The deep influence of Judeo-Christian heritage on the civilization of the West is evident from the current notions of human rights and human dignity, innovations in the field of medicine and science, universal education, humanitarian habitual traits and their extensive contribution to arts.
While this claim is common, it has been dogged by controversy in recent times and the revisionists of late modernity along with individuals suffering from historical amnesia have raised a strong opposition to this claim.
Both the liberal media and active humanists have joined forces over the years to focus their efforts on providing the American society with the wrong information through the attack on the “Religious Right”. They have also attempted to rewrite the history of Judeo-Christian heritage in the nation in terms of a more humanistic tone. The central theme, “In God we trust”, which was present at the core of the religious experiment in America has now been replaced with “In Man we trust” .
According to Jacob Neusner, the celebrated Jewish scholar, “Religion has written much of the history of the West”. Christopher Hitchens, the staunch atheist, also holds a similar opinion that the culture of the West will not make any sense without first paying attention to the impact of biblical religion. The close of World War II saw renewed interest in the “Judeo-Christian religion” of the Western world along with the “Judeo-Christian heritage” of the people. The religious propaganda of the church scholars and leaders spread the message that the Judeo-Christian society had been founded on an alleged “Judeo-Christian tradition”. This particular religious notion soon became an unquestioned and fundamental element of both church and secular thinking.
According to the popular North American evangelist and singer, Pat Boon, Judaism in the West was of two sorts – the Christian and the Orthodox. However, Christian Zionist views of this manner were overly simplistic and extremely a historical. The importance of the Judeo-Christian culture in America could not be determined simply by highlighting the variations between Judaism and Christianity .
For many generations, Americans remained unaware of the relation between the history of the nation and its Christian roots. Even though the Soviet Union Constitution followed the doctrine of division of the state and the church, the American Constitution had never stressed on the “separation of church and state” but it had been drilled into the consciousness of the American public.
The First Amendment may have implied this method but it was never explicitly stated. The American government’s power has been used by several liberals of late to propagate the secular humanist philosophy in an attempt to transform the Christian heritage of the nation instead of protecting denominational neutrality by the state as per the intentions of the Founding Fathers .
However, they fail to understand the true significance of the need for Judeo-Christian myth in the lives of Christians. The main interdependence of the two cultures can be understood from the worship of a common God. Mr. S. Levin, the Jewish author, states that “the Christian always says to the Jew and the Jew never to the Christian” .
The future of the Judeo-Christian heritage in America will be either be destroyed in its entirety or revived on a national scale. The Western civilization has to understand that they are on the verge of actual national self-destruction. During some of the past generations, many Americans have witnessed the downfall of ethical and moral values in contrast to other periods in history. They face the risk of financial collapse in the event that no major change occurs. At the current rate, the Western culture might spend itself and tax itself into complete oblivion .
Many religious scholars hold the belief that there is no trace left of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The teachings of the Church in the West have, instead, directly led to the rise of anti-Semitism and Christians need to examine this notion. American religious scholars possess the idea that a single tradition of Judeo-Christianity happens to be a national myth and is no longer regarded as a valid point. In order to strengthen their argument, they quote Jacob Neusner who stated that in terms of history and theology, there never was such a thing as a Judeo-Christian tradition. It was merely a secular myth which had been spiced up by groups who were not even believers themselves.
Many religious authorities indicated that the notion of an overall Judeo-Christian tradition had primarily surfaced by the close of the 19th century. However, it was supposedly unable to gain popularity until the beginning of the 1940’s as a form of American response to the doctrine of Nazism. Apparently, since that time, both Christian and Jewish scholars have concluded that apart from geopolitics, Christianity and Judaism are entirely different religions.
In reality, the previous two thousand years of Christian history in the West make no mention of a Judeo-Christian heritage nor is there any evidence to support the same. This fact has not escaped the perception of true commentators of Jewish and Christian religions. But the confusion over the birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism has established the foundation of the Judeo-Christian heritage in the West. Christianity cannot be considered a patched up version of Judaism nor can Rabbinic Judaism be compared to the religion of the old Hebrews and Moses .
