'The Impact of Christianity on Western Civilization\r'

'The Influence of delivererianity on westward politeisation The overconfident model of Christianity is far reaching speci entirelyy in the rich tale and enculturation of Western Civilization despite a long rest ignorance or adamant denial of its contri entirelyions. The sacred scripture itself is responsible for(p) for much of the language, literature, and fine arts we lie with straight off as its artists and composers were heavily curved by its literary productions. capital of Minnesota Maier, in writing the forward to the concord How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J.Schmidt, says this ab out the pro assemble impact Christianity has had on the growth of Western Civilization: â€Å"No different religion, philosophy, disciplineing, nation, figureheadâ€whateverâ€has so changed the origination for the better as Christianity has d iodin. Its shortcomings, cl earlier c onceded by this author, ar nevertheless heavily outweighed by its benefits to ent irely mankind” (Schmidt 9). Contrary to the tarradiddle texts treat manpowert of the subject, Christian diverge on values, beliefs, and practices in Western culture atomic number 18 abundant and tumesce ingrained into the flourishing society of today (Schmidt 12).In the doddery Testa ment book of Hosea the spell outr defers: â€Å"my people be destroyed for lack of knowledge,” a soilment that skunk well be applied to those today who are inhumeful of the past (The rehabilitation playing field volume, Hosea 4. 6a). Schmidt writes regarding casualness and arbiter as seen by today’s culture: â€Å"The liberty and justice that are enjoyed by clements in Western societies and in close to non-Western countries are increasingly seen as the products of a benevolent, sacrilegious government that is the provider of entirely things. there seems to be no awareness that the liberties and right hands that are currently operative in free societies of the West are to a great(p) degree the result of Christianity’s influence (248). chronicle is replete with examples of somebodys who acted as a inwrought law unto themselves â€Å" lots curtailing, even obliterating the immanent rights and emancipations of the country’s citizens (249). Christianity’s influence, however, set into motion the belief that man is responsible to matinee idol and that the law is the aforementi adeptd(prenominal) regardless of status.More than champion thousand historic geological period earlier the birth of Christ the biblical requirement granted by Moses comprised an ingrained component of the principle that â€Å"no man is supra the law. ” atomic number 53 witness is non enough to convict a man incriminate of some(prenominal) criminal offense or offense he may turn over committed. A matter must be conventional by the testimony of twain or one-thirdsome witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19. 15) and so the lodger , regardless of position in society, could non arbitrarily incarcerate or execute the accused and was himself subject to the law.The New Testament in like manner mandated ii or more witnesses in ecclesiastical matters regarding an mi plump for Christian in Matthew 18:15-17 (Schmidt 249). The criminal and justice systems of numerous free countries today call this Judeo-Christian requirement of having witnesses testify and in British and the Statesn jurisprudence, witnesses are sort out of â€Å"due process of law,’ a legal concept starting appearing chthonic King Edward III in the fourteenth degree centigrade (Schmidt 249). One startling example of the concept that no man is above the law is seen in the fighting amid the Christian emperor moth Theodosius the Great and St. Ambrose. It happened in 300 A. D. hen some in Thessalonica rioted and elicit the anger of the emperor who overreacted by slaughtering approximately sevensome thousand people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose asked the emperor to repent and when Theodosius refused, the bishop excommunicated him. subsequently a month Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral. oft quantifys mistaken as a struggle for major power amidst church building and state, the evidence in which Ambrose’s letter to the emperor cited sole concern for the emperor’s spiritual welfare conclude this as being the frontmost instance of applying the principle that no one is above the law (Schmidt 250).The Magna Carta served as a courageous precedent some five deoxycytidine monophosphate years by and by to the Ameri dirty dog patriots in the public of the unique government of the coupled States. The charter, subscribe in 1215 at Runnymede by King flush toilet grant a number of rights never held in front this historical occasion including that â€Å"(1) justice could no longer be sold or denied to freeman who were down the stairs trust of ba rons; (2) no taxes could be levied without epresentation; (3) no one would be imprisoned without a trial; and (4) strait-lacedty could not be taken from the owner without just stipend (Schmidt 251). The Magna Carta had important Christian ties as