The Resurrection of Jesus Christ Is the Most Important Event In History
Article by Tyler O'Neil in "PJMedia":
This coming Sunday the world
over, Christians will celebrate the holiday of Easter, which
commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the Resurrection is
more than just a holiday — Christians believe it was a unique historical
event, and some historians argue that it was the turning point in the
history of the world, enabling the modern world's prosperity and
freedom.
Without the
Resurrection, "we would still be in a world of mystery and probably in a
world of repressive empires," Rodney Stark, a social sciences professor at Baylor University and author of many books including The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, told PJ Media in an interview.
"Remember,
at the dawn of history, people didn't live in really tiny countries —
they lived under huge, huge empires, nasty ones," the professor added.
He argued that Christianity historically has been the driving force
behind limited government, science, capitalism, the abolition of
slavery, medicine, organized charities, and more — and that Christianity
would have been impossible without the belief in the Resurrection.
"Without the Resurrection, you don't have Christianity, and without Christianity, you don't have any of this," Stark declared.
Indeed,
the New Testament says as much. In I Corinthians 15:17, Paul wrote,
"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are
still in your sins." The gospels all agree on one count — that Jesus's
disciples scattered, and Peter rejected him, around Jesus' crucifixion.
That manner of death, besides being the most painful, was also the most
disgraceful, and it stands to reason that Christianity would have died
were it not for belief in the Resurrection.
But
how exactly did Christianity change the world? Stark considered many
aspects of Western civilization, and traced their roots back to a
Christian inspiration.
1. Science.
"Science
is unique to the West, and it is not only a major factor in producing
modernity, but it is an example of it," the sociologist argued. "Why do
we have science in the West? It's generally understood that only in the
West did we think it was possible."
Here's
what Stark means: "In the rest of the world it's thought that the
universe is far too mystical to be worth thinking about," much less
experimenting on. But "in the West, the universe was created by a
rational God, and consequently it runs by rules and therefore it makes
sense to try to understand and discover the rules."
It
wasn't so much that Westerners or Christians just happened to be
smarter than everyone else — they just believed that the universe could
be rationally understood, that it was created by a rational God, and
that humans being made in God's image could understand His order behind
things.
Western medicine and
the Western university are also unique contributions of Christianity
that tie in with this notion of science, Stark argued.
2. Capitalism.
Capitalism
often gets a bad reputation, but Stark has defined it in terms of
market complexity — the exact kind of banking and investment that
unleashed unprecedented prosperity and technological innovation in
recent centuries. While many have argued it came from the "Protestant
work ethic," this professor actually traced the phenomenon back to
Catholic monasteries in the Middle Ages.
Many
things had to happen to make capitalism possible. "One was the notion
that commerce itself was legitimate, that it was not indecent," Stark
explained. "In almost all known societies at that time commerce was
degraded — it was thought to be nothing a gentleman would have any
connection to."
"The fact
that Christian theologians, who had taken vows of poverty, nevertheless
worked out that commerce was legitimate, that it was okay that you could
earn interest on money" is fascinating, the sociologist explained. He
cited the Catholic Saint Thomas Aquinas as a key example.
3. Limited government.
"The
fact is that the church declared itself superior to the state, that God
was above the king, and so throughout this whole era of Christendom you
have this situation where in a moral sense the king always had this
limit of power," Stark explained. In contrast to most kingdoms and
empires throughout history, there was a tension between the religious
and secular authorities, and the church's claim to be above the state
actually helped weaken state control.
Interestingly, the Crusades themselves
demonstrate the power of the church over the state. The First Crusade
was launched in response to the mistreatment of pilgrims to the Holy
Land. But the very reason such pilgrims existed was that members of "the
aristocracy of Europe who had done something bad were told by the
church, 'Unless you're going to the Holy Land, I won't absolve you.'"
Stark also noted that as democracies developed in the Italian city states, "the bishop was always on the side of freedom."
Contrary
to popular belief, "the Catholic Church did not believe in the divine
right of kings — that was a Protestant notion in the mid-seventeenth
century." Indeed, "St. Augustine went on and on about the fact that the kings were pretty suspect people, pretty close to the moral margin."
