I am a fan of the West

Right here is where I want to live while I am on earth. My citizenship is in heaven and the Kingdom of God has my loyalties. But that does not make me blind to the benefits and blessings of Western civilization nor the commitment it deserves from people who mean to do well by their fellow man.  This is not a popular thing to say in academia where such a statement defies the prevailing wisdom that no culture can be “better” than another culture. Underneath this denial is the assumption that there is no objective standard which is rooted in the transcendent and which can be discovered through rational discourse. It is exactly this which is the cancer of the college world.

The Politically Incorrect Guide( to Western Civilization to the rescue. It is written by Professor Anthony Esolen–one of the team-teachers of Providence College’s Development of Western Civilization Core Curriculum. (In my mind the companion volume to this book would be D James Kennedy’s What If Jesus Had Never Been Born, a thought experiment in imagining what western culture would look like had Jesus and his influence been stripped from the West).

This is what is written on the flap of the book.

Everything you should know–but PC professors won’t teach–about our Western heritage

Western civilization is the envy of the globe. It has given to the world universally accepted understandings of human rights (rooted in Judeo-Christian principles), created standards for art, music, and literature that have never been equaled, and originated political and social systems that have spread all across the planet.

Unfortunately, the fog of political correctness now obscures these and other truths about Western civilization. Leftists and Islamic jihadists find common cause in assailing Western “colonialism,” “imperialism,” and “racism” as its defining characteristics. Guilt-ridden Western leaders and public figures speak of their cultural patrimony in disparaging terms they would never dare to use about a non-Western culture. And in the academy, “multicultural”-minded professors flatter students into believing they have nothing really to learn from Sophocles or Shakespeare.

But now, Professor Anthony Esolen–one of the team-teachers of Providence College’s esteemed Development of Western Civilization Core Curriculum–has risen to the West’s defense. The Politically Incorrect Guide(TM) to Western Civilization takes on the prevailing liberal assumptions that make Western civilization the universal whipping boy for today’s global problems, and introduces you to the significant events, individuals, nations, ideas, and artistic achievements that make Western civilization the greatest the world has ever known.

Today–with the West imperiled as never before by the global jihad and threats from China and elsewhere–defending the West has become an urgent imperative: if we don’t value what we have and what we have inherited, we will surely lose it. The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Western Civilization is an essential sourcebook for that defense.

I am finding that there are many in the evangelical church who have reached the critical point in cynicism when it comes to the value and blessings of Western culture. It is a cultural death wish. Preserving and developing our cultural heritage is a task worthy of the Christ-follower.