Brahmin monopoly. Brahmins, the priestly caste, spent their time [in schools called Tols] studying religious texts in a dead language, Sanskrit. There were a number of schools [called Pathshalas], using living languages, but few Brahmins sent their children to such schools, where the main subject taught was the preparation of account. Muslim higher education was conducted [in madrasas*] in a living language—Arabic, which was not spoken in India. But there were also schools which taught Persian** and some secular subjects. The state—as distinct from individual rulers— accepted no responsibility for education.” Historian Michael Edwardes

Christians Invented Universities

Catholic scholars formed universities in Paris & Bologna ~1160 and Oxford & Cambridge soon after– Quite unlike Chinese academies for training Mandarins

or a Zen’s master’s school– Innovation was focus not just imparting knowledge

Christian Emphasis on Education

“Harvard University is one of the most compelling examples of the symbiosis between the Bible and education. The Puritans established this college within the first decade of arriving in America, before they built any industry. The Bible directly inspired the first 123 colleges and universities in America that taught secular subjects. The Bible did so because God commanded human beings to establish their dominion over the earth.”

Not Just India

“The world’s largest women’s university is Ewha in Seoul, South Korea. It boasts of 140,000 graduates, 21,000 students, 14 colleges, and 13 graduate schools. Not much more than a century ago, South Korea’s oppressive feudal social order was governed by the Chosun dynasty. Its polite culture mocked the idea of teaching anything to women beyond caring for their husbands and sons.”

What about Science?

Did Christianity Stifle Science?• “In the academic sphere … the "Conflict Thesis" of a

historical war between science and theology has been long since overturned.” Atheist Historian Tim O’Neill

• “The fact is that the idea of the Church suppressing science and rational analysis of the physical world is a myth. Not one Medieval scholar was ever burned, imprisoned or oppressed by the Medieval Church for making a claim about the physical world. This why the modern proponents of the myth always have to fall back on an exceptional and post-Medieval example to prop up this idea: the Galileo case.” O’Neill

Atheist Historian Tim O’Neil

“So the claim that "science made little clear progress in Europe in the Middle Ages" is based on a profound ignorance of the period and depends on a prejudiced myth that is without any basis. Once Medieval Europe recovered from the chaos that followed the fall of Rome, it quickly revived the ancient tradition of natural philosophy that had been languishing since Roman times. Medieval scholars engaged in a remarkable process of examining the physical universe using reason and logic and, in doing so, developed principles that were to become the foundations of modern science proper. And they applied these principles in ways that corrected errors the Greeks had made and did the ground work for the later discoveries in physics and astronomy that made up the beginning of the Scientific Revolution. While people with no detailed knowledge of modern studies in the history of science still cling to Nineteenth Century myths about the Church suppressing science, it is now clear that without the flowering of speculation and analysis in the period from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century, western science would never have arisen at all.”

Indian Written Languages“Sanskrit could have been the court language of pre-British India, but it wasn’t. Sanskrit is India’s national treasure. But those who had the key to the intellectual treasure would not share it even with their own women, let alone with non-Brahmin males. The Brahmins’ religion required them to treat their neighbors as untouchables. Sanskrit was used as a means to keep people at a distance from knowledge that was power. Ashoka (304–232 BC), India’s greatest Buddhist ruler, used the Pali language and Brahmi script to spread his wisdom throughout India. It became the language of Buddhist learning. Yet, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, India did not have even one scholar who could read a single sentence inscribed on the Ashoka pillars found throughout India. Worse—the antihistoric nature of Hinduism had ensured that for centuries no Indian had even heard Ashoka’s name until the 1830s when an Anglo-India scholar, James Prinsep, found the key to reading Brahmi script on the pillars. Ashoka’s efforts to unify geographic”

Languages

“Bible translators and missionaries did not merely give me my mother tongue, Hindi. Every living literary language in India is a testimony to their labor. In 2005 a Malyalee scholar from Mumbai, Dr. Babu Verghese, submitted a seven-hundred-page doctoral thesis to the University of Nagpur.* It demonstrated that Bible translators, using the dialects of mostly illiterate Indians, created seventy-three modern literary languages. These include the national languages of India (Hindi), Pakistan (Urdu), and Bangladesh (Bengali). Five Brahmin scholars examined Dr. Verghese’s thesis and awarded him a PhD in 2008”

Christian Compassion

“'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.‘ Matt 25:40Yale Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette noted that early Christians innovated 5 ways in showing compassion:1. Those who joined were expected to give to their ability level, both rich and poor. Christ

even called some to give all they had to the poor. St. Francis of Assissi, Pope Gregory the Great, and missionary C.T. Studd all did as well.

