From the archives of articles gathered over at Christian Heritage site (headquartered in Cambridge, England) is a discerning, trenchant response by Ranald Macaulay to a December '05 piece by Dr. Niall Ferguson. Ferguson, interestingly enough, is an academician who is an avowed materialist but he nevertheless believes that the cultural horrors facing a decadent West can be effectively opposed only by Christian values. I print here an excerpt of Ranald's article but the whole letter isn't much longer. You can find the full text right here.“Heaven Knows How We’ll Rekindle Our Religion, But I Believe We Must.”
This was the striking title splashed across The Sunday Telegraph’s centre page four weeks ago. The sub-title was equally arresting: ’Britain’s falling away from the Church has only delivered us into the hands of others’ fanaticism’. The author is the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University – who describes himself in the article as ‘a hard-shelled materialist.’
He starts by saying ‘…the decline of Christianity – not just in Britain but right across Europe – stands as one of the most remarkable phenomena of our times.’ Then he lists factors which demonstrate the seriousness of this decline, after which he asks ‘Why have the British lost their historic faith? To be frank I have no idea…but I do know that it matters’...
...But Niall Ferguson is profoundly right when he warns that to avoid Muslim fanatics on one side and New Age mumbo jumbos on the other ‘we need to rekindle our religion’. Laws presuppose a moral framework – and morality in turn presupposes religion. But, Europe has no convictions about religion today. So, almost by definition, we lack a moral framework. Hence we are powerless against those introducing evidently irrational and destructive alternatives.
His principal intuitions, then, are correct: the current moral vacuum in Europe stems from a loss of faith; we are unlikely to find a reasonable and practicable morality apart from the Christianity which gave rise to the culture in the first place; therefore we need to ‘rekindle our religion’.
But ‘heaven knows (sic)’ he says, ‘how that can be done’! Thankfully heaven does know. Indeed the God of heaven has told us what we need to believe and do, none of which is irrational and all of which is beautiful and wonderful. For, first, the biblical revelation dove-tails with the reality in which ‘we live and move and have our being’ and not least even with our own puny little selves – which keep testifying, as the Psalmist says, that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Ps 139). Furthermore, Jesus stands majestically ‘over all the wrecks of time’, as the hymn-writer puts it. In fact his person and not merely his teaching is itself the indispensable Rock upon which the culture finally rests – and without whom it cannot be rekindled. Thankfully, though, Jesus himself makes the gracious invitation to sinners, ‘Come to ME all you who are burdened and I will give you rest’. So hope remains.
