The West Needs Christianity | Melanie Phillips — Transcript

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1. 0:00I don't think it's possible for the West
2. 0:01to survive as the West unless it
3. 0:05reinstitutes
4. 0:07its
5. 0:08infrastructure
6. 0:09of
7. 0:12Christianity
8. 0:13as the foundation of its civilization.
9. 0:18Um
10. 0:19I found
11. 0:21Christianity based on Judaism.
12. 0:24I think that people needs to
13. 0:27become aware of something that has been
14. 0:30denied or put into reverse in their
15. 0:32minds
16. 0:33which is the supreme importance of
17. 0:36religion
18. 0:37to the West.
19. 0:39Um this idea that
20. 0:41the values that everybody
21. 0:43most dearly loves are kind of universal.
22. 0:47They are, you know,
23. 0:48loving your neighbor as yourself and
24. 0:51the respect for all human life, the the
25. 0:55dignity the dignity of every human
26. 0:56person,
27. 0:57the importance of the rule of law,
28. 1:00justice, compassion.
29. 1:02We're told either they are part of our
30. 1:04DNA as human beings, everyone's born
31. 1:08with these values.
32. 1:09>> Any idiot could say that now.
33. 1:11>> There are plenty of idiots who do say
34. 1:12that. Um and or it was given to us by
35. 1:16the Greeks. Well, Greeks ancient Greek
36. 1:20culture did contribute a great deal to
37. 1:22the West. Uh some of it
38. 1:25really very good. But ancient Greek
39. 1:27culture was
40. 1:29cruel, heartless, brutal
41. 1:32and in our by our definition of
42. 1:34civilized values, very uncivilized.
43. 1:38What we consider most dear and what we
44. 1:40consider to be the heart of civilized
45. 1:42values in the West
46. 1:44are the values given to us by the Hebrew
47. 1:46Bible mediated by Christianity.
48. 1:49That's what we have to get back to.
49. 1:52Uh and that is deeply, deeply
50. 1:53unfashionable to say
51. 1:55because as you say, secular humanism,
52. 1:57liberal liberal universalism, secular
53. 1:59humanism uh is now the religion. And
54. 2:02it's led us to hell in a hand cart, if I
55. 2:05can use that inappropriate metaphor,
56. 2:07um because we are, you know,
57. 2:09disintegrating
58. 2:11as a shared society, as a shared
59. 2:14culture.
60. 2:15Uh and not just disintegrating uh in
61. 2:17terms of warring tribes, but
62. 2:19disintegrating in the sense that we no
63. 2:21longer have a moral compass at all.
64. 2:23Um and so much of our greatness, both as
65. 2:27a moral civilization and as a um force
66. 2:31for progress, material progress, these
67. 2:34things depended have depended upon the
68. 2:36insights, the moral and the the the the
69. 2:39the moral values
70. 2:40uh
71. 2:41of the Hebrew Bible mediated by
72. 2:43Christianity, because that is the
73. 2:44scaffolding of a culture.
74. 2:46Uh if you knock down a scaffolding of a
75. 2:48building, the building falls down. We
76. 2:50have we have knocked down the
77. 2:51scaffolding uh almost completely of
78. 2:53Western civilization, and then we're,
79. 2:55you know, we're a bit concerned about
80. 2:57why it seems seems to be tottering.
81. 2:59You have to restore the scaffolding,
82. 3:01unpopular as that sounds, which means
83. 3:03not just teaching about the importance
84. 3:05of religion. I agree, we should know
85. 3:07much more about Islam.
86. 3:09Uh people should know much more than
87. 3:11they do about Judaism, about which they
88. 3:13know virtually nothing.
89. 3:14Um and much more about Christianity, and
90. 3:17much more about the
91. 3:19the
92. 3:21uh absolutely
93. 3:25fundamental
94. 3:26contribution uh made by Christianity and
95. 3:29Judaism to the West. That's what we have
96. 3:31to get back to.