This is part two of my interview with Indian scholar, Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi. Part one of the interview can be found here. Dr. Mangalwadi will be speaking at Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell, Wash. Friday at 7 p.m. For more information on Dr. Mangalwadi, visit his Web site at www.vishalmangalwadi.com.

Abortion is another topic that has been receiving a lot of media attention, why is that still such a hot topic today?

Because the Pro-life lobby is in disarray and weak, as it was beaten badly in the last election. The media is having a great time mocking, and trying to put the last nail in the coffin.

The problem is not abortion per se. The problem is, in fact, the question of human life. The greatest discovery of the West–the fact that made the West different from the rest of the world– was the discovery of human dignity…that human beings are different from all other animals. There is fundamental right to life for human beings. A chicken doesn’t have, a cow doesn’t have , a pig doesn’t have the right that you have.

Is a human being unique made in God’s image? It was this idea that enabled the West to create a political system where the whole government exists to defend the right of the little individual. The president of America cannot trample on the right of even the littlest individual. If he does he can be impeached. He can be taken to court because he has all of the power to do right, no power to do wrong. This is different from the rest of the world.

The notion of human dignity came from the Incarnation–that God became man. He could become man because man was made in his image, and man is so important that God killed himself to give his life for human beings. So it’s only when you look at the value of human beings through the grid of the Cross of Calvary [that you see] the value of every individual. If you give that up, then a human being is nothing more than an animal.

Idi Amin had 32 wives. When he got mad with one he had her cooked for dinner. If she’s nothing more than a cow, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t do so. That’s how Hitler and Stalin treated millions of their citizens.

And this is what American universities and courts and politics are saying, so the talk about abortion and making fun of the pro-choice pro-life groups is really this attempt to amputate the very essence of Western civilization.

The whole idea of the value of every individual, created the economic system, the political system, the judicial system, the educational system, the family system. And without it, America will turn into a third world country.

How can you be so sure that America will turn into a third world country?

Let me tell you this, how I can be so sure. Right now the FBI is investigating 52,000 wealthy Americans who are hiding 15 billion dollars in secret, safe accounts. America is a very rich country with lots of millionaires, and altogether they have 15 billion dollars in tax-evaded secret, safe accounts.

India is a poor country. How much money do you think Indians have in secret safe accounts? It’s 1500 billion, 1.5 trillion dollars that Indians have in secret accounts. We’re number one. Russia is number two; Russians have 350 billion.

Now, what does that tell you about America? It tells you that Americans pay taxes. Very few people cheat. They hire tax consultants; they save as much tax as they can legally. Very few of them take illegal means to save taxes.

Why do Americans pay taxes? Is there any reason for you to pay your tax if the government is going to take that money and give it to corrupt corporations that have made a mess of your economy by billions of dollars…trillions of dollars?

While you are making money, they are messing up money. Why should you pay taxes to bail them out? The reason we pay taxes, is because the Bible said that you shouldn’t steal –that you should pay your taxes.

The character was shaped by a parable that if you turn five talents into 10 talents, you will be honored; you will be given more responsibility; that the one who has more will be given more. That is what American Capitalism was built on–the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today, [American character] is a house without a foundation.

A house without a foundation, Jesus said at the end of the Sermon of the Mount, can stay a long time, but one day there will be heavy rains and there will be floods, and there will be storms, and earthquakes, and there will be a Katrina and hurricanes, and the houses that have no foundations will collapse.

One law, such as anybody who makes more than $250,000 will be taxed to bail out the corrupt, could bring down the American character, which pays taxes out of habit, because this is what your fathers and grandfathers who believed in a myth called the Bible taught you to do.

Once you have destroyed the character that pays taxes, so people are making money, but they are not bringing the money back to America– they are hiding it in Swiss bank accounts with the help of Indian financial managers–how do you then stimulate the economy?

You will have tons of experts saying that we need another war. For the last 12 months or 18 months serious economists, serious scholars have been arguing that in the 1920s and 30s America didn’t come out depression through the New Deal through government intervention. It was the Second World War that stimulated the economy and brought America out of depression.

