| Indian scholar Vishal Mangalwadi talks about the ’soul’ of Western culture, pt. 1 Posted: 21 Jul 2009 09:10 AM PDT Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi is an international lecturer, social reformer, political columnist and the author of 13 books. Vishal Mangalwadi Born and raised in India, he studied philosophy at universities, in Hindu ashrams, and at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. Christianity Today described him as “India’s foremost Christian intellectual,” and Chuck Colson said, “Very few thinkers in the world today understand as clearly as Vishal Mangalwadi does the impact of the Bible on Western civilization. He sees the West as others see us, which breaks the myopic view that so many politically sensitive Westerners have today.” He is currently in the United States exploring the “soul” of Western Civilization. His next speaking engagement is 7 p.m. Friday at Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell, Wash. Recently, I got a chance to speak with Dr. Mangalwadi about Western culture. Below is part one of the interview; check back tomorrow for the second part. Tell me in your own words about yourself. How do you see yourself? I’m an Indian philosopher who was serving the poor in India. I began to realize that the problems of poverty, injustice, oppression, corruption are cultural, worldview, philosophical issues, and that a democracy by itself does not remove corruption. In fact it can become the tyranny of the majority, which can become terrible for minorities and small groups, individuals. So, as I struggled against the corruption and oppression of India, I began to seriously study what I call the soul of Western civilization, how did the West succeed in creating a relatively just and prosperous and free society. I came to the conclusion that the Bible was the soul of Western civilization; in fact I discovered that the Bible created modern India. So I’ve written three books on that subject of the impact of the Bible on creating modern India. Now I’m here in America. My lecture series, Must the Sun Set on the West is part of a larger project. The first series of lectures, also given at the University of Minnesota, was called the Book of the Millennium. The Bible created the modern world; it created the modern West. Must the Sun Set on the West builds on that theme in examining some of the consequences of rejection of the Bible. I’m turning this research into a book, and hopefully a college-level curriculum on nation building which would be looking at the Bible and civilization through history. That’s briefly who I am, and what I’m doing. I have two daughters . Ruth and I have been married 34 years. Our fifth grandchild was born two week s ago. She is the first of our second daughter. Speaking of India, the Indian government’s decriminalization of consensual homosexual sex in India was big news. What do you think about that? The criminalization of homosexuality in India was part of British law, because India never had a legal system. We are a four or five thousand year old civilization. Lots of different civilizations arose and fell and no one ever gave us a penal code– a system of justice. It was thanks to the British that we have a judicial system– a penal system. It’s really British common law which has been governing India. Now we are moving towards a more American [system of law] where the law is what the judges say it is. Philosophically Hinduism never had a problem with homosexuality. The Hindu gurus– those who are seeking enlightenment– they have to renounce marriage to experience their completeness. Therefore homosexuality has been a part of Hindu religious experience, but because Hinduism never had a penal code or justice system, we were living and we are still living by the British system of justice. It’s not working very well, but the trends and fashions and sense of right and wrong and just and unjust in India are coming from the West. This is part of a post modern world, where we are being globalized, but without necessarily a sense of right and wrong. Though philosophically and religiously Hinduism had no problem with homosexuality, culturally it would be still a big issue. A lot of homosexuals will remain in the closet in India because it’s much harder to be open and take the consequences. To punish discrimination is much harder in India. Here people are afraid of the law. The law says you cannot discriminate against gays and lesbians. In India it is relatively easy to break the law when the law clashes with your cultural prejudices and values and preferences. In America, the judicial system… political system has a special problem because the preamble guarantees the right to pursue happiness. The Indian constitution doesn’t have that. There’s the right to equality, but there is no fundamental right to pursue happiness. The problem American courts have is that when Jefferson inserted the clause the right to pursue happiness, [he inserted] a philosophical idea. [America’s founders] understood that the pursuit of pleasure is often the opposite of the pursuit of happiness. The prodigal son was pursuing pleasure, and that was pursuit of unhappiness. This [idea