Book Review: The Book that Made Your World (Vishal Mangalwadi ...
Vishal Mangalwadi is a lifelong author, philosopher, and activist from India. He grew up steeped in Eastern Religions, but became a Christian and has been one for over three decades. The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization makes the case that the Bible provides the foundation upon which Indian democracy, modern Eastern civilization, and historic Western Civilization rests.
In college, Mangalwadi?s childhood faith in Christianity was challenged. He decided to examine different religions to see if their claims were true. Christianity?s claim that all the nations of the world would be blessed through Abraham particularly intrigued him. This book examines the impact of the Bible on Indian Civilization, Western/European Civilization, and other world civilizations, in a comprehensive array of disciplines: Humanity, Rationality, Technology, Heroism, Revolution, Languages, Literature, Education, Science, Morality, Family, Compassion, True Wealth, and Liberty. In each area, he shows how other religions, such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism did not and could not provide the foundation of all that is good about modern civilization.
The book?s perspective is unique, melding Eastern and Western perspectives. For example, when making the case for the necessity of Divine revelation, revelation of more than we can discover on our own, Mangalwadi takes the classic Eastern parable of the five blind men and the elephant. But then he takes it a step further, telling the story of a sixth man who is not blind, who explains how the different parts of the elephant fit together. With the sixth man?s guidance, the five can piece the puzzle together and understand how the elephant?s different pieces make a whole. When that sixth man tells the five blind men that the tusk is white, this would be much like Divine revelation; they will never be able to know this for themselves, but since the sixth man?s description of the whole has been accurate in every other area, they have solid grounds for taking the color description on faith.
Mangalwadi proceeds, era by era, through the thought of the early Greek and Roman philosophers, the Middle-Ages Arabic thinkers, and the rationalists of the enlightenment to demonstrate that only Christianity can explain the dignity and relevance of man in the universe. Yet he tells the story of a child where he lived whose parents would not permit medical treatment, preferring instead to let her die in misery, concluding with this powerful indictment: ?[T]hree thousand years of Hinduism, twenty-six hundred years of Buddhism, a thousand years of Islam, and a century of secularism had collectively failed to give them a convincing basis for recognizing and affirming the value of a human being.?
There are points where Mangalwadi?s descriptions of the depravity of post-Biblical Western Civilization are too graphic for children.
Mangalwadi?s scholarship is surprisingly Biblically and historically sound in a broad range of subjects. There are, however, several areas where it comes short. Mangalwadi shows and cites the beneficial influence of Rodney Stark in a number of instances. But Mangalwadi?s discussion of the Crusades accepts Enlightenment-era historical revisionism, and would have been improved if he had consulted God?s Battalions (reviewed here). His assertions about the impact of Sunday Schools would have been better balanced had he consulted Scott Brown?s A Weed in the Church (reviewed here). Finally, his stated preference for women to take speaking roles in church services ought to have been tempered by I Corinthians 14 and related passages.
While it falls short in those three areas, the book is otherwise brilliantly conceived and executed. It is Mangalwadi?s magnum opus?a masterpiece that deserves a prominent role in shaping the next generation of?Christian?apologists, sociologists, historians, ethicists, and theologians. Though its shortcomings keep it from a perfect score, it is completely deserving of a four-star rating on the Biblical Bookshelf.
Disclosure of Material Connection (FTC 16 CFR, Part 255): Review copy provided by publisher. A positive review was not required; opinions expressed are those of the site editor.
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