by Dan Flynn

Two thousand years ago, a child was born in an animal stable to a teenage mother and a common laborer father. After a life, which, according to his followers, included such feats as walking on water and curing the blind, he was crucified and rose from the dead. Whether one believes Jesus Christ was a particularly sly trickster, a delusional lunatic, or God's only son who came here to save us, one cannot deny the impact he has had on our world. In Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization, Dr. Alvin J. Schmidt documents the effect of Christianity upon civilization and finds an imprint even non-believers can appreciate.

Schmidt wrote the book, he states, because "there was a pronounced paucity of information extant available regarding the impact and influence that Jesus Christ has had on the world for two thousand years." This, despite the fact that Christ is the figurehead of the world's largest religion and His impact upon the world is perhaps greater than any figure in history. "Much of that influence is still with us even in the ever-growing secular and religiously pluralistic milieu of today," the author maintains.

The work of our culture's greatest artists-Michelangelo, Donatello, El Greco, Dali and others-were inspired almost exclusively by Christianity. Most music for 1600 years after Christ fits this profile as well. Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are among the great works of literature with a heavy Christian stamp upon them. The Bible, of course, remains the bestselling book in the history of mankind.

Schmidt points out that every college established in colonial America, save the University of Pennsylvania, was founded by some denomination of Christianity. Prior to the Civil War, 92% of the 182 colleges and universities were established by a branch of the church. Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, William and Mary, the University of California, and Northwestern are a few of the top schools that, although they now bear little resemblance to their Christian founding, were created by Christian sects. Likewise, the world's first university, Italy's University of Bologna, was designed to teach canon law. Hundreds of hospitals, which still bear the prefix "St." in their names, bear witness to Christianity's enormous impact upon healthcare-even in non-Christian lands. The Red Cross, Catholic Charities, and the YMCA are a few of the charitable organizations inspired by Christianity.

Most of the holidays we celebrate-e.g., Christmas, New Year's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving-have some Christian basis. Even when secularists wish us "happy holidays," they forget that the term "holiday" is a contraction of "holy day." The year 2001 is not 2001 years after Caesar, Buddha, Mohammed, or Napoleon. It is 2001 years after Jesus Christ. The attempt to replace Anno Domini (AD) and BC (Before Christ) with BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) is yet another exercise in futility. Doesn't this Common Era, after all, begin with the life of Christ? Even relatively trivial matters such as the names we bestow upon our children come directly as a result of the names used in the Bible. There is a reason why the most popular boy's name is Jacob and not Maximus or Plato.

Perhaps the best way to evaluate Christianity's impact upon civilization is to compare it to the culture it replaced. The Roman Empire's regard for human life was small. Infanticide, with female babies comprising its primary victim, was widespread in Greece and Rome. So too was abortion. Gladiatorial contests, in which hundreds would sometimes die merely for others' amusement, were a feature as central to their culture as the NFL is to ours. Christianity obliterated all of this for hundreds of years.

In the Americas, Christianity replaced a diverse array of Native American empires and fiefdoms. Constant warfare, slavery, and cannibalism were features of the most powerful ones. The dominant culture that replaced it on the continent, the United States, has become the most influential nation in world history.

One further appreciates the influence of Christianity when confronted with the reality of those who sought to replace it. Islamic invaders, who captured formerly Christian lands in the Middle East, sought westward expansion during the Middle Ages, capturing much of Spain. The Mongols, largely prevented from moving westward by the forces of Islam, nearly overtook Christiandom during this same time period. This past century witnessed the godless ideologies of Nazism and Communism swallow up hundreds of millions of lives in their efforts to overturn the moral order of Western Civilization. Christianity, even if embattled from within, still stands.

While the author writes from the perspective of a Christian, he also commends Christianity's tolerance of other religions. "Where does one find the greatest amount of religious freedom?" Schmidt asks. "It is in the Western countries where Christianity has had its greatest and longest presence, or is it in societies where Christianity has had little or no presence?" China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia provide the answer to his query. There is no predominantly Christian nation on the face of the earth where people of other faiths can't practice their religions freely. The same cannot be said for non-Christian nations.

While Christianity is a common target of contemporary feminists, women of other cultures fare far worse than their Christian sisters. In parts of Africa, female clitoridectomy is standard. China, which for hundreds of years witnessed the barbaric mutilation of its daughters' feet, now features a birthrate of two females for every three males because of its forced abortion policy. Women in Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are forced to wear the veil and are denied an education. Until the British eradicated it, the practice of the Suti-widows committing suicide upon their husbands' funeral pyres-was customary in India. In contrast, St. Paul pronounced, "There is neither…male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Schmidt maintains that Christians, "saw Christ as having redeemed both male and female."

How does Christianity stack up against these other cultures? For any clear thinker, the question answers itself.

Despite its positive contributions to civilization, Schmidt acknowledges, Christendom's sons are also responsible for much evil. Slavery, while eventually eradicated through Christian perseverance, was countenanced by many men of the church. The Inquisition and its Protestant counterpart, the witchhunt, took the lives of countless innocents in the name of religion. Internecine conflicts, such as the Thirty Years War, sought conversion by the point of the sword.

Under the Influence is an effective antidote to the knee-jerk Christian bashing that is pervasive on campus. As a longtime professor of history at Illinois College, Alvin Schmidt knows of these attacks all too well. The author's other profession, Lutheran minister, equips him with the Biblical expertise to show Christianity for what it is, not what its maladroit critics purport it to be.

Schmidt, as you might have guessed, is a believer. He notes that those who assert that Christ's apostles were merely telling tall-tales, ignore "the historical fact that all of the apostles except John signed their testimony in blood, so to speak, by suffering the death of martyrdom for the veracity of what they preached and wrote. Con men do not die for stories they contrived."

"Matthew was killed by a sword in Ethiopia; Mark died after being dragged by horses through the streets of Alexandria, Egypt; Luke was hanged in Greece; Peter was crucified upside down," Schmidt points out. "Bartholomew was beaten to death in Turkey; Andrew was crucified on an X-shaped cross in Greece; Thomas was reportedly stabbed to death in India; Jude was killed with arrows; Matthias, successor to Judas, was stoned and then beheaded." The list goes on and on

Yet, whether these men were liars or truth-tellers is irrelevant to the thesis of Schmidt's book. Under the Influence's main point is not to convert non-believers, but to make a scholarly case that the Christian religion has been the prime influence on our culture for two millennia, and that its influence has been beneficial for civilization.

Under the Influence's case is a solid one.