On Oct. 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio,with the Acropolis prominent in the background, praised the role played by ancient Greece in the development of democracy and the formation of the Western world. In contrast to the narrative that has been advanced in recent decades, Rubio did not apologize for that history. Instead, he held it up as an example for the West to recover and the rest of the world to follow.
He described the story this way:
For thousands of years, the civilization that built what stands behind me has captivated the imagination of the Western world. Generations of our statesmen, artists, and philosophers have looked to it—they’ve looked to it with wonder, and they’ve looked to it with awe.
Rubio credited philosophers like Plato and Aristotle for shaping how we think about math, science and medicine. He explained Plutarch’s influence on our Founding Fathers and America’s founding documents. He praised the war heroes of the West for being “willing to die for their cause” but not worshipping death like in other civilizations.
The speech was an encouraging reminder that, despite what too many have learned in school, our Western inheritance is something to be proud of. However, Rubio failed to adequately describe the most important influence that shaped the Western world.
Of course, he was speaking to a Greek audience at a sacred site in Greek history. And, at a few points, Rubio alluded to Christian culture and theology. Greek culture, he said, “paved the way for the gospel,” and Greek philosophy provided a foundation for the philosophy of Augustine, Aquinas, and others. He described the Christian martyrs and cathedrals as part of the great tradition that began in Greece.
To describe Rubio’s portrayal of Christianity and Greek thought as understated is itself an understatement. In fact, if Christianity were only a small element in the largely Greek, secular history of the West, the West would be just another brutal, pagan world among all the others.
As Joseph Loconte noted, though the Ancient Greeks and Romans played key roles in the formation of the Western world, Christianity introduced mercy, compassion and universal human dignity:
The concepts of virtue and justice, however, appear nowhere in Rubio’s account of the achievements of the West and of the American political order. There are references to “heroism, honor, duty,” but they are extracted from any moral or religious context. There is a nod to Christianity and “the empire of Christendom,” but no hint of the civilizing impact of the Christian gospel on the Greco-Roman world.
To suggest that the virtues of pagan Greece, rather than Christ’s call to love our neighbors and enemies and to care for the weak, are to thank for the West is to get things precisely backward. World history is filled with strong and powerful cultures. Ancient Greece and Rome are clear examples. But what made the West the West was the transforming power of the teachings of Jesus and the truths of the Bible, especially the radical idea that every human has dignity and value. However imperfectly it was applied, this was the idea that first changed Europe and then the rest of the world, built social reform movements, as well as hospitals and schools, and birthed freedoms unheard of in pagan societies.
The story of the West is not the story of Greece with a dash of Christianity. It is the other way around. All that is admirable in Western civilization came from Christianity, its Jewish roots and those who followed Jesus Christ in word and in deed.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Constantinos Kollias
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can’t find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
