Christians need to have sound knowledge of the past. It gives us something to set against the ideas that dominate our cultural climate. It reminds us that the key assumptions about God, man and the universe have been quite different throughout history. A man who has moved away from his hometown can see how other parts of the United States contrast with where he is from. If he were to travel to another country, he would see how different the US is from other nations. He could see the accuracy and errors of both his home and the countries that he visits. Likewise someone who has studied history has lived in many times and many places. He can immunize himself from the nonsense that pours forth from the media and politicians .
Martin Luther King once wrote ‘Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator. Every man must be respected because God loves him .’ While this is a plain statement of truth, it is a principle that both ancient and modern people rejected. It would have sounded foreign to the ancient Romans. Nero crucified Christians, doused them in oil, and lit them on fire as human torches . The Chinese long regarded those who were not Chinese as barbarians. In the 1800’s, they ignored the technological advances of others, in part because they saw following other humans as beneath them, which ultimately led China to fall behind on the world stage.
Those who followed Nietzsche rejected the equal dignity of all mankind. Indeed, such followers deliberately were trying to become more than a man. They sought to be an Übermensch, free of human morality . In a similar vein, Communists never saw all human beings as possessing equal dignity. They saw humanity as the oppressors and the oppressed, and one of the groups had to be destroyed. Those who were deemed the enemies of the workers were kept in work camps in Siberia at the same time that King was calling Americans to live up to their highest principles. Racial oppression was being lifted by Christian truth in the US while atheists faced no opposition in oppressing their fellow countrymen. King’s correct belief in human dignity given by God was blatantly ignored by Leftist governments around the world.
You could read Nancy Pearcey’s book Love Thy Body to learn how many are denying that all human beings possess dignity in the eyes of God even today. Where did King’s principles come from? Nietzsche pointed out, long before King, that they did not come from secular humanism but from the Bible. This was why Nietzsche and his followers despised Christianity.
See Civilization The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
See Dominion by Tom Holland
See Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey
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