The book that made your world: how the Bible created the soul of Western Civilization
Vishal Mangalwadi
This bold and intriguing title immediately caught my attention. Written by Vishal Mangalwadi, a native of India, I was interested to read an Eastern perspective on the Bible and Western thought. This engagingly readable book is in seven parts. Part I reviews today's secular culture in the West.
Mangalwadi outlines the ways in which Western countries founded on Christian values no longer comprehend these roots. In place of a Christian understanding of the world and humanity, a secular worldview of nihilism and hopelessness has developed, and the West has lost its soul.
Part II presents Mangalwadi's personal history. He became a Christian as a child, but later, while attending a secular university in India he found himself surrounded by contradictory teaching about the nature of truth and knowledge. Some friends held a pantheistic worldview, but his professors taught that truth was unknowable. He was also struck by the way a fatalistic belief in reincarnation trapped people in poverty. Turning to the Bible for answers, he found a common thread running throughout; God's desire to bless all nations through his Word.
Parts III to VI cover the striking impact of the Bible on areas such as: rationality, technology, languages, education, science, morality, family life, medical practice. Mangalwadi makes clear, rational points using historical, secular, and biblical sources. He argues that biblical truth has not only affected these aspects of culture, it is their source and soul.
The final part of the book examines present day society. Mangalwadi argues that as society embraces moral relativism, biblical values such as equality and universal human rights cease to be self-evident truths. Throughout the book Mangalwadi outlines the Bible's power to liberate through the reality of God's redemption. His final chapter examines the impact of past nations and people groups rejecting God's Word. He concludes by looking to the future and asking which way the West will chose.
One of the extraordinary things about this book is the author's perspective. Born into oriental culture, surrounded by Hinduism and Buddhism, he sees clearly the hope that flows from 2,000 years of Christian history. It is, at the same time, a personal narrative, and a rigorous study of the impact of the Bible on Western civilisation. Mangalwadi challenges the reader to take seriously the claims of the Bible and to examine their impact.Fiona MacCormick is a palliative medicine registrar in Newcastle.