Whoa, Obama won an election on anti-war platform how can he go to war? He doesn’t have to go to war. America has enough allies. A war can be started by any number of ways to help stimulate the American economy. This would be really terrible for the world’s only superpower, economic super power, military superpower, having destroyed its own character, its own taxpaying habits then needing to go to war, plunging the world into a world war in order to stimulate its own economy.

The devil said to Jesus, the glory and splendor and power and authority of these nations belongs to me. I’ll give them to you if you bow before me. Do you think the devil was bluffing Jesus? Jesus acknowledged the devil as the prince of this world. Paul said the devil rules the children of disobedience. ..He is the lord of the air. John says in 1 john 5:19 that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. America was a nation under God. As it ceases to be a nation under God, it will become a nation under the devil and this is serious. This is not a joke. The whole world knows what it is to live under brutal wicked unscrupulous political and military leaders. That is America’s future—a kingdom under Satan. It doesn’t have to end up like this, but it will.

What would you say to those who call Christians intolerant?

I have studied tolerance as well as anyone else. Tolerance is a peculiar product of Biblical Christianity.

Europe was extremely intolerant until the 16^th Century. From 1618-1648, during the 30 years war of religious bigotry, Protestants were killing Catholics; Catholics were killing Protestants. Anglicans were killing Puritans. Lutherans were killing Baptists. Everybody was killing everybody except for the Quakers and the Mennonites because they were pacifists. Of course the Muslims and the Hindus and the Buddhists, they had all been killing each other all the time anyway.

There were three intellectual ideas that started the move for tolerance. First John Milton in his little booklet called Areopagitica, in which he argued that truth and falsehood should be allowed to grapple with each other freely, without putting the coercive arm of the state on the side of one idea.

So Anglicans and Puritans should be allowed to debate “what is truth,” without the state choosing a side. People should be free to choose because in a free and fair combat, truth will always win. This was a very modern assumption that the human mind can know the truth because the human mind is made in God’s image.

This is a very Biblical assumption. Hindus don’t believe that the human mind can know the truth; Buddha didn’t believe that the human mind could know the truth. The Postmodern West doesn’t believe that the human mind can know the truth.

The second foundation of tolerance came from the Long Assembly under Oliver Cromwell during the Westminster Assembly. It was based on the Doctrine of Conscience. This says that a citizen is not the property of the state; a citizen is the property of the Creator. We will give an account to our creator, and we will give an account based on our conscience. Therefore people should be free to live by their conscience and the state should not crush anyone’s conscience. The state is there to defend the individual’s conscience, not to lord it over anyone’s conscience.

The doctrine of conscience which was there as part of the New Testament; it was very important to Luther, but it became a part of Western political philosophy through Westminster Confession, which was adopted by the Parliament and came a part of British law.

Now, what is conscience? If a human being is only an animal–only chemistry– then a conscience is nothing, but culturally conditioned chemistry. That is why no atheistic country has ever been able to respect or tolerate conscience. If your conscience disagrees with the state, you go to the concentration camp because you need reeducation of your conscience. The doctrine of conscience is a peculiarly New Testament philosophy based on the Old Testament. It is not a liberal idea. It is not a Darwinian Evolutionary part of a secular world view.

The third pillar of Western tolerance was John Locke’s Letters Concerning Toleration. He had a number of arguments. The most important argument was the cross. That God can use force to destroy evil and destroy Satan, but God uses the cross, which is self-sacrificing love.

Jesus and his apostles did not use the sword to spread their ideas. He demonstrated that he is the Messiah and his disciples persuaded people that he is the messiah. If God uses self-sacrificing love to woo rebels, we the state should not use force.

The cross, conscience, and the idea of what the human mind is what truth is, these were the intellectual foundations of tolerance.

Every single one of those foundations has been destroyed by liberal education.

Therefore liberalism has hijacked the Western tradition of tolerance and destroyed it, calling it political correctness. Now you are allowed to say what we tell you to say. If you believe that homosexuality is sin, you cannot say so.

America is not tolerant because it was white; Germany was white; Russia was white. America was tolerant because the Puritan movement which shaped America decisively is the source of Western tolerance.

