CULTURE AND RELIGION MATTER, NOT RACE
Robert H. Lee - March 25, 2015 - To The Point (TTP)
Why do some nations prosper while others do not? Take a look at South-East Asia. Singapore is prosperous and miles ahead in per capita income and technology than neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia.
In the Middle East, you see the same story. Out of the same desert sands as its neighbors, Israel has carved a high tech and prosperous democracy. But its neighbors languish in poverty and dictatorships.
Now, if you look at different communities living in the same country, you again see a stark difference. People from the Indian subcontinent have been migrating to the UK since the 1950's, a legacy of the colonial era. But the Indians have outstripped the Moslems (Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) from the Indian subcontinent in the UK.
The predominantly Hindu Indians have a poverty level about the same as Whites in the city of London. But Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are among the poorest people in London.
Quite clearly, racial discrimination is not the problem because Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis are racially very similar people. The reason for this lies in the culture and religion of the different communities.
Similarly, the Chinese minority in Malaysia and Indonesia enjoy higher income than the majority Malay Moslems. A 1995 study done in Indonesia showed that ethnic Chinese controlled 73% of the publicly traded companies in the Jakarta Stock Exchange and 68% of the top 300 conglomerates even though the Chinese were less than three percent of the Indonesian population.
So again racial discrimination is not the reason as the Chinese are the minority group in these two countries and are in fact suffering from discrimination.
Culture and religion affect the way you behave. How you behave will have economic, social, and political consequences. This is not a new idea. The first sociologist to write about it was Max Weber, who wrote his famous essay, "Protestantism and the Rise of Capitalism."
Weber attributed the success of North America and Europe to the culture that the Protestant faith produced. Your chosen vocation was a calling from God. Doing well in your calling is a sign of God's favor and thus not to be envied by others.
Doing well meant financial success, but it was a sin to spend on luxuries. So the result was the reinvestment of profits and capital accumulation. This propelled the Protestant societies to prosperity.
The Christian faith has certainly benefited Western Civilization. Rodney Stark explained how in his book, "For the Glory of God." Stark argued that Christianity gave rise to the abolition movement, modern science as well as the unfortunate witch-hunts.The irony is that there is an elite in officially-atheist China that understands Christianity's power even while it persecutes Christians. But in America, Christianity does not have a champion in its cultural and intellectual elite.
But the Christian faith does not have support among
Regular church attendance is linked to lower substance abuse, lower crime rate, lower divorce rate as well as greater happiness and better health. Studies have pointed to its beneficial effects on society. Christianity has benefited western civilization and continues to do so today.
This concept that each of us possesses natural or inalienable, God-given rights found its way into the Virginia Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
The Pope tried to "pull rank" but Ockham replied that everyone possessed inalienable God-given rights that no one can take away. Tierney wrote that the concept of Natural Rights started in the 13th century in a debate between William of Ockham (known for his Occam's Razor) and the Pope over some property.
This gap was brilliantly filled by Brian Tierney, who wrote the book, "The Idea of Natural Rights." But Stark overlooked one very important hallmark of western civilization - the conception of human rights.
This removed the need to search for God-given laws since none exist - indeed, they cannot exist. This was in stark contrast to the Islamic conception of God as a capricious entity that decides the movement of every single atom or thing in the universe at every instant in time. This led scientists to search for these laws. In Stark's thesis, Christians believe God created an orderly universe that acts in accordance with God-given laws. America's intellectual elite. In contrast, Chinese leaders and intellectuals, even those in officially atheist communist China, understood Christianity's value.
In the Niall Ferguson's book, "Civilization: The West and the Rest," there is a quote from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said,
"One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.
We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.
Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.
But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful.
The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt about this."
One of Singapore's Founders, former deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee, told a group of Methodists what he said to an American banker when he was asked what is the best way to develop a poor third-world country.
Apparently,
This combination must result in spectacular economic growth." This would bring about the end of easy-going thriftless habits among the populace and the beginning of scrupulous honesty in public administration. I said I would recommend that the population be converted to some demanding, narrow minded, intolerant form of Protestant religion, such as one of the Calvinist sects. Over coffee, he asked if I had to recommend one single prescription to solve the economic problems of a poor country, what would it be. "Recently, I had an interesting after dinner discussion with a widely traveled American banker. He said,China's atheist former leader, Jiang Zemin agreed. According to the book, Jesus in Beijing, by David Aiken, Jiang Zemin was asked what would he do if he could with the stroke of a pen. Jiang replied that he would make China a Christian country.
The irony is that there is an elite in officially-atheist China that understands Christianity's power even while it persecutes Christians. But in America, Christianity does not have a champion in its cultural and intellectual elite. It is in decline as can be seen by the growing acceptance of gay marriage in America.
The Christian faith helped make America great. So its decline will also lead to America's decline. Religion and the culture it generates have economic, social, and political consequences. Yet there is no discussion in America among its elite on the consequences of the decline of Christianity.
This tragedy must be overcome if America wishes to prosper in the future.
Robert Homer Lee is the author of Saving Democracy From Suicide. He is a long-standing TTPer known as "Cassowary" on the Forum.
TOP NAVIGATING IN LIFE HOME
