As secularism advances in Ireland, so does the myth that Catholicism and Christianity had little to do with the success story of Western civilisation.  In this series I set out to show that from the beginning Catholic Christianity played an essential role in the rise of the West.  I argue also that the present Earth crisis can be overcome only by a fruitful dialogue between secularism and Christianity.

For this series I was indebted to Rodney Stark's recently published volume Victory of Reason (Random House, 2005) - a brilliant synthesis of the argument for the role of Christianity in the rise of the West.  I strongly recommend it as a sourcebook for bibliographical data on all of the historical research that went to support the argument outlined here, and also as a very readable 'short course' in Western History.   

The Idea of Progress (© Reality, Oct 2006)
The hope and expectation that the future will be better than the past emerged out of one ancient tradition only - Judaism and then Christianity.  And the survival of hope for the world now depends upon a fruitful dialogue between Christianity and secularism that will restore a shared sense of values to the West.

Christian Theology and the Scientific Revolution (© Reality, Nov 2006)
Though Ancient Greece is usually presented as the original source of western science, a key requirement of modern science - systematic experimentation - developed in only one civilisation: Christian Europe.  The cause of this was a key Christian belief:  that God had created a rational universe.

The Origins of Freedom (© Reality, Dec 2006)
Is secularism really the original source of the freedoms of western civilisation? This article argues that those origins lie neither in modern secularism nor in ancient Greece, but in the New Testament and the Catholic theologians of the Middle Ages.

The Origins of Capitalism (© Reality, Jan 2007)
Did the West's economic miracle of the past few centuries begin, as was once thought, with the 'Protestant work ethic', or did it have a much earlier origin - in the Catholic theology of the Middle Ages?

Earth Crisis (© Reality, Feb 2007)
The rise of the West to global dominance has created an intense global crisis. Here Sean O'Conaill analyses this crisis and argues that Christianity will again be crucial to the survival of the human community on planet Earth.

Mastering Contagious Desire (© Reality, Feb 2007)
From the tragedy of Charles J Haughey to the Enron Disaster and the global environmental crisis - all are linked by a simple human characteristic that was identified long ago in the Bible. In this final article on the story of the West, Sean O'Conaill predicts that a deeper understanding of covetousness is set to revolutionise Christian moral perception and to meet the global crisis that now faces us.

Top of Page

Copyright © 2007 Sean O'Conaill