Clinton Chisholm | Christianity’s impact on the world

SEXUAL MORALITY

CHRISTIANITY’S ELEVATION of sexual morality based on the Bible has exerted a tremendous transforming influence on societies ancient and modern. Whereas the Christian sexual ethic outlawed all sex acts except heterosexual monogamous acts, the conventions of the Roman Empire (and not a few modern societies) countenanced a no-holds-bar approach as people, in general, did sexually, whatever, however, wherever with whomever or whatever.

Not only is the evidence in literature, but also archaeology has turned up sexual graphics covering a wide spectrum of sexual acts on household items in the Roman Empire. (See John Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: The Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 BC–AD 250, 1998.)

 

CHARITY AND COMPASSION

From the first century of this era to the present, the impact of the Church’s commitment to voluntary charity and compassion has been transforming in many societies. The rise of orphanages, homes for the aged, the Salvation Army, the various Catholic groups like Sisters of Charity and Missionaries of the Poor, United Way, YMCA, YWCA, Teen Challenge, hospitals, mental institutions, the Red Cross/Crescent and, numerous other agencies for the care of needy human beings can be traced back to the Church of Jesus Christ. (Schmidt, op. cit., pp.25-169)

“The whole approach to [governmental] social welfare that has developed in the West, and more recently in the East as well, is debtor to the Christian contribution and has been profoundly influenced by it.” (Schmidt,p.144)

 

EDUCATION

Living in post-slavery societies in the Caribbean we all know of the Church’s novel contribution of education for the enslaved, matching an earlier novel Christian practice of education for both sexes. The idea of tax-supported public schools and compulsory education seem to go back to Martin Luther (1483-1546) while graded education owes a debt to the Lutheran layman, Johann Sturm (1507-1589).

Education for the deaf began in the late 18th century with three French Christians, and education for the blind got its most significant forward fillip, though not its origin, from another French Christian Louis Braille in the 19th century.

The origin of the university is debatable, but it is beyond controversy that the oldest and most prestigious universities, recognised as such, had Christian roots; the University of Bologna (1158, regarded by some as the first), the University of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Heidelberg and Columbia, etc. (Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 186-193 and Charles Habib Malik, A Christian Critique of the University, 1982, p. 30)

 

LAW

In the realm of law, it is hardly known that “[i]ndividual freedom and rights are most prevalent where Christianity has had the greatest impact, nor are human rights advocates often aware of the philosophical dilemma of defining and justifying inalienable human rights minus a transcendent and reliable/credible revelational source such as the Bible with its foundational doctrine of human beings uniquely created by and in the image of God.” (See the arguments for this view by John Warwick Montgomery, Human Rights & Human Dignity, 1986. pp.105-188)

On what other basis, but the concept of creation by and in the image of God could we, non-arbitrarily, elevate the interests of humans over the interests of other animals or plants or even inanimate objects?

If one operates with an evolutionary philosophical and scientific framework, it will be difficult to assign essential or superior dignity to the evolutionary accident called ‘human being’ — the result of chance, natural selection, mutations and time — and it would be impossible to escape the racism inherent in, and argued from, the evolutionary view that the earlier species of ‘humans’ were inferior to later species. Note carefully that the full title of Darwin’s Origin of Species is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

The entrenched idea that no one is above the law had its genesis in an encounter between an emperor and a bishop in the fourth century and got two other shots in the arm by the British Magna Carta in the 13th century and a bombshell of a book written by a clergyman in the 17th century.

In AD 390, some people in Thessalonica rioted, arousing the anger of the Christian emperor, Theodosius the Great. He overreacted, slaughtering some 7,000 people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose, who was in Milan, which was also where the emperor lived, did not turn a blind eye to the emperor’s vindictive and unjust behavior. He asked him to repent of his massacre. When the emperor refused, the bishop excommunicated him. After a month of stubborn hesitation, Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral, bringing tears of joy to fellow believers. (Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, 1980 p.105)

The emperor too was under the law and Ambrose would not allow the emperor or others to forget that.

Nor can we forget the significant influence of the Church, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and his Christian colleagues, on the British Magna Carta (the Large Charter) of 1215, which gave new rights to barons and the people in general and which also challenged the notion of the king being above the law.

The Rev Samuel Rutherford, a Presbyterian, wrote his Lex Rex: or the Law and the Prince in 1644. The main thesis, as implied in the title, is that the law is king, and so the king is under the law and not above it, a notion that was regarded as treasonously contrary to the tradition of the ‘divine right of kings’.

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