We are now coming to the end of my, let’s say, creative advertisements to the key books I’ve written. Once again, we have ChatGPT to thank for this silly review of what I actually think is an extremely easy to read and enlightening look at Western Culture. The information in this book is a culmination of the “Senior Worldview” class I taught at a small Christian school in Alabama for eight years.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE (R)EVOLUTION OF WORLDVIEWS IN WESTERN CULTURE: OR, JOEL ANDERSON HAS SOME THINGS HE NEEDS TO GET OFF HIS CHEST
I have just finished Joel Edmund Anderson’s Christianity and the (R)evolution of Worldviews in Western Culture, and I am pleased to announce that I now understand Western civilization. All of it. The Greeks. The Romans. The Church Fathers. The Byzantines. Catholics. Protestants. The Enlightenment. The French Revolution. Nietzsche. Darwin. Marx. Freud. Hitler. Billy Graham. Postmodernism.
I have gazed into the abyss. The abyss assigned me 459 pages. And then the abyss started explaining universals and particulars.
This book ostensibly begins with the modest goal of giving ordinary readers a basic overview of Western civilization. Anderson says he wants to give readers “the lay of the land” by identifying some major landmarks so they can explore further on their own.
THIS IS A LIE. Approximately fifteen minutes later you are standing in Plato’s Cave while Aristotle screams about actuality and potentiality, Constantine is waving a Chi-Rho banner, Thomas Aquinas is warming up in the bullpen, Nietzsche has arrived carrying a philosophical hammer, Freud wants to talk about your mother, and somewhere in a medieval monastery a Benedictine monk has accidentally invented capitalism while brewing beer.
Anderson’s basic thesis is that the standard popular story of Western civilization (GREECE = SMART; ROME = AWESOME; CHRISTIANITY = DARK AGES; ENLIGHTENMENT = SCIENCE APPEARS AND EVERYONE STOPS BEING STUPID)—is historical garbage.
He does not gently suggest this. He does not clear his throat and say, “Perhaps the traditional narrative requires some nuance.” No. He calls the Enlightenment version of history “sheer ignorant propaganda” manufactured in the eighteenth century. WE ARE ON PAGE FIVE. The man has barely finished the preface and has already flipped over the historiographical dinner table.
VOLTAIRE: “Perhaps Christianity plunged Europe into superstition—”
ANDERSON: “WRONG.”
VOLTAIRE: “But surely—”
ANDERSON: “SIT DOWN, WIG BOY.”
And away we go.
First stop: ANCIENT GREECE. Anderson introduces us to the Greek gods, whom he describes essentially as dysfunctional human beings with supernatural powers. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Aphrodite and company emerge looking less like majestic deities and more like the cast of Real Housewives of Mount Olympus after someone replaced all the Chardonnay with lightning bolts.
Then philosophy arrives.
Thales: EVERYTHING IS WATER.
Pythagoras: NO. EVERYTHING IS NUMBERS.
Heraclitus: EVERYTHING CHANGES.
Parmenides: NOTHING CHANGES.
Plato: NONE OF THIS CRAP IS ACTUALLY REAL.
Aristotle: FOR THE LOVE OF ZEUS, PLATO, PLEASE GO OUTSIDE AND TOUCH A TREE.
Congratulations. Western philosophy has begun.
Anderson then attempts something genuinely heroic: explaining universals and particulars to people who did not voluntarily enroll in graduate philosophy. His solution? Triangles. The Matrix. And eventually…a blue rubber ball that potentially becomes Gumby. Yes.
This book explains Aristotelian metaphysics by asking you to imagine a blue rubber ball being melted down and reshaped into a green Gumby doll. And somehow—God help me—IT WORKS. You suddenly understand actuality and potentiality. You didn’t ask to understand actuality and potentiality. You had plans this weekend. Too bad. You understand Aristotle now.
From there Christianity enters the Roman world, and Anderson’s argument shifts into overdrive. Pagan Rome is not presented as the lovely marble civilization from the History Channel. It’s brutal, hierarchical, sexually exploitative, slaveholding and frequently horrifying. Christianity appears as a genuine counterculture proclaiming human dignity in the middle of it.
