An essential perspective on Western civilization

Drawing on the historical record, and his own powerful experiences growing up and living in India, the author compares and contrasts the history of Indian and Western civilization.

At a time when the West is experiencing massive contextual collapse, (that is, losing the sense of what foundations, ideas, and realities have enabled the West to become the relative paradise that it is) Mangalwadi takes great pains to draw the readers attention to the very ideas and efforts, grounded in the Bible, which transformed peoples, nations, and entire empires out of barbarism and into the civilized world.

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enlightening and refreshing

Thank you for this text. It's a story not well told in today's world. That the Bible and its purveyors have perpetrated incredible good through the value of individuals and the call to service in the name of our Lord.

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Informative with preaching tone

It's a very informative book, but the author often gets carried away with preaching tone that makes it like a church sermon. It would have been better to be more towards the neutral historical analysis to reach more audience.

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Excellent book!

It is obvious the author is passionate about his subject. He draws on experience and history to make his point that the Bible has made the modern western world. It is well researched and well rounded unlike some other books of the same nature that read more like religious propaganda. I really recommend this book. The narration is excellent a well.

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Its anti-Catholicism discredits the author

The Autor spends almost as much time arguing for protestant Christianity by bashing, straw-manning and misrepresenting the Catholic Church, that it discredits his over all message. Although I agree with the overall message, it an author makes so many poor arguments against the catholic church, it makes one wonder if his other arguments are of equal caliber.

Could not finish it, it got really disgusting

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Very rich, but in parts problematic.

PROS

+ The book includes many great teachings and is especially strong on defending Christianity in its historical context.

CONS

- He endorses several times the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien:

Quote: "In the novel The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien gives us a beautiful, fictional exposition of the Augustinian perspective on the relationship of music, creation, the fall (evil), and redemption. Tolkien's Middle-earth experienced much more suffering than the Buddha's India. Tolkien's "earth" was to be captured, corrupted, and virtually controlled by evil. Suffering was real, brutal, and awful. Yet the Bible taught Tolkien that the Almighty Creator, who was also a compassionate Redeemer, was loving enough and powerful enough to redeem the earth from the greatest possible mess, sin, and suffering. This helped Tolkien to celebrate creation, both in its origin as well as in its ultimate destiny:

[quote-in-quote] There was E*u, the One, who in Ar*a is called Ilu***ar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad ..."

This quotation is at least heretical, but rather pure blasphemy.

- While it is clear that a book on Christian history will include Martin Luther, he carried it too far with 117 (!) endorsements, while lacking discernment and not even mentioning the Waldensians who suffered much more for the Reformation which began already in their time. (Luther was an Augustinian, extraordinarily devoted to the 'Blessed Virgin Mary, Antisemitism, execution of Anabaptists, rejection of biblical inerrancy, rejection of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation, Non-Sabbatarianism, rejection of free will).

- He endorses over and over Augustine (43x in the book !), without any discernment at all. Augustine was one of the most problematic figures in Christian history, being the doctor of the RCC and the patriarch of Calvinism, and of countless heresies that came into the church through and shortly after him, only to mention the Apocrypha, infant baptism, financial tithing, sex being evil, perpetual virginity of Mary, prayers to saints, the 7 Catholic sacraments, amillennialism, .... He was also the father of the doctrine of persecution.

- He endorsed twice Mother Teresa (who was a fraud, and direct enabler of sexual abuser and Jesuit priest Donald McGuire).

- The foreword is written by J. Stanley Mattson from The C. S. Lewis Foundation (C.S. Lewis believed in Purgatory; Tao is the highest morality; rejected biblical inerrancy; theistic evolutionist; considered Hindus, Buddhist and Muslims as brothers in CHRISTOS)

- The book is officially endorsed by the highly problematic teachers Dallas Willard (Catholic Mysticism), Mary Poplin (strongly connected to the Roman Catholic Church with Mother Teresa), Ravi Zacharias ...

General information: Mangalwadi studied at the highly problematic L'Abri (Presbyterian / Calvinist; founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer), where the Seven Mountain Mandate originated (!!!), before it was further popularized by academics such as Nancy Pearcey who also studied there and especially by the New Apostolic Reformation with figures such as Bill Johnson from Bethel church. The Presbyterian teacher Sarah Young, most widely known by the New Age book 'Jesus Calling', experienced a New Agey mystical moonlight conversion at L'Abri, where she lived and studied, and first experienced the presence of a 'Sweet Jesus'.

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