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The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 9 – The Dawn and Moral Foundations of Capitalism

October 30, 2020October 23, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 9 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

Thomas Aquinas was born during the same time period that Genghis Khan was ravaging western Asia. Aquinas became one of the most important figures in the development of Western Civilization, especially in reconciling the brilliant (but pagan) philosophy of the ancient Greeks with historical Christian theology.

In his landmark book, Summa Theologica, Aquinas brought together Biblical revelation with human reason; in particular the philosophy of Aristotle, whom he considered the greatest of the newly rediscovered Greek philosophers. Recall that most of the works of the ancient Greeks had only been recently found mostly through cooperation with the Islamic world from about the mid-12th to the mid-13th centuries.

Aquinas is considered one of Western Civilization’s greatest philosophers for proclaiming that reason was a gift from God instilled in humans to be used to understand, explain and enjoy His creation.
Both Augustine and Aquinas applied reason to God’s Word. Aquinas argued that faith must precede reason which had to be used with humility — the understanding that our intelligence and knowledge as humans is limited.

Part 9 – The Dawn and Moral Foundations of Capitalism

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 8 – The Impact of the Crusaders and Mongols on the Islamic World

October 30, 2020October 11, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 8 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

While the European continent was finally beginning to settle down in the 11th century, nothing was settled in the Islamic world. Muslim expansion was militant and continuous. Muslim Arabs waged war against the coastal areas of France and Italy and occupied Sicily.

Jerusalem was originally captured by caliph Umar from the Christians in the 7th century who weren’t significantly impacted for a few centuries. But by the 11th century the zealous Fatimid caliph, Hakim, was persecuting Christians and “despoiled” the Holy Sepulcher (the church built by Emperor Constantine’s mother in 330 A.D.). The Holy Sepulcher commemorated the hill of crucifixion and Christ’s burial tomb. Hakim had the 700 year-old church destroyed right down to the bedrock.

By the late 11th century, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, who had been threatened by the (Muslim) Seljuk Turks appealed to the West (Rome) for help. In 1095 Pope Urban II exhorted the church council at Clermont, France to go to Jerusalem to take back the tomb of Christ from Islamic control.

Part 8 – The Impact of the Crusaders and Mongols on the Islamic World

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 7: The Christian Transformation of Europe

October 30, 2020October 1, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 7 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

Charlemagne’s empire didn’t last long after his death in 814 as a new wave of pagan barbarians waged war against Christendom in the 9th century. Among the most well-known were the Magyars (migrants from central Asia), called Hungarians in Latin. They settled in the middle Danube region around 900.

Other barbaric Germanic tribes originating in Scandinavia called the Vikings (a.k.a. the Norsemen or Danes) burst out in virtually all directions. They went as far as Kiev (Russia) in 864, founded Iceland in 874 and even reached North America around 1000. They remained and settled in places like England and Normandy (France).

Gradually, most of this second wave of barbaric tribes were also assimilated into the Christian faith and became ‘civilized’ and were accepted into local villages.

Part 7: The Christian Transformation of Europe

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 6: A Tale of Two Cultures – Muhammad in Arabia and Charlemagne in Europe

October 30, 2020September 24, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 6 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

It is widely known in Judeo-Christian teachings that Abraham (with his wife, Sarah) was the father of Isaac (who, in turn, was the father of Jacob who fathered twelve sons that became the twelve tribes of Israel). Many don’t realize that Abraham is the ancestral father of the Islamic world as well.

14 years before Isaac was born, an aging Abraham didn’t trust that God would ever give him a son with elderly Sarah, so he fathered a boy with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. An angel told Hagar to name her son, Ishmael, and said to her: (Gen. 16:12. “…his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward[b] all his brothers.”

God didn’t want the birth of his nation of Israel created by an extramarital relationship. He told Abraham (Gen. 17:16) that it was Sarah who had to be “the mother of nations,” not Hagar — completely leaving Ishmael out of this legacy. But after hearing Abraham’s pleas to bless his son, Ishmael, God said (Gen. 17:20), “I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.”

It clearly happened. Both Jewish and Muslim histories agrees that Ishmael is the father of the Arab nations.

Part 6: A Tale of Two Cultures – Muhammad in Arabia and Charlemagne in Europe

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 5: The Barbarians

October 30, 2020September 18, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 5 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

At the same time the Roman Empire ruled the greater Mediterranean region, in North America the metropolis of Teotihuacan (named much later by the Aztecs) near modern day Mexico City was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere before the 15th century. It is most widely identified by its iconic pyramids: Its Pyramid of the Sun is the third tallest in the world; a wonder at 216′ tall.

The culture lasted for as many as seven centuries but no one knows how it started, how it came to great power and why it collapsed. There are no records. It has no lasting legacy. Even its name: “Teotihuacan” was given by the Aztecs (“City of the Gods”) seven centuries after its collapse so we don’t even know what this thriving culture called itself.1

Part 5: The Barbarians

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 4: Rome’s Impact and the Ascension of Christianity

September 24, 2020September 4, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 4 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

No one knew it was year One in Rome when it arrived. In fact, it wasn’t even considered to be year One until over 500 years later when a sixth-century monk convinced the pope that the birth year of Christ was the greatest in history and that all years prior to that should be “B.C.” or before Christ and those after should be “Anno Domini” or A.D. meaning “year of our lord.”1

At its peak, the Roman Empire covered enormous territory. Virtually all lands west of Persia were part of the empire including Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and (now the nations of) Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, and England.

Part 4: Rome’s Impact and the Ascension of Christianity

Fort McHenry and the Star Spangled Banner

January 25, 2025August 28, 2020 by Tom McGinley

I wrote this essay that was originally published by the American Thinker on September 14, 2014, the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s writing of the Star Spangled Banner.

Given that Vice-President Pence gave his Republican VP nomination acceptance speech at Fort McHenry last evening, the site of the famed battle with the British Navy in Baltimore Harbor late in the War of 1812, I thought I’d re-publish the article and the story behind Key’s inspired poem.

* * *

Two hundred years, on September 14th, it was the unlikely convergence of a physician and a lawyer that produced the most recited poem in American history. Its inspiration occurred just a few miles from Fort McHenry, located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the site of one of our nation’s most important military conflicts.

The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization
Part 3: Christianity’s Surprising Growth during the Bloody Roman Persecutions

September 24, 2020August 26, 2020 by The American Citizen

(Part 3 of a multi-part series on The Moral Triumph of Western Civilization.)

In the first century, the Israelites were a relatively small ethnic group held captive by the Romans but in possession of one of the keys for unlocking humanity’s advancement. Their Jewish Bible contained the “secrets” for progress but was largely unknown beyond a tiny region in the Middle East.

For the Jews, the way in which their Bible was introduced to the word was the unlikeliest of situations: It was the followers of a man they did not believe was the long-awaited messiah who ultimately took their sacred scriptures to the world.

No human in history has had the impact of that Jewish carpenter from Nazareth whose public ministry only lasted for a few years. It was the birth, ministry, death and – for believers – the resurrection of Jesus Christ that changed the world.

Part 3: Christianity’s Surprising Growth during the Bloody Roman Persecutions

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