The loss of freedom in religion in the Western cultures can be attributed to the liberal educational establishment that has put in a lot of effort to eliminate any knowledge of the American Judeo-Christian tradition. However, there are several facts, which reveal the actual convictions of the founders of the great nation. There is no doubt that they believed that even though no single Christian denomination should govern the nation, the principles of Christianity and the Bible must form the underlying basis for the education system as well as the government .
The resilience of the Judeo-Christian tradition indicates that past errors have resulted in the evolution of rising amount of respect for individuals as well as the removal of institutions and practices that have caused them harm. The time is now to take the right decisions. A single bad choice might prove terrible for the fate of America and the world and there are only a few years left for individuals to take their inheritance into account. This particular threat is responsible for the re-examination of the significance of America’s Judeo-Christian tradition.
The limited powers of the government and constitutionalism, two of the most significant features of democracy in the Western world, can both be attributed to the covenants of the Bible. Moreover, the rest of the legal system in America owes its origins to not just Christianity but other religious ideas as well. The revolutionary tone of the legal tradition in America is almost impossible to understand without first noting the religious perspective. Even the basic universal rights of humans and the common ancestry tradition of the West features contributions from the Judeo-Christian conceptions of the unique dignity of humans and the responsibilities and rights which they possess due to that dignity.
The significance of Judeo-Christian heritage in the West is also felt in the condemnation of infanticide and abortion. The Hebrews valued greatly “the sanctity of human life” which offered a moral framework for the early Christian notion against infanticide. Even child abandonment was viewed as a sin by the Christians. They found the gladiatorial games to be completely detestable. It was the church leaders who considered the practice to be immensely barbaric and gathered the Christians in order to boycott such “games”.
Gender and racial equality are other significant contributions of the American Judeo-Christian culture. A particularly Western distinctive was the possibility of marshaling development and innovation. Both the Christians and the Jews considered honest labour to be a validation of the dignity of human beings.
Universal education was also brought about as a result of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Torah states that parents must educate their child in order to love the Lord. The greatest Western universities are monuments of the influence of this particular tradition. Moreover, Judeo-Christianity teaches that the wisdom of God is rational and that his goodness permitted it to be knowable. The lack of these assumptions could have seriously hampered the development of science.
The central notion of the Judeo-Christian heritage in America must be evident by this point; in essence, God requires the American Christians to repent. If they believe that only through involvement in politics, they will be able to salvage the nation; they are going to be thoroughly disappointed. If they suppose that they can take up an antagonistic triumphalism that proclaims that they are going to organize themselves and overthrow the evil, they must prepare themselves to confront their own sinfulness.
The Americans must recover the true vision of the nation and they must put into practice the religious ideals perpetrated by the Judeo-Christian heritage. Now, more than ever, the Americans need a Christian nation in comparison to the pagan nation that they are developing into.
The term “Christian nation” should not mean a nation comprising only of Christians, where every individual is forced to believe in God or visit church. People must have the freedom to choose their own religious path. The government should not assume that its job is to force conversion to any particular faith. The government’s main job is to do for the masses what they are unable to do for themselves. The task of bringing individuals closer to faith belongs to the nation’s religious leaders, the churches, the private citizens and the synagogues. This particular division must be maintained at all times. Basically, a Christian nation denotes a nation where the laws have been self-consciously devised according to the principles and laws of the Holy Bible .
Americans have a deep-seated connection to the Judeo-Christian tradition and have benefitted greatly from the life-giving sustenance. They have been provided with a worldview through its collection of religious imagery and moral precepts. This worldview is responsible for birthing a culture which contributes to the growth of humans throughout the new millennium. Modernity and its corrosive effects have weakened the Western legacy from the inside. It may be possible to recover this tradition if faithful individuals commit to its renovation.
Works Cited
Jeremiah Project. (2010). America's Godly Heritage. Retrieved May 7, 2013, from Jeremiah Project: http://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture/heritage.html
Kairos Journal. (2008). Legatees of a Great Inheritance: How the Judeo-Christian Tradition Has Shaped the West. Retrieved May 7, 2013, from Kairos Journal: http://www.kairosjournal.org/misc/FINAL.%20Legatees%20of%20a%20Great%20Inheritance.pdf
New Dawn Magazine. (1994, March). The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition. Retrieved May 7, 2013, from Information Clearing House: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4803.htm
