This morning I listened to a news commentator state, paraphrasing, that the concept of western civilization is not the same for the rich and powerful today as it is for most other people. But even he seemed to be at a loss to explain exactly what the difference is. Indeed, without some direct knowledge as to what they really think western civilization is, explaining their viewpoint here can be rather futile.

The difficulty in grasping what those among the rich and powerful think western civilization is lies, in part, in the fact, as the commentator did point out, paraphrasing his statements once again, that these people favor the idea that rich oligarchs and dictatorial regimes are the way that western civilization is meant to go, so long as the rich benefit, rather than people-oriented democratic governments.

But even this does not quite get us to the foundational thought in the minds of these people. That they basically reject democratic ideals, favoring stricter forms of government in which the rich benefit seems directly at odds with what we have been taught that western civilization actually is, or should be. So, how can they justify their position?

Well, I would be at somewhat of a loss to explain this adequately too if I had not read something some time ago that basically laid out the answer to this dilemma. The world view of these people rests at least almost entirely on a singular event in western history, and it is an event that literally no one else would point to as the singular event that initiated western civilization. But for them, this event is pivotal. For these people, the spark that ignited western civilization, at least in its present form (or the form they see it as being) was the day when the Apostle Paul crossed from Asia into Europe and began to evangelize that continent.

What? Can they really have such an absurd and simplistic viewpoint and really, literally claim that the Apostle Paul lit the spark of western civilization? Yes they can! And based on this viewpoint, then, automatically, Christianity becomes foundational. For them, western civilization cannot exist without Christianity. And, therefore, western governments cannot function without the foundation of Christian ethics, if you will.

During the late Roman Empire Christian Bishops and apologists even went so far as to posit that the end o the Roman Empire, at least in the west, was part of God’s plan because the Roman Empire, literally, had done what it was brought into being to do in that it had served as a tool for protecting the savior and the initial spread of Christianity. Once the empire fell, what was left was several squabbling petty states, all headed by dictatorial kings. Well, at least where government did not fall apart completely. This became the model for Christian nations because all of these petty states used Christianity as a foundation, the empire of Charlemagne later becoming the most obvious example of what those who wished to rule envisioned.

Now, I am not asserting here any critique of what is good and what is not so good about Christianity. The fact of the matter is that Christianity has been used by various forces in history to do both good and bad things. And it is certainly true that the western civilization that we have today would in no way resemble what it is if not for the influence of Christianity.

But, frankly, Christianity is actually NOT foundational to western civilization and to posit that western civilization basically did not exist until Christianity came into Europe is, at best, a faulty way of viewing history and the development of western civilization, which had its foundations in ancient Crete and Greece and had its start long before Christianity came into being.

Anyone who has ever studied western civilization knows that it predates Christianity. But the truth is that what we see today is a western civilization that has been heavily influenced by Christianity for the last two-thousand plus years. So, western civilization has been greatly changed by it. But that does no mean that Christianity and dictatorial regimes should be re-imposed upon people in the western world as some sort of remedy for the ills we face today, as some would have it. What we are seeing today is, in a way, an attempt to return to the empire of Charlemagne. And this includes a somewhat natural alliance with Russia, even though Russia is rarely considered “western”, because the Russian state, except for the aberration of the Soviet Union, has always had Orthodox Christianity as a foundation along with their supposed Byzantine heritage.

With this mix, this combination of Western and Eastern Europe under the rubric of Christianity, the re-established nation of Israel also becomes a pivotal player because end-times prophecy  requires it. Thus, the entirety of western civilization today is literally wrapped up in three political entities; the Western European nations along with the US, Australia, etc., Russia and its satellite nations, and Israel. That Israel is not Christian and does not have Christianity as a foundation is no issue since, with end-times prophecy, they will at some point be brought into the Christian fold. Then all will be complete.

This is literally what those who are seeking to keep power today mean by western civilization.