Gen. 17:20 – “And I will make of thee (Abraham) a great nation…” Gen. 18:18 "Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him …”
It is a matter of fact that in spite of all its abominable conditions today, historically Western civilization – founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic – has been a powerful, civilizing force in the modern world. For all its problems, America is still a wonderful place to live when compared to the hellish lifestyles and practices of much of the rest of the world. But how could such a nation, so devoted to Christian principles in its earliest days, depart so terribly from its founding charters as our beloved homeland has today?
We look in vain for honest, decent people too often in today’s world. Lying is taken for granted in public officials; cheating is considered par for the course in the business world; and it seems too many Americans never shed a tear when hearing our National Anthem. There are no college courses that show our youth how to be civilized. It seems like most churches have gone from feeding the sheep to entertaining the goats. Yet we wonder how our children so often drift off into heresy and destructive lifestyles, why they embrace such foreign beliefs that were once outrageous and outlawed.
We have heard for many years now how Western civilization is dying and how evident this is on every hand. And many of us have long quoted Frederic Bastiat in his monumental work entitled The Law. In that book, which should be required reading in grade schools, he said that "America is (as of the writing of this piece in the mid-1800s) great because America is good. And if America ceases to be good," he warned, it will cease to be great. Only civilized people can produce a civilized family, village, city, or nation and make it produce good things.
In a letter written to Nikolay Chekhov in 1886, the Russian author Anton Chekhov wrote a discourse on some marks of a civilized people. It bears being repeated, in part: “(Civilized people) respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts. They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require a sound mind in a sound body.”
Time and space prohibit us from larger quotes, but there is truth in what he says. As Christian people, we know that simply because one says he is a Christian does not mean he follows these and other principles. But may we live our lives seeking to follow that which is right, good, virtuous, and beautiful (see Phil. 3:8). This striving for excellence, coupled with sound Christian beliefs and practices, may perhaps allow our American people to be known as a civilized nation once again. Abraham’s offspring, of course, are a spiritual group (Christians) as well as the nation of Israel itself, in a form yet to be realized. May we be followers of that which is good – and civilized, in the biblical sense of what God sees as civilized!