of the distinction between pleasure and happiness] is “Christian” as well as the Enlightenment common sense, as Enlightenment common sense was a shadow of the Bible in America. In American courts, once they blurred the distinction between pleasure and happiness, then they began to assume that the constitution is guaranteeing everyone the right to pursue pleasure. I’m hoping to give four lectures in a university context: Sex, America’s Pursuit of Unhappiness. It’ll discuss the fact that the Sexual Revolution has been anything but the pursuit of happiness; it has been the pursuit of unhappiness. In my lecture series, Must the Sun Set on the West, I have one lecture which called from Martin Luther’s Vicarage to Hugh Heffner’s Harem: Turning Men into Boys, and Women into Desperate Housewives. Americans, [thanks to] the Sexual Revolution are confusing pleasure with happiness. India is [following] the West, confused by Hollywood and confused by the stupidity of American culture, the cultural elite who dominate Hollywood and media and universities who do not understand what they are doing. In trying to become wise, they are indeed becoming fools. This is part of my research into my research into exploring the soul of Western civilization. You mention Must the Sun Set on the West, what is that about? The West is amputating its soul. Have you heard of Michael Novak. Michael Novak is Roman Catholic scholar who has many interesting books. One of his books is called On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at America’s Founding. The thesis of that book is that the American eagle flew past all other civilizations because this eagle flew with two wings. One wing was faith in the Bible, the other was common sense. The common sense was American Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne, etc., this was the party of the common sense. The church, which was the dominant cultural force, it established all the university and colleges, but the Common Sense Party of the American Enlightenment took over — hijacked these educational institutions. The Common Sense Party, in the university, kept saying that the Bible is a myth. They said, “Of course we should not worship idols, and we should not covet our neighbor’s property, or wives; and we should not commit adultery or kill or steal, or lie; we should not bear false witness etc.” They also said that these are all common sense virtues, and we don’t need God to reveal those things to us. This is not divine revelation. We don’t really have to believe in a god who gives his law, and who judges, and who punishes, and a heaven and a hell, etc. However, as it turns out, common sense is in fact myth. There is no such thing as common sense. Common sense is a creation of every culture. Earlier for 400 years the Bible was the reality. The Bible shaped culture through the pulpit; culture shaped common sense, so common sense was the shadow of the Bible. As the Bible is destroyed…removed, the shadow is disappearing. Common sense is disappearing, so Bernie Madoff is coveting his neighbor’s property. He’s cultivating trust for years in order to cheat, loot, steal, and thieve. This is common sense; it’s business. In another book, Novak says that America is a three-legged stool. One leg was morality; the other leg was capitalism; the third leg was democracy politics. One leg, the morality, has broken because our universities, which shape the country, no longer know what is right and what is wrong. The economic leg is wobbling really badly, because it is trust that is disappearing. The financial sector was dependent on the fact that the world trusted in American character and American’s word; but as the moral leg of the stool has crumbled, the economic leg is crumbling and the political leg is following suit very rapidly. And the courts are busy… and the political system is busy destroying marriage destroying institutions, institution of marriage and family in umpteen ways, because they have become incapable of defining the simple truths such as what is happiness, who is man, what is life. As President Obama said during the campaign, “These questions are above my pay grade, I don’t even know when life begins.” So he and the Supreme Court justices have a lot of issues above their pay grades. They don’t know. They can’t know. They refuse to take the revelation that God gives, so they try and become wise; in the process they become fools and destroy everything they inherit. So the great culture, which was built on the stool of three legs, the eagle that flew on these two wings, all of that is collapsing because essentially, my thesis is, the West has amputated its soul. For more information on Dr. Mangawadi, visit his Web site at www.vishalmangalwadi.com, and check back here tomorrow for part two of the interview. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Underground To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 |
Posted via email from The Underground-- Not Your Average Christian Mag
Abortion is another topic that has been receiving a lot of media attention, why is that still such a hot topic today?
This month marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birthday. 