demonstrated by its preamble that began, â€Å" nates, by the grace of idol…,” and verbalise that the charter was formulated out of â€Å"reverence for theology and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of deity and the exaltation of Holy Church and the reform of our realm, on the advice of our reverend [church] fathers” (Schmidt 251).This memorial also followed the precedent move overed in 325 at the Council of Nicaea in which Christian bishops wrote and adopt a formal code of fundamental beliefs to which all Christians were expected to adhere. The Magna Carta displayed what its formulators as Christians expected of the king and his subjects regarding polite lib erties (Schmidt 251). Natural law is a concept with a long history dating back to the classic philosophers.Despite some variations among philosophers one point of agreement was dumb as â€Å"that process in temperament by which human beings, through the use of sound reason, were adapted to perceive what was mby word of mouth right and defective” (Schmidt253). With the process of Christianity common law was clarified to state that â€Å" rude(a) law was not an entity by itself but part of God’s created purchase order in record through which he make all noetic human beings aware of what is right and wrong” (Schmidt 253). The Apostle Paul expressed this in the New Testament book of Romans: For when Gentiles, who do not swallow the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not be comport the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their con acquirement also bears witness, and their conflicting scenes accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2. 14-15). Martin Luther stated: â€Å"why does one wherefore take the Ten Commandments? Because the instinctive laws were never so orderly and well written as by Moses” (Schmidt 253).In his Two Treatises of Government, doc and policy-making philosopher John Locke (1632-1703) claimed that government existed only to uphold the inseparable law and that governmental tyranny violated the natural rights of man (Schmidt 253). Natural rights were derived from nature and not from kings or government. The renowned side scholar Sir William Blackstone had immense influence on the American patriots in the ordinal coke who used his Commentaries of the virtues of England (1765) while formulating the fledgling government as evidenced by the Declaration of Independence.The devises â€Å"the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” document the reliability on the Christian chthonianstanding of the natu ral law (Schmidt 254). The Declaration of Independence goes on to state that â€Å"whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to install new government,” thus reiterating the concept of â€Å"inalienable rights” given by nature. The term â€Å"axiomatic” has Christian root going back to theological writings of the eighth century.Schmidt quotes Gary Amos, author of Defending the Declaration, as saying: â€Å"To the mediaevalists, ‘self-evident’ knowledge was truth known intuitively, as shoot revelation from God, without the need for proofs. The term presumed that man was created in the image of God, and presumed certain beliefs about man’s rationality which can be traced as far back as Augustine in the primordial ordinal century” (pp. 254-55). Schmidt believes it is quite plausible that St. Paul’s biblical concept of â€Å"self-evident” (Romans 1. 20) knowingly or unknowingly influenced Jefferson when he wrote the term into the Declaration (Schmidt 255).The concluding portion of the Declaration includes the phrase â€Å"Supreme Judge,” a term used in Locke’s The endorsement Treatise of Government, where he refers to Jephthah calling God â€Å"the Judge” in Israel’s fight against the Ammonites (Judges 11. 27). If this is taken from Locke’s work, Amos contends, â€Å"then we work a point link surrounded by the rule book and the Declaration of Independence (Schmidt 255). The geological formation, the hallmark of the foundling government in America, was greatly influenced by the cut Christian and philosopher Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) as evidenced by the three furcatees of America’s government.Schmidt makes note that one historian has said that Montesquieu’s book, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), â€Å"[gave] American geological formation writers their ho ly writ” and called Montesquieu â€Å"the godfather of the American Constitution” (256). Montesquieu’s political scheme was incorporated into the Constitution mostly as a result of the component part taken by James Madison, known as the principal architect. His arguments for a separation of powers stemmed from the Christian teaching of the fallen nature of man. He is quoted as saying, ‘The truth [is] that all men, having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree. In his Federalist Paper number 51 he notes, â€Å"If men were angels, no government would be necessary” (Schmidt 257). Many history texts have made note that the three powers are derived from Montesquieu’s theory but have failed to note the influence of Christianity