Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West by Andrew Wilson
I gave this book last Christmas to my 14-year-old daughter thinking it would be a good book for her (some parts that deal with sexuality would be considered too explicit for some young readers. Caution is advised) and it was, but it was hard for her. The good thing is that it led me to read it along (not together) with her and discuss each chapter. It was good to do this.
This book is probably one of the best I have read dealing with Christian worldview in relation to history in particular to the United States. His thesis is quite interesting, and I am convinced he proved it. It is very well documented. I can also say that the author is incredibly well-read in a wide range of genres, and I don’t know how he can do this while being a pastor.
The whole thesis of the book is summarized by the author in the beginning:
“The big idea of this book is that 1776, more than any other year in the last millennium, is the year that made us who we are. We cannot understand ourselves without it. It was a year that witnessed seven transformations taking place—globalization, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Enrichment, the American Revolution, the rise of post-Christianity, and the dawn of Romanticism—which have remade the world and profoundly influenced the way we think about God, life, the universe, and everything.”
He uses an acrostic that explains his thesis and goes on to explain in the book (chapters 3-9):
“WEIRDER: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic.”
The last two chapters (chapters 10-11) deal with how we, as Christians should respond to all of this.
In essence the book argues that much of what made 1776 so impactful upon the future even to this day is the Judeo-Christian ethics. And they continue to impact our world, except that our current culture has adopted these principles or ethical standards but without any mention of their origin (God). Thus, we have created a “new” pagan religion (Ex-Christianity) that has no real foundation. According to Wilson, “we construe the world in new ways, based not just on new ideas but also on new practices, symbols, rituals, self-understandings, and constructions of space and time.”
He later quotes (chapter 11) Jürgen Habermas,
“For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the subject of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it”
But without an understanding of the origin of these principles they become part of a moralistic subjective society (“Contingent religious beliefs now sound like self-evident secular truths.”) that appears to know what is wrong and right but in reality is just a facade or shell of Judeo-Christian principles.
Where does this lead? He answers,
“In that sense, the ex-Christian world is living off its inheritance. The disturbing question is: What if the legacy runs out? Is there a finite amount of leftover Christian capital available, and if so, what happens when we have spent it? One pessimistic take, available in all good bookshops, is that without the substructure of Christianity to support it, the West will increasingly lose its moral consensus, intellectual coherence, and economic advantage, and collapse into a weird chimera of nihilism, tribalism, and decadence.”
Or until, as T. S. wrote, “a society has not ceased to be Christian until it has become positively something else”.”
But our only hope is in Jesus:
“In order to be truly free, we need to be liberated from captivity to sin—our lusts, pride, greed, envy, and so on—as well as captivity to human oppressors or economic circumstances. That is what Jesus came to bring.”
