Books held sacred by a religion have exerted strong cultural influences upon the culture of the people. Two Western examples will suffice: one, the attitude toward sickness of the adherents of Christian Science; two, the practice of polygamy among the Mormons until prohibited by law. The sacred writing of Buddha, the Hindu deities, Confucius have molded the cultural patterns of Oriental civilizations.

The Bible welcomes that same test! Two methods will demonstrate the social and cultural effects of the Bible upon whatever civilization that has accepted its authority.

1. What do leading figures in Western culture declare about the influence of the Bible and the faith it reveals?

Are you surprised to learn that Immanuel Kant declared, "The existence of the Bible is the greatest blessing which humanity has ever experienced?"

W. H. Lecky declared that "the great characteristic of Christianity, and the moral proof of its divinity, is that it has been the main source of the moral development of Europe, and that it has discharged this office not so much by the inclination of a system of ethics, however pure, as by the assimilating and attractive influence of a perfect ideal. The moral progress of mankind can never cease to be distinctively and intensely Christian as long as it consists of a gradual approximation of the character of the Christian Founder."

Pointing to the Bible, Andrew Jackson declared to a friend, "That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests."

Benjamin Franklin wrote, "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals, and His religion, as He left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see."

William H. Seward stated, "I do not believe human society, including not merely a few persons in any state, but the whole masses of men, ever has attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelligence, virtue, security, liberty, or happiness, without the Holy Scriptures."

Thomas Henry Huxley stated that the Bible is "the Magna Charta of the poor and the oppressed."

H. G. Wells wrote, "The Bible has been the Book that held together the fabric of Western civilization. It has been the handbook of life to countless millions of men and women. The civilization we possess could not have come into existence and could not have been sustained without it."

2. What does the imposition of a map of regions influenced by the Bible upon a map of the world prove about the social and cultural influence of the Bible and the faith it reveals? If an honest student overlays the world map with a transference of those countries in which women and children have rights, in which governments practice social justice, and in which liberty is general, that transference will coincide with the areas in which the Bible and the faith it reveals has been proclaimed.

In the case of Updegraph v. Commonwealth, 1826, this judicial opinion states as a fact that "No free government now exists unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country." Continuing history has failed to disprove this judgment.

Common sense will not accept the explanation that these benefits result from an accidental coincidence.

Common sense will accept the explanation that the social and ethical standards of the Bible have caused the social and cultural benefits in Christian civilizations.

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