16

There are different ways to measure history, our history, not world history, not the history of China or India, or the rest of the world, but our history, the history of the West, the history of Europe and North America. That history was and is being formed by, among other things,  two major cultural currents: One current  is Judaism: the other is Christianity. (Some will say they are one current, and some will say the latter is now stagnant, but we will use the two current-image anyway. ) Abraham and Moses gave us Judaism; Jesus and Paul gave us Christianity. Judaism gave us Monotheism; Christianity gave us Trinitarianism. (See Dorothy Sayers in the non-fiction column in the website for an insight into the Trinity.) The two cultures evolved differently, but two or one, the  beginnings are described in Genesis; the end, in The Book of the Revelation.

Judaism took root about 2000 BC when Abraham moved north from the City of Ur into the Land of Canaan. Egypt was the area power, and for most of their time  the Jews (The word is from Judah) were prisoners or slaves in Egypt until about 1200 BC when Moses led them back to Israel in the Exodus.   Israel was then conquered by various powers until it finally became independent in 1947. During those times, Judaism developed into its modern form based on the Torah and related Scriptures.

Christianity had different beginnings. The Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer’s two great poems, tell of the fall of Troy which occurred about the same time as the Exodus and both probably were associated with a cataclysmic volcano near Greece in the Mediterranean Sea. After the fall of Troy, not much is heard about Greece until the golden age of 5th century Athens, the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Athens didn’t give us Christianity, but it did prepare the way by bringing the Western mind out of Paganism into rational thought. The Greeks also gave us the whole world of Greek mythology, the world of Mars and Zeus, of Paris and Helen, and Venus and Apollo. Athens also gave us Sophocles who told us (and Sigmund Freud) about Oedipus Rex.

Our present interest is Europe. Legend has it that  Romulus and Remus,  the two sons of Mars, the god of war, started the city of Rome. By 500 BC, Rome had become a republic, and it became the Empire in 45 BC when Julius Caesar became dictator. Half a century later, Jesus was born in Israel. Christianity,  guided by Judaism, flowed with Imperial Rome into Europe, Asia and North Africa. Islam stopped the advance of Christianity in North Africa and in time Islam spread throughout Africa into Spain and the Mideast.  As the Roman Empire grew in size and authority throughout Europe, the Christian Church became more tightly organized under a series of Popes until it split apart at the Reformation. Before and after the river flowed on.  The waters were sometimes turbulent and blown about by events, a couple of centuries of plague, for instance. Always a war somewhere; Mars never goes entirely to sleep, but the river flows on, and though the surface is always changing, the water beneath is always the same. In this regard the river of Europe is the same as rivers all over the world. This way or that on the surface, but dark and muddy beneath.

From the earliest times, everywhere, men have behaved like men, greedy, vain and selfish, and from the earliest times we have sought an explanation since we don’t really want to be that way. (See Whisper # 1)  As you know,  our story is in Genesis, and it is from the story of Adam and Eve that many have come to accept the view that we are all fallen creatures. We could have been better. We could have lived in a garden of happiness, but by choice we fell into sin and damnation and have behaved like men ever since. That was the view throughout our history. That was the view  during the growth of Medieval Europe before and after the reformation. That has been standard Christian doctrine, and woven into that sad story is the idea that it will all come to an end in some apocalyptic way.

 But a more optimistic view was also growing. It also began in Athens although very faintly, for from Athens came belief in reason and a confidence in humanity. Rome swallowed up everything, but Rome put its confidence in power and administration. It did not refute, it just sidelined Athens, but as Rome weakened, Athens inspired the Renaissance which in time led to a division in the European mind. The Renaissance promoted the arts, literature, what we call the humanities, but it also strongly emphasized logic and science. That led to a time of conflict in Europe, particularly in France, between on the one hand, traditional Christianity and its acceptance of humanity’s imperfections and limitations, and on the other hand the belief in progress and a better world. That optimistic view was known as the Enlightenment and, accepted and endorsed by men such as Thomas Paine, was a major factor in the American Revolution, and has been an acknowledged and unacknowledged influence in Western culture  ever since.

After our Revolution and our Declaration of Independence, our country was indeed an example to the world. People immigrated to the USA, not to Asia or Africa. We were the light of the world from ‘Sea to Shining Sea”,  but there were questions. Who was in charge? The various states or the United States? What about the worldwide practice of slavery? What policies should we follow on the international scene? Various European cultures had their interests. Much had to be sorted out and settled, and as the years went by,  there were bumps along the way, big and small, but always optimism, for from the first moments we had a ‘Manifest Destiny’. We would be an example to the world, but the way was not always smooth.

A big bump was our Civil War. Then WWl, Then WWll.  And then things began to change. The tipping point, I suggest, was the end of WWII. The good guys had won; the bad guys had lost. The world was headed toward a bright and optimistic future, and it would be fair to say that after the war was over, many assumed that the world ahead would be more of the same world that had prevailed before the war but better. It would be  the world we read about in books, the world we saw in the movies, the world our parents talked about, the world we thought about, the world where law and order prevailed (mostly), the world described in the preceding paragraph. It was going to a good world, a world of peace and prosperity, a world  of social progress.

But it does not seem to have turned out that way. Today’s world is stormy weather. Take a moment to consider the issues of the day: climate change, environmental pollution, social disorder, political polarization, population imbalance, fractured ethics teaching, family dissolution, guns, and on and on. The predictions of the future before WW11 were optimistic. Today they tend to be pessimistic. Before, Utopian; now, dystopian. The war did not cause the change. It may even be fair to say the war was a result of the change, for there were events and patterns of events that we may now see were moving towards today—and tomorrow. But there is change, and we should be aware of as much of it as possible.

As best as we are able, we should examine our world history and our own personal history to see what is bad and should be sent overboard and what is good and should be preserved and nourished. We should look carefully at those perspectives summed up in Emile Coue’s enlightenment platitude: “Every day in every way I am getting better and better,” and put them up against the realities of the Sermon On The Mount. Take  your pick: be popular or unpopular, be foolish or wise, congratulate yourself or love your enemy. Seek the Kingdom of man or the Kingdom of God.

 (For those who want to go to the trouble, various Whispers: 6, 26, 40, and 62 will provide a closer look at some of the historical currents that I suggest have brought us to now.)