A recent commentary in The American Spectator argues that “The West is a Superior Civilization.” If you ever took a class in Cultural Anthropology, you would certainly conclude that not all cultures are the same, and not all cultures lead to human flourishing. Nevertheless, a typical professor would probably try to argue that we don’t have the right to judge other cultures. But I doubt any of them would like to live in a society where women and children have little or no rights or one that practices cannibalism.

One of my radio guests didn’t really like the idea of calling western culture a superior civilization. And we can admit there is still much we as Christians would like to change about twenty-first century society. But the author correctly argues that the West “represents the most advanced and prosperous moral, political, and social order in the history of civilization.”

The foundations were laid by Greek and Roman thought from Socrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. Christianity raised those foundations through the Apostle Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas. Beauty and truth rose because of DaVinci and Michaelangelo. Great music came from Bach and Beethoven. Great literature came from the pens of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Dickens. 

Scientific progress arrived due to the work of Galileo and Newton. The West gave us the scientific method, the steam engine, and the Internet. Constitutional principles were written by Locke and Montesquieu. Today we take for granted foundational principles like judicial independence, limited government, representative democracy, and the rule of law.

Not all ideas are of equal value. Not all civilizations have produced what the West has achieved.