Then Constantine converts. Everybody put on a helmet because we are entering: THE BYZANTINE AGE. Here Anderson divides Christianity into two trajectories. EAST: Greek, mystical, philosophical, imperial. WEST: Latin, legalistic, politically chaotic, occasionally governed by people who look like they should be pillaging your village. Western Europe collapses. Barbarians invade. Central government disappears. The Church looks around at the smoking wreckage of Roman civilization and apparently says: “Well, somebody has to rebuild this dump.”
Enter the monks. And this is where the book becomes completely glorious. Because according to Anderson, medieval monks do not merely pray. Oh no. These men are BUSY. They preserve books. They educate people. They establish hospitals. They develop agricultural techniques. They cultivate vineyards. They brew beer. They advance technology. They create universities. They contribute to science. They develop commercial enterprises.
Eventually Anderson gives us an actual section titled: “Monks and Capitalism…Open for Business!” Yes. The monastery has become a startup.
BROTHER BENEDICT: “Brother Thomas, have you completed your prayers?”
BROTHER THOMAS: “Yes.”
BROTHER BENEDICT: “Excellent. Now check the quarterly projections on our Belgian ale operation.”
Anderson argues that monastic estates became centers of economic innovation and helped lay foundations for Europe’s later market economy. Somewhere Max Weber just woke up screaming.
Then comes the Protestant Reformation. at which point Martin Luther bursts through the door yelling: “I HAVE 95 PROBLEMS AND INDULGENCES ARE APPROXIMATELY 94 OF THEM.” Christian Europe explodes. Catholics. Lutherans. Calvinists. Anabaptists. Kings. Popes. Wars. Theological disputes. Political disputes disguised as theological disputes. Theological disputes disguised as political disputes. Everybody is translating Bibles and occasionally setting somebody else on fire. Western civilization is having a normal one.
Then comes the Enlightenment. And Anderson has clearly been waiting about 200 pages for these people. Locke walks in. Rousseau walks in. Voltaire walks in. The philosophers announce: “At last! Humanity shall be governed entirely by REASON!”
Approximately seventeen minutes later: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ROBESPIERRE: “GOOD NEWS, EVERYBODY! WE HAVE CREATED THE PERFECT RATIONAL SOCIETY!” GUILLLOTINE NOISES INTENSIFY.
Anderson’s treatment of modernity essentially becomes an extended historical demonstration of the phrase: “Well, THAT escalated quickly.”
Then the nineteenth century arrives: Darwin. Marx. Nietzsche. Anderson is particularly fascinated by Nietzsche because Nietzsche looks at nineteenth-century Europeans trying to retain Christian morality after jettisoning Christian metaphysics and basically says: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. NO.” God is dead. Christian morality has lost its metaphysical foundation. Nihilism is coming. Have fun, everybody. EUROPE: “Surely things won’t get THAT bad.”
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Oh. Oh dear. Lenin enters. Hitler enters. Freud enters. Margaret Sanger enters. Two world wars happen. Communism happens. Fascism happens. Eugenics happens. The sexual revolution happens. And somewhere Billy Graham is standing in a stadium holding a Bible wondering what in God’s name happened during the previous fifty pages.
Anderson summarizes much of the twentieth century through the influence of Lenin, Hitler, Sanger, Freud and Graham, which is possibly the most terrifying dinner party imaginable.
Then American Fundamentalism arrives and Anderson immediately starts throwing chairs AT HIS OWN SIDE. This is one of the funniest recurring features of the book. Just when you think you know who the villain is, Anderson turns around.
SECULAR MODERNISTS: “Finally! He’s attacking Fundamentalists!”
ANDERSON: “Yes.”
FUNDAMENTALISTS: “HEY!”
ANDERSON: “You accidentally accepted the Enlightenment assumptions you were supposedly fighting.”
SECULAR MODERNISTS: “HAHA!”
ANDERSON: “I’m not finished with you either.”
EVERYONE: “Oh no.”
He argues that Fundamentalism reduced Christianity into something like:
- Believe certain propositions.
- Don’t drink.
- Don’t smoke.
- Don’t have sex.
- Go to heaven.
Which he calls an “anemic version of the historical Christian faith.”