I know you are big into pop culture. What’s on your radar these days?

Of course, the big news is Michael Jackson. That is a tragedy because one of my lectures in my series, Must the Sun Set on the West is called from Paul to Paris Hilton. This was a lecture given in the city of St. Paul Minnesota, so that was sort of the context.

The transformation of heroism from character to talent…

When Samuel was sent to anoint a substitute for Saul, king of Israel, Samuel told Saul that God rejected, him because he rejected the word of God.

After that, an evil spirit began to torment Saul. And he became a tormented soul. He turned his national army against his own son-in law and his own people; he became extremely oppressive.

God sent Samuel to anoint David; God told Samuel not to look at the outside. Man looks at outside. God looks at the heart. Character is more important. Gifts, talents, skills, abilities are important.

David was an extremely skilled warrior, courageous, skilled with the harp; he was a dancer like Michael Jackson.

He was a much greater poet and singer than Michael Jackson. No poet has been translated and memorized more than David in history has been translated and memorized.

So he was a great poet, great musician, great singer, great warrior, etc, etc, but to what matters to God at the end of the day is the heart—the character.

And here, Michael Jackson was a tormented soul. It just shows how completely the West is rejecting its perspective of what constitutes a great man and what constitutes heroism. It’s tragic; If Michael Jackson is the current icon of American pop culture, it is a powerful expression of the fact that America is ready not for a David, but for a Saul, and that’s what it will have.

–Tiffany Orr, the Underground managing editor

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Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi is an international lecturer, social reformer, political columnist and the author of 13 books.

Vishal Mangalwadi

Born and raised in India, he studied philosophy at universities, in Hindu ashrams, and at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland.

Christianity Today described him as “India’s foremost Christian intellectual,” and Chuck Colson said, “Very few thinkers in the world today understand as clearly as Vishal Mangalwadi does the impact of the Bible on Western civilization. He sees the West as others see us, which breaks the myopic view that so many politically sensitive Westerners have today.”

He is currently in the United States exploring the “soul” of Western Civilization.

His next speaking engagement is 7 p.m. Friday at Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell, Wash.

Recently, I got a chance to speak with Dr. Mangalwadi about Western culture. Below is part one of the interview; check back tomorrow for the second part.

Tell me in your own words about yourself. How do you see yourself?

I’m an Indian philosopher who was serving the poor in India. I began to realize that the problems of poverty, injustice, oppression, corruption are cultural, worldview, philosophical issues, and that a democracy by itself does not remove corruption. In fact it can become the tyranny of the majority, which can become terrible for minorities and small groups, individuals.

So, as I struggled against the corruption and oppression of India, I began to seriously study what I call the soul of Western civilization, how did the West succeed in creating a relatively just and prosperous and free society.

I came to the conclusion that the Bible was the soul of Western civilization; in fact I discovered that the Bible created modern India.

So I’ve written three books on that subject of the impact of the Bible on creating modern India. Now I’m here in America.

My lecture series, Must the Sun Set on the West is part of a larger project. The first series of lectures, also given at the University of Minnesota, was called the Book of the Millennium.

The Bible created the modern world; it created the modern West. Must the Sun Set on the West builds on that theme in examining some of the consequences of rejection of the Bible.

I’m turning this research into a book, and hopefully a college-level curriculum on nation building which would be looking at the Bible and civilization through history.

That’s briefly who I am, and what I’m doing. I have two daughters . Ruth and I have been married 34 years. Our fifth grandchild was born two week s ago. She is the first of our second daughter.

Speaking of India, the Indian government’s decriminalization of consensual homosexual sex in India was big news. What do you think about that?

The criminalization of homosexuality in India was part of British law, because India never had a legal system. We are a four or five thousand year old civilization. Lots of different civilizations arose and fell and no one ever gave us a penal code– a system of justice. It was thanks to the British that we have a judicial system– a penal system. It’s really British common law which has been governing India. Now we are moving towards a more American [system of law] where the law is what the judges say it is.

Philosophically Hinduism never had a problem with homosexuality.

