Religion and the Rise of Western Culture
* Book: Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Christopher Dawson.
URL = https://www.abc.net.au/religion/revealed-and-hidden-reconceiving-western-civilisation/12821176
Description
Simon Kennedy:
"Where do we turn to find non-ideological conceptions of Western civilisation that are not dogged by aesthetic nostalgia? How can we frame Western civilisation in de-politicised terms? One salutary example comes from the historian Christopher Dawson. According to Dawson, the West is a consequence of the spiritual vitality that is borne of the Christian faith — a religious restlessness which seeks change and progress within a stable overarching cosmic framework.
Dawson argues in Religion and the Rise of Western Culture that Western culture had as its lifeblood “a living faith which gave Europe a certain sense of spiritual community”. This lifeblood also gave it a “dynamism” which manifested itself in the “indirect and unconscious influence [Christianity] exercised on the social and intellectual movements which were avowedly secular.”
Dawson further points out that there never was a single unitary organisation which held sway over all of life in the West. And yet the most dominant institution, the Church, contributed substantially to the spiritual vitality and spiritual unity upon which the culturally dynamic West relied. Rather than being politically domineering, Dawson asserts that the Church ensured there would never be a unitary power to override all other forms of social existence. For Dawson, Christianity fought against stagnant uniformity and set the foundations for a vibrant Western culture."
(https://www.abc.net.au/religion/revealed-and-hidden-reconceiving-western-civilisation/12821176)