Columbia University is in the news again. Recently, in the New York City college named after Christopher Columbus (the arch-villain to today’s anti-Western civilization), there were calls for the destruction of Western civilization. Of course, the United States represents a major player in the West.
Adams Sabes, Deputy Editor of Campusreform.org, reported that anti-Israel groups at Columbia posted on Instagram: “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one---we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”
These revolutionaries continue: “As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order.”
Here again we see students in one of our most expensive and elite schools of higher learning articulating Marxist goals to tear down Western society.
What is Western civilization? Even more important than the Greco-Roman contributions is the Judeo-Christian strand of influence.
Take Winston Churchill, a hero to millions---but a villain to the left. He did so much to rally his beleaguered countrymen during World War II to stave off the Nazi barbarians from taking over the British Isles.
In 1940, he gave a rousing speech to the Royal Air Force pilots at the outset of hostilities with the Nazis over the skies of England. He declared, “I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.”
He saw the link between Christianity and civility versus the Nazi regression into paganism and totalitarianism. Thankfully, by God’s grace, freedom won.
Later, when America joined the war, Churchill and American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt met together onboard a battle ship and participated in singing together, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
Fighting the Nazi barbarians to preserve Christian civilization was worth it.
For our Providence Forum series of documentary films on America’s Judeo-Christian roots, I had the privilege of interviewing commentator Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU. He told our viewers: “We are completely losing our heritage. We were founded to be a one nation under God….In God we trust is central to American history. Franklin Roosevelt is the ideal of the left, he is an iconic figure. Franklin Roosevelt spoke regularly during World War II about protecting Christian civilization against the Nazis. Can you imagine a President today saying we have to protect Christian civilization? It’s inconceivable.”
What are they teaching these days in the universities?
It reminds me of the misguided youth that rail against the evils of capitalism as they sip their coffeehouse lattes and consult their cell phones. Products produced and distributed by the so-called evils of capitalism.
Consider the thoughts of Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians. I interviewed him for our Coral Ridge Ministries television special, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? This program was based on a book by the same title I wrote with Dr. D. James Kennedy.
The rabbi observed, “The easiest way to answer whether life on planet earth is better because Jesus walked Jerusalem or not is very simple. And that is: Just watch the way people vote with their feet….Watch where the net flow of immigration is in the world today. Is it from Christian countries to non-Christian countries or the other way around? It is so obvious.”
Generally, people from America are not clamoring to move to the Middle East—while many move from the Middle East to America.
What are some of the great ideas that helped our nation’s founders create the United States of America, a beacon to Western civilization?
When they were both no longer presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, former political rivals, began to correspond. Here is what John Adams penned to Jefferson in 1813: “The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite....And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United….Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.”
Like Adams and Jefferson (who said the moral teachings of Jesus are the best ever articulated), and other great Americans past and present, I believe Western civilization is absolutely worth preserving.
Dr. Jerry Newcombe is the executive director of Providence Forum, a division of Coral Ridge Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air contributor. He has written/co-written 33 books, including (with D. James Kennedy), What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? and (with Dr. Peter Lillback), George Washington’s Sacred Fire.