How the Irish Saved Civilization
by Thomas Cahill
Reviewed by R.C. Sproul Jr.

One of the most difficult elements of understanding God's providence is understanding our obligation in our times. Consider the different responses of Joshua and Daniel regarding pagan rulers. Joshua killed them, Daniel served them, each with God's blessing. As times get harder for Christ's church it becomes all the more critical to know what to do. What would you do, for instance, if Vandals, Visigoths and Vikings were trampling underfoot all of western civilization? One group of Christians chose the right course. Thomas Cahill chronicles that story in his bestseller, How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Untold Story of Ireland Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe.

Cahill tells the story of the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland, and how they labored to preserve the West's written treasury, and then when stability returned, spread leaming east. The monasteries of Ireland were unlike anything with which we are familiar. Families, not celibates, inhabited them. And while they did indeed build walls for protection, they ventured out of those walls to minister to their neighbors.

The book begins with a retelling the fall of Rome, and its underlying causes. It then details the conversion of Ireland, and from there their work in preserving learning. It serves not as a mere book of history, but provides a road map toward the apparent decline of the west, and wisdom for how we might respond.

Though Cahill is a scholar, he is a rare one in part because he manages to avoid the pedantic style of the academic. Neither does he practice the deadly art of political correctness. What shines through is what is so sorely missing in so many of today's scholars, a love of knowledge. One can almost hear Cahill cheering the scribes on as they faithfully copy the sources. Cahill is one of few academics that recognize and is grateful for that wisdom from the past which was actually saved. As such he is a true warrior against the barbarians of our age, the ones not sacking the cities but sacking truth while hiding behind their cloistered ivory towers.

The book is actually fun to read, and I trust would even be so for those poor souls without a drop of the Irish in them. There aren't many books that one can both enjoy and profit a great deal from. This is one of them. The hardback was published in 1995. The paperback edition is published by Anchor Books, and can be found in just about any bookstore. I trust that should the need ever arise to copy any wisdom from our age, that this book will be among those saved.

Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
Reviewed by Laurence Windham

A must read for any serious student of western culture is Ray Bradbury's futuristic novel Fahrenheit 451. In this short book (165 pages) the author doesn't necessarily create a new world so much as he simply takes technology, consumerism, and individualism to its logical end.

Guy Montag is a fireman. But instead of putting out fires he starts them. His job is to burn books. Books make people think and thinking just causes problems. So if no one is critiquing, analyzing, and debating we are all on the same page, or channel In this Utopia of censorship, the bad guys are those who hide and read in secret Poe, Bunyan, Plato, Moses and Dickens. When these brigands are discovered, good citizens turn them in. Then, at night, for the dramatic effect, the firemen drive up to the unsuspecting criminal's home and burn it to the ground. One night something goes awry. An old woman refuses to leave her house and books. She quotes the Protestant martyr Hugh Latimer, 'Play the man, Master Ridley: we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." Then, before the fireman can remove her from the premises, she lights the fire herself, choosing death rather than lifelessness. In this Nietzschean world the herd mentality is at full stampede. And yet the concept is not far fetched at all.

Bradbury wrote this short book in 1950, before large screen color televisions, before the micro sizing of radios and telephones, before destructive and violent video games, before virtual school teachers, but not before the seeds of apathy, amusement, and relativism had been planted.

The discerning Christian will read this book realizing if it were not for the providence of God preserving His remnant and seeing His plan through, we would join the mindless denizens of Fahrenheit 451. But we are His workmanship, and so we have a responsibility to preserve our world view, our worship, our families at whatever cost, whether it be unpopular to fellow Christians, or considered persecutable by the world. The measures we should take are not dictated by the times but always by Scripture. Simple, separate, and deliberate.

Bradbury ends the story after a building climax that makes the book very hard to put down. Then he follows the crescendo with an anti-climax of hope. You may want to read 451 first, and then read How the Irish Saved Civilization. You will have much to think and talk about. Hey, why not come up here to the study center? We'll make a pot of coffee, pull up some chairs on the porch ...