Gary Amos, the Declaration, and "Christian" Ideas?

In my last few posts have spent some time trying to shift the discussion away from asking what key figures of the founding were or were not Christian to asking if the ideas that shaped the founding were or were not Christian.  I chose to do this in the context of a series of essays at "Cato Unbound" that addressed the question of which factors led to the emergence of the modern world produced by the what Alvin Toffler would call the "Second Wave".    

In that spirit, I attempted to narrow down the topic a bit by asking two questions that I hoped would be a baseline for the beginning of a Socratic dialogue about what ideas shaped the founding era, the origins of those ideas, their impact on bringing about the modern world, and how we can apply this information in our efforts to catch the "Third Wave".  In the spirit of putting first things first, I would like to focus on the first question:

"Which Christian ideas, if any, helped bring us into the modern world?

In his essay "How an Engineering Culture Launched Modernity" at Cato Jack Goldstone provided a quote from Joseph Priestley that he felt captured the spirit of the the founding age:

"Nature, including both its materials and its laws, will be more at our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more easy and comfortable, they will prolong their existence in it and grow daily more happy. . . the end will be glorious and paradisiacal beyond that our imaginations can now conceive."

Goldstone then added the following analysis: 

"This was a radical departure from the belief of almost all civilizations (including that of the classical and medieval West) that humanity’s golden age lay in the past. Instead the new engineering culture proclaimed that an earthly paradise lay in man’s future, and that it would be brought about by mankind’s own progress in developing and applying new scientific knowledge rather than by divine redemption."

He then went on to say what was perhaps the chief catalyst in the acceptance and spread of this new engineering culture:

       

"What I believe is most critical to insist upon is the degree to which Europe itself had to repudiate central elements of its own history and culture — the absolute authority of hereditary rulers, the prohibition of diverse religious beliefs in any one society, the elevation of the rights and needs of political and social status elites above those of ordinary inhabitants — in order to develop and implement the idea of society as a community of free individuals sovereign over a limited state. Yet this was necessary if the marriage of engineering culture and entrepreneurship was to survive and flourish, and produce the economic and technological miracles of the last two centuries.

Socrates, Alvin Toffler, and Attempting to Catch the Wave

To follow up on Jon Rowe's lastest post on the ongoing debate between many of us, including Dr. Gregg Frazer, I would like to add that most of what we have been discussing is the meaning of words.  This is classic "Socratic Dialogue".  The problem I see is that everyone is talking at each other trying to give their answer and be heard.  I see it all day in my classroom.  When everyone is talking all at once no one hears anything.


So here is a suggestion in the spirit of the "Socratic Method":


Let's attempt ask the right questions in a pursuit to raise the level of discussion.  In other words, if we are asking the wrong questions(I think we are) then lets spend our time trying to formulate the right ones.  In that vain I think Jon has done an excellent job of taking this discussion toward where it needs to go when he brought in "Cato Unbound's" series on how we came into the Modern World.


Why?  I have been teaching about the 3 great waves of change in history based on a book by Alvin Toffler called "The Third Wave".  He says that wave one was hunter to agriculture.  Wave two was farms to factories. Wave three is factories to information.  I have been telling my kids that we need to study wave two(Industrial Revolution) and apply it to wave 3 to understand where we need to go as a society.  This will require bringing in the new without throwing proven principles from the old.


With that said, I think this is what the founders did with America.  They studied other eras and applied what was tried and true to some of the new ideas that progress made then deal with.  It was absolutely not throwing out the old and starting something completely new.  That was the French Revolution.  Why does this matter to us now?  This is because the same battle is going on right now.  It seems that are three main groups:


1. Those who are set in their ways and do not want to embrace change because they favor their traditions
2. Those who want to throw out all tradition and start over
3. Those who want to glean the principles that have worked and use them in the new context


If history really does repeat itself then we are on the right track at this blog when we study this period.  It was pivotal.  Chooses were made that shaped the world for hundreds of years.  Some of them good and some of the bad.  There were ideas behind these choices.


In this vain, I proposed two questions that I think will bring this discussion into a much clearer focus:




Which Christian ideas, if any, helped bring us into the modern world?

And

Which Christian ideas, if any, helped try to derail us from progressing toward the modern world? 



I am not saying that I have the right questions and it is surely debatable whether these questions will take us down the right road to find the truth about American Creation.  But I do think it is possibly a good starting point that all can participate in.  It possibly sets ups all different flavors of "Cultural Warriors" for an interesting debate.  It also begins to move us toward a discussion of "Jihad vs. Mc World" and "The Clash of Civilizations".  


The "Third Wave" is here and we are going to make decisions as a society now that affect the next few hundred years of history.  We better get it right!  This blog is a step in that direction.  Lets spread the joy and invite our friends as we continue to raise the discussion.