2. They had a new motivation: the love for and example of Christ, who being rich became poor for others’ sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9).{25}

3. Christianity like Judaism, created new objects of giving: widows, orphans, slaves, the persecuted.

4. Personalized giving “For the most part, the few Roman acts of relief and assistance were isolated state activities, ‘dictated much more by policy than by benevolence’.”{26}

5. Last, Christian generosity was not solely for insiders.{27} This was truly radical. The emperor known as Julian the Apostate complained that since Jews never had to beg and Christians supported both their own poor and those outside the church, “those who belong to us look in vain for the help we should render to them.”{28}

Reference: Byron Barlowe

Christian Compassion

• Believers sometimes fasted for charity. The vision was big: ten thousand Christians skipping one hundred days’ meals could provide a million meals, it was figured. Transformed hearts and minds imitated the God who left the throne of heaven to serve and die for others.{29}

• Even W.E. Lecky, no friend to Christianity, wrote, “The active, habitual, and detailed charity of private persons, which is such a conspicuous feature in all Christian societies, was scarcely known in antiquity.”{30} That is, until Christians showed up.Reference: Byron Barlowe

Compassion to Blind

• Greeks often used blind boys as galley slaves & blind girls as prostitutes• By 4th century, Christians began opening asylums for the blind.• In 13th century, Louis IX built Hospice des Quinze-Vingts for blind• By 16th century, Christians taught blind to read using raised letters

– In 1834, Louis Braille, a blind Church organist, invented the six-dot system of embossing letters

– “The Christian missionary movement carried his invention around the globe, challenging traditional neglect and contempt for the blind, inspiring secular establishments to imbibe some of Christ’s spirit.”

– “Darwin’s secular “survival of the fittest” philosophy would never pay for developing an education to humanize the handicapped. Every traditional culture left them to their fate or karma. Some deliberately exposed handicapped infants to death. The Bible alone presents a compassionate God who has come to this earth to save us from our sin and its consequences—including sickness and death. Jesus restored sight to the blind. He opened the ears of the deaf and the mouths of the dumb. He gave his disciples the power to love the unlovely. Christians began to understand that education plays a central role in restoring the dignity of the handicapped.

Compassion to Deaf

• Formal education for the deaf began with Charles-Michel de l’Épée (1712–89)– A priest who developed sign language, formed first public deaf school in 1754

• It came to America through Thomas Gallaudet (1787– 1851)– “Gallaudet brought this innovation to the United States in 1817 to help the

deaf to “hear” Christ’s gospel. He founded the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, which led to the formation of Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington DC.”

Christianity Elevated Charity

"One of the strong links in the Christian chain was its charities and social aid, offered with little discrimination. Although the Romans practiced largess, they sought something in return, if not quid pro quo in the gift." The Early Church, page 140. In other words, "[t]he active, habitual, and detailed charity of private persons which is such a conspicuous feature in all Christian societies was scarcely known in antiquity." Lecky, The History of European Morals, 2:78-79.

Hospitals

• After Council of Nicea in 325, construction of hospital begun in every cathedral town

• Some call Roman valetudinaria hospitals; “However, these facilities, as various historians have shown, treated only sick slaves, gladiators, and sometimes ailing soldiers; whereas the sick common people, manual laborers, and the poor “had no place of refuge.”

“It is important to note—and the evidence is quite decisive—that these Christian hospitals were the world’s first voluntary charitable institutions. There is “no certain evidence,” says one scholar, “of any medical institution supported by voluntary contributions. . .till we come to Christian days.”28 And it is these Christian hospitals that revolutionized the treatment of the poor, the sick, and the dying.” Schmidt

Christians institutionalized hospitals and made them widespread and accessible to all

Nursing

• Nurses utilized in these early hospitals• Florence Nightingale singlehandedly

revolutionized the field of nursing– As a response to a call of God to serve at age 17

Largest US Charities All Have Christian Origins

Rank Name Total income (millions)

Public support (millions)

1 YMCA of the USA $5986.1 $823.4 Founded by Thomas Valentine Sullivan, a marine missionary

2 Goodwill Industries International 4,437.0 778.0

Founded 1902 by Boston minister Edgar Helms

3 Catholic Charities USA 4,422.8 679.2 Obvious

4 United Way 4,139.9 3,903.2 In 1887, a Denver woman, a priest, two ministers and a rabbi recognized the need for cooperative action to address their city’s welfare problems.

5 American Red Cross 3,453.0 945.9 “I am a disciple of Christ as in the first century, and nothing more.” Founder Jean Henri Dunant

6 The Salvation Army 3,203.8 1,697.6 Formed in 1865 by London minister William Booth

• Backup

• Science

Did Christianity Help Start Modern Science?

