Christianity and What It Means To Be a Civilization

For human progress to be sustained, there must be civilization, which in turn requires certain conditions to exist for its emergence.

There has to be stability of location, which typically implies the development of agriculture. Specialization and division of labor are important, as is the systematic and regularized exchange of goods and services, which in turn implies the creation of enduring markets. Taken together, these things foster leisure, which accelerates technological and artistic innovation.

Although scholars use different definitions, civilization implies a complex society in which there is a recognized form of government and the processes in place to maintain it. The word civilization is closely related to the idea of citizen and therefore to city and civility as opposed to barbarity. Cities involve social stratification—sorting people into classes whose members are willing to subordinate themselves to a ruling elite who control the allocation of resources. The development of symbols that allow the spoken word and therefore ideas to be stored in permanent form is pivotal.

A given society may be technologically advanced and have the external features of a civilization, yet be ethically deficient. Within such a society, avarice or the lust for power may replace civility and brutality virtue. Whatever its scientific, technical, or artistic excellence, such a society does not merit being called a civilization in anything more than a structural sense.

Christianity, more than any other force in history, has promoted and institutionalized respect for the human person and his or her freedom of choice. There can be no denying that some calling themselves Christians, and maybe even believing in the nobility of their cause, have done considerable harm. Still, the underlying motif of the Christian faith has always been love as opposed to hate, mercy in contrast to retribution, and charity in place of avarice.

It is in this sense that Christianity has most furthered civilization. Scientists may do evil things and so may politicians, but in so doing they are not living out the good news that Jesus came to announce to the world. When they turn their backs on civility, especially if they do so in the name of a higher good, they are living a lie. In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis states, “Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.” This is likely true within any religion.

Christianity calls us to goodness and understands this to be what the Ten Commandments embodies and what the life and teachings of Jesus exemplified. When Christians have left the imprint of Christianity on society, they have moved it in the direction of the good; when they have pursued selfish ends, especially in the name of Christ, they have moved it in the other direction, away from rather than toward God. Christianity is the best and last hope of true civilization, and attempts to replace it with a secular religion, however well intended, will turn out to be a grotesque caricature. Understood in the broadest sense, all human beings have a religion. The question of relevance has to do with which one.