on his beliefs: â€Å"It is not enough for a religion to establish a doctrine; it must also direct its influence. This the Christian religion performs in the most estimable manner, especially with respect to th e doctrines of which we have been language.It makes us want for a state which is the object of our belief; not for a state which we have already experient or known” (Schmidt 257). The founding of America’s republic government can best be described as the pinnacle of our American Christian heritage. Noah Webster defined government in his American lexicon of the side Language (1828) as: â€Å"Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts provide serve for the government of our conduct. ’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions. â€Å" Thus Webster defines government in a way that reflects the biblical concept of governmental authority, that is, beginning with the individual and extending outer to include all institutions (DeMar, God and Government, pp. 4-5). The Founding Fathers recognised the importance of self-government. As DeMar states, â€Å"A self-governed individual is soul who can regulate his a ttitudes and actions without the need for external irresistible impulse” (14). Believing God’s law to be the sole standard for determining right and wrong John Adams wrote, â€Å"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and apparitional people.It is inadequate to the government of any opposite. ” The words of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) reveal the brain of many who fled to the shores of America in search of apparitional immunity: â€Å"He knows not how to happen a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a colony; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him. ”though the Constitution does not implicitly assume a Christian nation or acknowledgement of the frugality of G od in national affairs, an omission greatly regretted by the Christian public at the time of adoption (Morris 296), fundamentals of Christianity were incorporated into the State Constitutions of the transformation which demonstrated the Christian life and character of our civil institutions (Morris 269). Among other things, the influence of Christianity has pervade into the concept of freedom and rights of the individual. Without this freedom there is no real freedom on the economic, political, or religious level (Schmidt 258).From its inception, Christianity has primed(p) a high value on the individual in stark contrast to the Greco-Roman culture in which the individual was always subordinate to the state (Schmidt 259). Malcolm Muggeridge, once a non-Christian but by and byward a strong defender of Christianity, said, â€Å"We must not forget that our human rights are derived from the Christian doctrine. In Christian terms e very single human being, whoever he or she may be, sick or well, sharp or foolish, beautiful or ugly, all human being is loved by his Creator, who as the church doctrine tell us, counted the hairs of his head. ” (Schmidt 260).Individual freedom has led to many positive effects in the history of Western society. One essential aspect of this began with individuals much(prenominal) as Tertullian, Lactantius, St. Augustine, and later Martin Luther who promoted religious freedom. Luther, standing before Emperor Charles V and the Diet of Worms in 1521 declared: â€Å"Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reasonâ€I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each otherâ€my con intelligence is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recent anything, for to go against con acquirement is neither right nor safe.God help me, Amen. ” The aboriginal Amendment echoes the desire of prominent Christian forbears in promoting religious liberty and freedom of the individual (S chmidt 263). Christianity’s influence on development can be seen at its very inception with the teachings of Jesus who used words, parables, and human-life illustrations and taught others who then would become teachers themselves (Schmidt 170). Schmidt notes that the earliest Christians were mostly Jews who came from a long-standing customs that valued formal education. St.Paul in his epistles makes references to Christians teaching in Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica, as well as other places (171). article of belief go on after the death of the apostles and in the very early church (A. D. 80-110) the Didache, basically an instruction manual(a) for new converts to Christianity, appeared. Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch in the first cristal of the second century, insisted that children be taught the Scriptures and a skilled trade, a concept carried over from the Jews (Schmidt 171). Jesus Christ’s command to the disciples and all Christians was to teach people â €Å"all things” that he commanded him.Newcomers, in preparation for baptism and church membership, were taught orally by the question and answer method. Both men and women over a period of two to three years were catechized and first were instructed in the teacher’s home (Schmidt 171). These types of instruction lead to formal catechetical trains with a strong emphasis on the literary. Justin Martyr, around A. D. 150, established schools in Ephesus and in Rome. Other schools rapidly spread passim the regions. The school is Alexandria, Egypt was well famous for its literary qualities (Schmidt 171).Christian doctrine was the primary focus of these schools though the one in Alexandria also taught mathematics and care for and when Origen succeeded Clement he added grammar classes (Schmidt 172). Although Christians were not the first to train in formal teaching it appears they were the first to teach both sexes in the same context. Schmidt notes W. M. Ramsey as stat ing that Christianity’s aim was â€Å"universal education, not education throttle to the rich, as among Greeks and Romans…and it [made] no distinction of sex” (172).St. Augustine once said that Christian women were better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers (Schmidt 172). Details on the education of children are not known until the one-fourth to the tenth century when cathedrals and episcopal schools were maintained by bishops. The schools taught not only Christian doctrine but also the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The espiscopal schools primarily trained priests but also enrolled others.Children of royalty and the higher social ranks attended the cathedral schools and others were instructed in monasteries or nunneries, where girls predominated. Although children were encouraged to enter church vocations most entered secular ones. At the time of the Reformation, Marti n Luther, to his dismay, found widespread ignorance when he visited the churches in Saxony. He proceeded to write Small Catechism in 1529 noting that the common people had subatomic to no knowledge of Christian teachings and that many pastors were ill-chosen to teach. He criticized the bishops for this indiscretion (Schmidt 176).Luther urged a state school system â€Å"to include vernacular primary schools for sexes, Latin secondary schools, and universities. ” He also said that parents who failed to teach their children were â€Å"shameful and despicable” (Schmidt 177). Education in early America was built on the heels of the Reformation of the 16th century which â€Å"stressed reclamation of all of life, with education as an essential transforming force (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 39). Modeling the Academy of Geneva (founded by John Calvin in 1559), universities sprang up that would apply the Bible to all of life (DeMar 39).On of the first colleg es to be founded was Harvard in 1636 three years after John Eliot (1604-1690) first proposed a college for Massachusetts Bay. Harvard’s curriculum emphasised the assume of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), logic, divinity ( divinity), and communication (public speaking and rhetoric). Latin also linked students to classical studies and the writings of the church fathers (DeMar 43). The Puritans held to the belief that the collegiate education proper for a minister should also be the same for educated laymen.There was no great distinction mingled with secular and theological learning (DeMar 44). The early adage of Harvard was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (â€Å"Truth for Christ and the Church”). Harvard’s precept today has been reduced simply to Veritas (DeMar 45). Other early universities built exclusively on Christian principles were William and bloody shame (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), King’s College (1754), Brown (1764), Ru tgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1769) (p. 42). The education of colonial children was provided by a curriculum of three books in addition to theBible: the Hornbook, the New England Primer, and the Bay Psalm book. The Hornbook, a single parchment attached to a wooden paddle, contained the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and religious doctrines written or printed on it. The 1690 first edition of the Primer contained the call up calling of the Old and New Testament books, the Lord’s Prayer, â€Å"An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Westminster Assembly Shorter Catechism, and John Cotton’s â€Å"Spiritual Milk for American Babes” (DeMar 41). The Primer was the most commonly used standard for almost 200 years.Another popular textbook was The McGuffey ratifier (Schippe 9). Noah Webster, educator and compiler of the 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language wrote: â€Å"Education without the Bi ble is useless. ” (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 40) Christian faith was integrated into every facet of education in early America. Christianity’s influence on language, literature, and the arts is often unnoted and even taken for granted. Without the Bible much of what we enjoy today would be non-existent. The English language incorporates many words and phrases taken from the Bible when first translated.In 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Scriptures in its entirety and from it appears many of the words we tranquilize use today including the words adoption, ambitious, cucumber, liberty, and scapegoat among others (Schippe 12). William Tyndale translated the first English translation from the original texts. A gifted linguist skilled in eight languages with spic-and-span insights into Hebrew and Greek, Tyndale was eager to translate the Bible so even â€Å"the boy that drives the plow” could know the Bible (Schippe 13). Some familiar words and p hrases of his include: â€Å"let there be light (Genesis 1. 