“Around the time I was born, my parents bought a farm about fifty miles northwest of the diamond mines of Panna. My cousin, uncle, brother, I, and then my father farmed it for nearly forty years. None of us, however, ever tried to dig for diamonds. Why not? Because no one had ever found such wealth in our district. People only toil for treasures if they believe that such labor might lead to rich rewards. Faith makes a difference. A culture may have capable individuals, but they don’t look for “laws of nature” if they believe that nature is enchanted and ruled by millions of little deities like a rain god, a river goddess, or a rat deva. If the planets themselves are gods, then why should they follow established laws? Cultures that worship nature often use magic to manipulate the unseen powers governing nature. They don’t develop science and technology to establish “dominion” over nature. Some “magic” may seem to “work,” but magicians don’t seek a systematic, coherent understanding of nature.” Mangalwadi

“The first historian of the Royal Society of Science, Thomas Sprat (1635–1713), explained that the society’s objective was to enable mankind to reestablish “Dominion over Things. It was this religio-scientific exercise that collected the data that showed the apparent design in nature.” Mangalwadi

“Joseph Needham (1900–95), a Marxist historian who spent his life investigating Chinese science and civilization, confirmed Whitehead’s views. Needham searched for materialistic explanations for China’s failure. Finally, his integrity overcame his ideology. He concluded that there were no good geographical, racial, political, or economic reasons that explained the Chinese failure to develop science. The Chinese did not develop science because it never occurred to them that science was possible. They did not have science because “the conception of a divine celestial law-giver imposing ordinances on non-human nature never developed in China.”11

• Religious leaders in my country, India, never persecuted a Galileo. Does that give me a right to boast? Well into the nineteenth century our teachers taught—in a British-funded college—that the earth sat on the back of a great tortoise!15 We never persecuted a Galileo because the Hindu, Buddhist, or animist India never produced one.

• Mangalwadi, Vishal (2011-05-10). The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (p. 229). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

• This [Christian] way assumed that the physical universe was real. It was neither a Platonic “shadow” nor a Hindu maya (illusion). The pioneers of science believed that the material realm was real, not magical, enchanted, or governed by spirits and demons. They assumed it was understandable because God created it as rational, ordered, and regulated by natural laws. Those pioneers invested their time, effort, resources, and their lives studying the physical universe because they believed that God created it good. It was not the creation of a malevolent deity to entrap pure souls in impure matter.

“This scientific outlook was born in a critique of Aristotelian rationalism. The scientific method assumes that human logic has validity, but it must be subservient to observed facts, because man is finite, fallen, and fallible. Scientists use logic to make sense of facts. They theorize to explain the world. But for a theory to be scientific, it must make quantitative predictions that are empirically verifiable, or at least falsifiable. A theory is modified or replaced if it doesn’t fit observed facts, or if later observations don’t match its predictions. Science rests on a paradox. Science must have the confidence that human beings can transcend nature (understand it, master it, and change it). Yet, science requires humility—accepting that humans are not divine but finite and fallen—prone to sin, error, and hubris. Therefore, science needs more than Aristotelian logic or individual enlightenment.” Mangalwadi

Science had to reject two opposing beliefs: 1) The reductionistic idea that man was merely a part of nature—a cog in the machine, incapable of transcending it; and 2) the science-precluding notion that the human self was the Divine Self and could be enlightened only by insight or mystical experience; that it could become infinite, knowing everything, needing no correction.

“The notion of fundamental laws of nature was derived from the belief in a divine lawgiver which was deeply rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In the words of Thomas Aquinas: “There is a certain eternal law, to wit, Reason, existing in the mind of God and governing the whole universe.” This notion of an eternal, divine law of nature greatly influenced Western philosophy and science. Descartes wrote about the six laws which God has put into nature, and Newton believed that the highest aim of his scientific work was to give evidence of the six laws impressed upon nature by God.”5

“Russell had the chutzpah to assert that since Chinese civilization did not have the Bible’s God who intervenes in nature, its science would soon surpass the West’s. No one in our university told us that Russel’s coauthor, Alfred North Whitehead, considered his arguments carefully then shocked Western intellectuals in his Harvard Lowell Lectures (1925). Whitehead declared that Western science had sprung from the Bible’s teaching that the cosmos was the product of “the intelligible rationality of a personal being [God].” The implication was that personal beings— humans—could understand the cosmos. Whitehead elaborated: I do not think, however, that I have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement. I mean the inexpugnable belief thatevery detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labours of scientists would be without hope. It is this instinctive conviction, vividly poised before the imagination, which is the motive power of research—that there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted in the European mind? When we compare this tone of thought in Europe with the attitude of other civilizations when left to themselves, there seems but one source of its origin. It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah.”10