While
Jesus famously told his disciples to pay taxes to the government, he
also drew an enormously important line. "Render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17)
didn't just mean "pay your taxes." It also meant that Christians — who
are made in God's image as coins are made in Caesar's image — owe their
ultimate loyalty to God, not to the state.
4. Slavery.
"It
was only in the West that a society has ever overcame slavery, except
when it's forced by outside forces," Stark explained. Christianity
inspired the "only civilization that has ever discovered within itself
that slavery is immoral and gotten rid of it."
Indeed,
the West abolished slavery twice — once in the Middle Ages and again
more famously under the influence of William Wilberforce in the British
Empire and many abolitionists in America.
Indeed,
the very idea of universal human rights can be traced back to the
Spanish Scholastics, late medieval scholars who argued against enslaving
Native Americans under Spanish rule.
5. Individualism.
"There
is this immense notion of the value of the individual that ultimately
seems to me to be extremely Christian" and "the basis of Western
civilization," Stark argued. He claimed that the emphasis on individuals
is "an extremely Christian notion," because it traces from morality
that individuals "are personally responsible for our own salvation and
for sin."
While many
Christian denominations emphasize the importance of community, the
sociologist argued that "ultimately they really all come down to the
fact that salvation is individual and salvation depends on the
individual's actions" or faith. "The group may sin, but it doesn't
matter — your sins are what count in your fate."
6. Organized charities.
Other scholars, like Alvin J. Schmidt in his How Christianity Changed the World,
have emphasized Christianity's unique rejection of abortion, and the
faith's unique creation of organizations to care for orphans and the
sick. Modern orphanages and hospitals would be unthinkable without
Christianity's unique emphasis on the value of all human life.
Acts of charity are not unique to Christianity, of course, but Stark argued that the organization of these charities is unique.
"Christianity
lent itself to religious organization in important ways," the
sociologist explained. "In the pagan world, people patronized temples,
they didn't belong to them. When you belong to an organization, that
organization is able to have a tremendous amount of energy and create
things like hospitals and be able to sustain them."
"It's
been enormous how many of our institutions" came from Christian
callings, Stark added. "The notion of caring for abandoned infants was
certainly a Christian vocation."
Why not the Jews?
The
Jewish people have made tremendous contributions to the modern world in
science, commerce, and many other endeavors. Their faith is very
similar to the Christian faith — after all, Christianity came from
Judaism. So why didn't the Jews spearhead these innovations?
"Until
modern times, the Jews were a tiny little oppressed minority that could
play no role in the rise of science," Stark lamented. He praised their
enormous contributions — especially to science — as "astounding," but
noted that they "were never in a position to influence history that
much" due to their small population and "discrimination" against them.
At
the same time, "there are some important parts of Christianity that are
not derivative of Judaism," Stark added, like "belief in salvation in
the normal Christian sense."
Does this prove the Resurrection happened?
Despite
the enormous impact Jesus' resurrection made on the history of the
world, Stark argued that this impact does not prove the event actually
happened.
"It still remains a
matter of faith," the sociologist told PJ Media. "Because we don't have
any film of the resurrected Jesus, it's not something that you can
prove."
Stark did argue that
"there's nothing to contradict it, except of course that this is a
miracle," but just because there is no clear contradiction doesn't mean
the event had to have happened, he said.
When
apologists argue that the disciples would not have died for a lie, the
sociologist would accept that argument, but not as concrete proof. "What
they're saying is that people at the time believed it — that doesn't
prove it happened." Rather, "If we found people at the time who didn't
believe it, then we'd be in trouble."
Stark has another book coming out at the end of April, Why God: Explaining Religious Phenomena,
in which the sociologist presents a social science theory of religion
which takes it more seriously on the merits than famous names like
Sigmund Freud and Emile Dirkheim.
"Guys
like Freud and Durkheim are really trying to reduce religion to
something else," Stark told PJ Media. He explained that "it's hard to
deny that religion has played an enormous role in our social lives, and
all I'm trying to answer is, 'How come?'"
Indeed,
it would be impossible to understand how belief in the Resurrection
shaped Christianity and the world while dismissing the idea of religion
as an "opiate of the masses." If the Resurrection is the central event
in the history of the world (and the billions of Christians across the
world should say so, if indeed they are Christians), then that very fact calls out for explanation.
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