Remaking the World - How American Culture Changed the World
You and I, living here in America in 2024 take a lot for granted.
The very nature and reality of how we live as Americans and Westerners worldwide is unique to human history.
And with our society in moral free fall, people worldwide have expressed dismay at the decline of people who think and act differently than everyone else - American exceptionalism.
In our grind/hustle culture, most of us are so overwhelmed that we seldom if ever contemplate the nature of how and where we live.
Life is very hard for many to be sure and many people are depressed, discouraged, and hopeless.
The fantasy of the American Dream was never real, just a concept that could not deliver satisfaction beyond material goods.
The World Changed
In human terms, there was a great paradigm shift in thinking around 1776.
In his book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West by Andrew Wilson (link) Andrew Wilson helps us focus on our unique place in history and the blessings God has bestowed upon us.
In the article Are You WEIRDER? 68 Questions writer Nicholas MacDonald provides an excellent summation of our unique place in history.
"I’ve just finished Andrew Wilson’s fantastic new book, “Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West.” Here’s how I would describe the book’s project. Essentially, evangelicals are hearing two narratives about the secular world we live in. I think we can take Tom Holland’s "Dominion” and Carl Trueman’s “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” as our respective representatives.
Tom Holland: The world is far more Christian than you realize. There would be no fight for equal rights, no democracy, no #metoo or Black Lives Matter or feminism without our common western Christian history. Even if you don’t claim to be a Christian, your entire worldview has far more in common with a 1st century Christian than a 1st Century Greco-Roman pagan.
Carl Trueman: The world is far more secular than you realize. There would be no fight for equal rights, self-expression, gender fluidity or sexual freedom without the onset of radical individualism, as promoted by secularism for the past few centuries. Your worldview is far more unique to the radical post-enlightenment secular philosophers than you could possibly realize.
So, which of these narratives is true?
Andrew Wilson contends: both. Wilson’s book is, in a sense, a drawing together of BOTH of the above narratives, as he demonstrates the ways our world has become WEIRDER over the past couple of centuries. By that, he means:
Western
Educated
Industrialized
Religious
Democratic
Ex-Christian
Romantic
You can probably already hear the nuance in this. Yes, we are both “religious” AND “ex-Christian.” In fact, a favorite term of Wilson’s to describe us is that we westerners are, essentially, protestant pagans. In other words: we hold a strange mix of protestant ethics that exist (incoherently) with pagan assumptions about the world. And so, in many extraordinarily helpful ways, this book complicates the one-sided narratives we’re being given. Sadly, that means I don’t think it will sell nearly as well, which is unfortunate for all of us, because - as Wilson says - if we’re able to clearly see both sides of history, we can effectively see the West not as a lost pagan cause nor as a darling of Christendom. Rather, Wilson suggests we see the modern West as a prodigal, which can be called back home..."
Most people I meet are unhappy an ungrateful for where they are and what they have be it a little or a lot. Many are indeed wealthy in the mateiral sense but deeply unhappy. This reality is that stuff will not make you happy, nor conditions or circumstances. But as chronic sinners we fail to see this in our human weakness.
The facts are that only when we humble ourselves to and for God do we begin to see beyond all that weighs us down.
Today praise and thank God for your life today, the place he has placed you and what he has gifted you with while you remain in this life.
The One Edit That Changed History — Mini Documentary
Video from The Gospel Coalition
"Benjamin Franklin's revision of the Declaration of Independence by replacing "sacred and undeniable" with "self-evident" marked a shift towards post-Christian ideals and the development of the modern world. The year 1776, which saw the American War of Independence and a host of other formative events, was pivotal to the development of the modern world, marked by its weird and ex-Christian characteristics.
In this video, Andrew Wilson also discusses his book "Remaking the World" on the origin story of post-Christian Western thought and the importance of understanding how the world came to be in its present state. By understanding the grace of God and extending freedom to others, we can appreciate the context of the world we live in and root ourselves in God even in a post-Christian generation." from video introduction