3),” â€Å"the powers that be (Romans 13. ),” â€Å"a law unto themselves (Romans 2. 14),” and â€Å"fight the good fight (1 herds grass 6. 12)” (Schippe 13). The influence of Tyndale on the English language was coagulate in the publication of the 1611 King James Bible which retained about 94 percent of Tyndale’s work (Schippe 12). A renowned scholar on the literature of the Bible, Alistair McGrath notes, â€Å"Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg orchestrate” (Schippe 12). Despite the hostility and persecution towards the Christians in the early centuries under Nero and Domitian and ater under the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation the Scriptures were precisely copied by the priests and monks which in later years were translated into the langua ges of the common people even under menace of punishment (Schippe 14). Tyndale first worked in secret and when later betrayed and about to be burnt at the stake he called out, â€Å"Lord, open the King of England’s eyes. ” within a year King Henry allowed English Bibles to be distributed. Two million English Bibles were distributed throughout a country of just over vi million nearly seventy-five years after Tyndale’s death (Schippe 14).Writers, artists, and musicians over the centuries have been greatly influenced by the Bible. From Dante to Milton to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the words and themes found in the Scriptures have made their way into much of the literature we study and enjoy today. Other great writers in the history of Western Civilization include Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, William Blake, T. S. Eliot, and William Faulkner, to name a few (Schippe 44). Art depicting biblical scenes was made popular espe cially during the Renaissance with artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt.Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most famous composers, was greatly influenced by the Scriptures. His Magnificant was written for the Christmas service of 1723 at St. doubting Thomas’s Church in Leipzig (Schippe 237). The cantata, a literary genre of vocal music in the Baroque period and a key part of the German Lutheran service, was primarily used in Bach’s music. A deeply religious man, Bach signed his cantatas â€Å"S. D. G. , which stands for Soli Deo Gloriaâ€â€Å"to God alone the glory” (Schippe 237). Many other forms of music known today have Christian roots such as the sonata, the symphony, and the oratorio.Most forms of music began as sing, hymns, and spiritual songs and the outgrowth from there progressed as the monks and churches spread throughout the ages. Ambrose (340-97) first had members of his congregation sing psalms antiphonally and allowed all people to participate in the good morning and evening church services by setting the words of his hymns to â€Å"an easy metrical form, the iambic diameter (Schippe 316). Biblical stories were dramatized and performed in song as early as the ninth century. A well-known church drama in the tenth century was cut downatio sepulchri (The Visit to [Christ’s] Sepulcher). Schmidt notes there is good eason to believe the opera evolved out of church dramas that appeared five hundred years before the Renaissance (316-17). The works of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn among others have greatly been influenced by the words of the Bible; oftentimes the music itself like a shot reflected that influence (Schippe 328-29). With the publishing of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1896 the conceit that Christianity was responsible for the arrival of science has largely been pushed out of the minds of the people, especially in schoolman circles (Schmidt 218-19).However, there is a pronounced difference between the pagan and Christian religions, that being the Christian presupposition of one God who is a rational being. Schmidt asks the question, ‘If God is a rational being, then may not human beings, who are made in his image, also employ rational processes to study and investigate the world in which they live? ” (219). It was Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253), a Franciscan bishop and first premier of Oxford University, who first proposed the inductive, experimental method and his student, Roger Bacon (1214-94) who asserted that â€Å"all things must be verified by experience. about three hundred years later Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave whim to the inductive method by recording his experimental results. Bacon has been called â€Å"the practical creator of scientific induction. ” Besides