The Reasonableness of Christianity Blog

Historical narratives and comparative civilizations analysis had been dead for decades after the history coup of the 1960s. In my reading of events, this was to cover up the obvious benefits of Christianity and capitalism that were highlighted by influential pre-coup historians like Arnold Toynbee and Carol Quigley. Fortunately, in recent years the “civilization” is starting to return to popular discourse. The postmodernist moratorium on analytical history is beginning to crack. A 2014 article is titled “The Return of Civilization - and of Arnold Toynbee?” I take the question mark to indicate that they are sure the concept of civilization is making a comeback, but Toynbee’s comeback (and that of Christianity in historical analysis) is more speculative. That is my reading of the present moment as well. In this millennium or close to it, several popular books with civilizational themes have been published and have been well-received. Examples include: Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), by ...

[Note from Stephen: I wrote a long blog post on this topic with lots of primary sources, but it was very boring. My wife Meliah re-wrote the post in a more compelling way. This post is Meliah's re-write. For the original longer post, click here .] Once upon a time, not too long ago, people wanted to study history to learn how civilizations rose and fell. They desired to know what made things work well, and what made things fail. This study naturally revealed that the Western World was unique throughout the history of humanity. One need not look long to see that the science, art, law, technology, and morality of the West was a singular occurrence. Further examination would easily reveal that Christianity and capitalism were twin goods that led to millions of people being lifted from poverty and to a human rights phenomenon that had abolished slavery, empowered women, and let freedom ring throughout the western world. This is not a popular position now though. Students are no longer ...

[Update: My wife Meliah helpfully re-wrote this content in a more compelling way here . If you want the boring version, keep reading.] In a previous post , I wrote about a once popular branch of history that was focused on historical analysis and comparative civilization study, and how the entire field was snuffed out in the 1960s.  I will here refer to this snuffing out as "the history coup,"  and I will try to provide more description of how it happened. It turns out to be a bigger deal than I thought. A main motivator of comparative civilization studies was the desire to contextualize our own society, including gaining a better understanding of common forces acting on civilizations, and how those might illuminate the potential future and fate of the West.  For example, this line of inquiry asked how civilizations in general start, grow, decline, and fall; and then the scholar asked how the West is similar and different from other civilizations, how the West become what...