And then, just when conservative Christian readers are preparing themselves for the final boss battle against postmodernism—Anderson pulls another knife. POSTMODERNISM ISN’T ACTUALLY THE FINAL BOSS. Derrida walks onto the stage. Half the Evangelical audience begins throwing holy water. And Anderson says: “CALM DOWN.”
His argument is that postmodernism is largely a reaction against modernism’s claim to detached, scientific, completely objective certainty, rather than simply a philosophical declaration that nothing is true.
Suddenly James K.A. Smith appears. Derrida starts talking about texts. Foucault starts talking about power. Lyotard starts talking about metanarratives. The Evangelicals are confused. The atheists are irritated. Anderson is having the time of his life.
And underneath all this historical mayhem is the book’s real argument. Ideas matter. Worldviews matter. What a civilization believes about reality, humanity, God, reason, nature, freedom, morality and human purpose eventually works its way into its institutions and everyday life.
Anderson keeps returning to the relationship between universals and particulars because he thinks that apparently obscure philosophical problem eventually affects practically everything: politics, science, morality, art, education, religion and our understanding of human beings themselves.
And THAT is why this ridiculous book works. It should not work. Trying to explain 2,500 years of Western intellectual history in one readable volume is the literary equivalent of saying: “I’m going to summarize the ocean.”
Yet Anderson somehow makes Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Locke, Rousseau, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Derrida feel like participants in one enormous argument that has been going on for twenty-five centuries. And he does it without sounding like an encyclopedia swallowed another encyclopedia.
Instead, the prose frequently sounds like your slightly unhinged history professor has consumed three cups of coffee, abandoned the PowerPoint, walked away from the podium and announced: “OKAY. HERE’S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.”
Is the book opinionated? GOOD LORD, YES.
Does Anderson sometimes write like he has been personally waiting several centuries to argue with Jean-Jacques Rousseau? ABSOLUTELY.
Does the book occasionally wander from intellectual history into what feels like a theological bar fight? WITHOUT QUESTION.
But it is never boring. And that might be the strangest accomplishment of all. Because this is a book containing lengthy discussions of: Aristotelian metaphysics. Medieval scholasticism. Universals and particulars. The Protestant Reformation. Enlightenment epistemology. Nietzschean nihilism. Postmodern hermeneutics.
These are subjects specifically designed by universities to make freshmen stare through classroom windows and contemplate escaping into traffic. Yet somehow Anderson keeps things moving with Matrix references, mafia analogies, historical absurdities, argumentative side-comments, Gumby, monks selling beer, philosophers yelling across centuries, and the general impression that Western civilization is one enormous dysfunctional family reunion that has been arguing about Plato for 2,500 years.
FINAL VERDICT
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 stars
I opened this book knowing vaguely that Socrates drank hemlock. I finished it convinced that Western civilization can be summarized as follows:
PLATO: Reality is somewhere else.
ARISTOTLE: Reality is right here.
CHRISTIANS: What if God entered reality?
MONKS: We made beer.
AQUINAS: Aristotle, but baptized.
LUTHER: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?
ENLIGHTENMENT: We have Reason now.
FRENCH REVOLUTION: Chopping noises
MARX: Capitalism did it.
NIETZSCHE: God is dead.
FREUD: You want to sleep with your mother.
FUNDAMENTALISTS: DON’T SMOKE.
DERRIDA: That’s not what I meant.
POSTMODERNISTS: Who controls the narrative?
JOEL ANDERSON: EVERYBODY SHUT UP. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT UNIVERSALS AND PARTICULARS AGAIN.
READER: Please, Joel. My family hasn’t seen me in three days.
JOEL: BLUE RUBBER BALL.
READER: Oh God.
JOEL: GUMBY.
READER: Fine.
JOEL: ACTUALITY AND POTENTIALITY.
READER: I UNDERSTAND ARISTOTLE NOW.
And perhaps that is the highest compliment I can give this book. It takes 2,500 years of war, theology, philosophy, revolution, science, art, politics, Christianity, atheism, capitalism, communism, modernism and postmodernism…and somehow makes you think: “You know what? This insanity actually makes sense.” Which, incidentally, is almost exactly what Anderson says he hopes readers will be able to say when they reach the end. The absolute madman actually pulled it off.