his scientific interests he also devoted time to theology and wrote treatises on the Psal ms and prayer (Schmidt 219). The inductive data-based method guided by rational procedures stood in stark contrast from the ancient Greek lieu of Aristotle which had a stranglehold on the world for fifteen hundred years.Even after these empirically minded individuals introduced their idea the scholastic world for the most part continued to hold to Aristotelicism which was the real â€Å"struggle” between the Catholic Church and science (Schmidt 219-220). One other prominent presupposition of Christianity is that God, who created the world, is separate and distinct from it unlike Aristotelian philosophy which dictum the gods and universe intertwined. Pantheism regarded the scientific method as sacrilegious and an affront to divine nature and thus only in Christian thought where God and nature are separate would science be possible (Schmidt 221).Schmidt quotes Lynn White, historian of medieval science, as saying â€Å"From the thirteenth century onward into the eighteenth every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (222). William Occam (1280-1349) had a great influence on the development of modern science. His concept known as â€Å"Occam’s Razor” was the scientific principle that states that what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. It is the principle of parsimony.As was common with almost all medieval natural philosophers, Occam did not confine himself to scientific matters and wrote two theological treatises, one dealing with the Lord’s Supper and the other with the body of Christ, both of which had a marvellous impact on Martin Luther’s thinking (Schmidt 222). da Vinci Da Vinci (1452-1519), while a great artist and painter was also a scientific encephalon who analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics. However, his greatest benefit to science was in the study of physiology in which he produced m eticulous drawings of the human body (Schmidt 223).Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) followed in Da Vinci’s footsteps. In his famous work, De humani corpis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, he corrects over two hundred errors in Galen’s physiological writings. (Galen was a Greek physician of the second century) The errors were largely found by dissecting cadavers (Schmidt 223). The branch of genetics flourished under the work of Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk, who after canvass Darwin’s theory of evolution rejected it (Schmidt 224). In the field of astronomy great advances were made under devout Christian men Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo.In physics we fancy Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Blaise Pascal (1623-62), Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854), Andre Ampere (1775-1836), Michael Faraday (1791-1867), and William Thompson Kelvin (1824-1907). These men held to a stro ng Christian faith as evidenced by their writings. Before he died, Kepler was asked by an attending Lutheran pastor where he primed(p) his faith. Kepler replied, â€Å"Solely and alone in the work of our deliverer Jesus Christ. ” Kepler, who only tried â€Å"thinking God’s thoughts after him,” died with the Christian faith deep-rooted firmly in his mind and heart.His epitaph, penned four months before his death stated: I used to m the heavens, Now I must measure the earth. though sky-bound was my spirit, My earthly body rests here (Schmidt 230). Such was the mindset of the fathers of modern science who held to deeply religious beliefs and saw no contradiction between faith and science. Had it not been for those men who believed in a rational God who created rational men who sought only to reckon the world that God had created and obeyed the command to have â€Å" normal” (Genesis 1. 28) over the earth, science would not be as it is today.History books are filled with the rich details of men and women whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ and impacted the world through ideas found in Scripture in a wide array of disciplines. To deny the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization is to deny history altogether. Although at certain times there loomed murky areas in church history by those who deviated from the faith the overall positive contributions far outweigh the negative. There is no mistaking the fact that Christianity has changed the world for the better. working Cited DeMar, G. (2001).God and Government: A Biblical and Historical Study. pulverise Springs, GA: American Vision. DeMar, G. (2003). America’s Christian Heritage. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers. Morris, B. (2007). The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States. Powder Springs, GA: American Vision. The Reformation Study Bible. R. C. Sproul, gen. ed. Orlando: Ligioner Ministries: 2005. Schippe, C. , & Stetson, C. (2006). The Bible and Its Influence. Fairfax, VA: BLP Publishing. Schmidt, A. (2004). How Christianity Changed the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.\r\n'