During the English Civil War in the seventeenth century, various non-conformist religious-political groups struggled for what they called "liberty of conscience." Of course, once they achieved power, everyone was free to believe only what the new political power imposed. "Liberty" meant only freedom for one group; others were still marginalized and persecuted.

How easy it is to mock the incongruity of other people’s behavior; how difficult to recognize our own reflection in their mirror. Yet the Western Christian world is too often guilty of the same intolerance and insensitivity that we impute to other "less enlightened" cultures. I won’t even go into the high correlation between Western intervention in other nations’ affairs and the West’s economic interests to do so, although we always justify our actions in moral terms. Is it any wonder that the Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and Orthodox regions of the world are so hostile to our faith?

Admittedly, there is much of value in the Christian heritage of the West, and I for one am keen to maintain these positive values. Individual liberty, the rule of law through democratic processes, the sanctity of human life, the importance of human rights—all of these things are outworkings of essentially Christian values, and all are incredibly valuable.

What is distressing is a double failure on the part of the Christian West, made worse because it fundamentally contradicts the very things we claim to support. The first failure is the use of economic and military force to impose our value system on other parts of the world. The second is our inability to see virtues that reside in their social, economic, and religious systems, virtues that sometimes are lacking in ours. The irony is that we insist they learn—whether they like it or not—to be tolerant of other views (that is, ours). We are not far removed from the seventeenth century Puritans, after all.

Impressed as we are with our own system—and as I have mentioned, there is much to be impressed about—it isn’t flawless. Let’s explore three values associated with the Christianized West: democracy, capitalism, and nationalism.

Democracy

Democracy, as Churchill famously said, is the worst kind of government, except for all other forms. However, there are alternatives that have been functional and effective in many cultures. In particular, communal decision making is the basis for many societies at the grassroots level. Democracy is built around an in-group, the government, and an out-group, the opposition.

Many societies are pained by this automatic fracturing and opposition, which comes with democracy. They much prefer collective decision making, in which issues are talked over until consensus is achieved. Thus, everyone is able to support the decision and feel part of the community. Such practices were the tradition in Russian communities, Polynesia, and many other non-democratic places. The West is impatient with this time-consuming and economically compromising method, for, after all, time is money. But these societies value belonging over belongings. Lack of imagination in the West has often meant that we have imposed democracy on people who have no understanding of its workings, and no sympathy with the alienation it generates.

Capitalism

Capitalism and democracy are closely associated, and both are built on the cornerstone of freedom for the individual. However, capitalism also rewards greed at the expense of the long-term good of the community. How can we speak of justice when we permit some to be obscenely wealthy and others to suffer extreme poverty? How do we justify paying a child care worker a few tens of thousands of dollars per year, yet reward a sportsman with multiple millions for putting an orange ball through a hoop? Somehow, in the Christian West, we have failed entirely to see how truly immoral such behavior appears to other communities, which place a high value on community rather than on the individual pursuit of wealth and happiness.

The greatest accusation against the West is its obsessive individualism, so selfish in the eyes of others. In all honesty, although individualism is good, its extreme form is no better than the fascist’s or communist’s total subordination of the individual to the state. There is a necessary tension between the rights of the individual and the needs of the community. Most of the Bible’s values lean toward community, naturally so, since it was written in community oriented cultures. Community is fundamental to Christianity, and Western Christianity needs to be reminded.

Nationalism

The concept of the nation-state is historically tied to Western Christian nations, and is another element that we ruthlessly impose on other places, partly because it is economically better suited to our capitalistic desire to accumulate wealth. Yet so many places in the world are ill-suited to large nation-states. Many African nations are in partial or total disorder because we have foisted on various ethnic groups an insistence that they work as an organic united state according to our ideals. Most of those states have borders created by (Christian) Western colonialism, rather than by a local desire to belong together. Yet they suffer our condemnation for failing to live up to our democratic, capitalist ideals. Has Afghanistan ever been a united political entity? No. Yet we will almost certainly insist that future governments act as such.

Of all people, Christians claim to have the greatest understanding, the most sympathetic attitude, and the most liberal ways. Yet, we find ourselves strangely intolerant, failing to see that we do not have all wisdom and virtue, and that even the wisdom we have will take time for other cultures to learn. If we wish truly to be an influence for good in our world, let us attempt two things.

First, let us take time to work through cultures rather than against them in order to achieve constructive change. For this, the ultimate model is God throughout the Bible. Look at the mistakes made by his heroes: Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon had multiple wives, but God did not rebuke them for that. David deliberately killed prisoners of war to keep enemy populations manageable, but again there was no divine rebuke. Esther won a beauty contest by sleeping with the judge, yet again God was silent. Did he approve? I doubt it. He was simply taking one thing at a time, focusing on the most important issues.

Second, let us be prepared to learn from others. Rampant capitalism and individualism are great evils, and other cultures are trying to let us know how insensitive and offensive we really are. Are we listening, or do we believe we have all virtue because we are Christian? Like all of God’s people throughout time, we have divine light, but we also mix it with values absorbed from secular culture.

Let us strive to recognize the difference between God’s ways and our cultural habits. Then maybe we can truly represent God to all the world.

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