The Hindu gurus– those who are seeking enlightenment– they have to renounce marriage to experience their completeness. Therefore homosexuality has been a part of Hindu religious experience, but because Hinduism never had a penal code or justice system, we were living and we are still living by the British system of justice. It’s not working very well, but the trends and fashions and sense of right and wrong and just and unjust in India are coming from the West. This is part of a post modern world, where we are being globalized, but without necessarily a sense of right and wrong.

Though philosophically and religiously Hinduism had no problem with homosexuality, culturally it would be still a big issue. A lot of homosexuals will remain in the closet in India because it’s much harder to be open and take the consequences.

To punish discrimination is much harder in India. Here people are afraid of the law. The law says you cannot discriminate against gays and lesbians. In India it is relatively easy to break the law when the law clashes with your cultural prejudices and values and preferences.

In America, the judicial system… political system has a special problem because the preamble guarantees the right to pursue happiness. The Indian constitution doesn’t have that. There’s the right to equality, but there is no fundamental right to pursue happiness.

The problem American courts have is that when Jefferson inserted the clause the right to pursue happiness, [he inserted] a philosophical idea. [America’s founders] understood that the pursuit of pleasure is often the opposite of the pursuit of happiness. The prodigal son was pursuing pleasure, and that was pursuit of unhappiness.

This [idea of the distinction between pleasure and happiness] is “Christian” as well as the Enlightenment common sense, as Enlightenment common sense was a shadow of the Bible in America.

In American courts, once they blurred the distinction between pleasure and happiness, then they began to assume that the constitution is guaranteeing everyone the right to pursue pleasure.

I’m hoping to give four lectures in a university context: Sex, America’s Pursuit of Unhappiness. It’ll discuss the fact that the Sexual Revolution has been anything but the pursuit of happiness; it has been the pursuit of unhappiness. In my lecture series, Must the Sun Set on the West, I have one lecture which called from Martin Luther’s Vicarage to Hugh Heffner’s Harem: Turning Men into Boys, and Women into Desperate Housewives. Americans, [thanks to] the Sexual Revolution are confusing pleasure with happiness.

India is [following] the West, confused by Hollywood and confused by the stupidity of American culture, the cultural elite who dominate Hollywood and media and universities who do not understand what they are doing. In trying to become wise, they are indeed becoming fools. This is part of my research into my research into exploring the soul of Western civilization.

You mention Must the Sun Set on the West, what is that about?

The West is amputating its soul.

Have you heard of Michael Novak. Michael Novak is Roman Catholic scholar who has many interesting books. One of his books is called On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at America’s Founding.

The thesis of that book is that the American eagle flew past all other civilizations because this eagle flew with two wings. One wing was faith in the Bible, the other was common sense. The common sense was American Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne, etc., this was the party of the common sense.

The church, which was the dominant cultural force, it established all the university and colleges, but the Common Sense Party of the American Enlightenment took over — hijacked these educational institutions. The Common Sense Party, in the university, kept saying that the Bible is a myth. They said, “Of course we should not worship idols, and we should not covet our neighbor’s property, or wives; and we should not commit adultery or kill or steal, or lie; we should not bear false witness etc.”

They also said that these are all common sense virtues, and we don’t need God to reveal those things to us. This is not divine revelation. We don’t really have to believe in a god who gives his law, and who judges, and who punishes, and a heaven and a hell, etc.

However, as it turns out, common sense is in fact myth. There is no such thing as common sense. Common sense is a creation of every culture.

Earlier for 400 years the Bible was the reality. The Bible shaped culture through the pulpit; culture shaped common sense, so common sense was the shadow of the Bible.

As the Bible is destroyed…removed, the shadow is disappearing. Common sense is disappearing, so Bernie Madoff is coveting his neighbor’s property. He’s cultivating trust for years in order to cheat, loot, steal, and thieve. This is common sense; it’s business.

In another book, Novak says that America is a three-legged stool. One leg was morality; the other leg was capitalism; the third leg was democracy politics. One leg, the morality, has broken because our universities, which shape the country, no longer know what is right and what is wrong.

The economic leg is wobbling really badly, because it is trust that is disappearing. The financial sector was dependent on the fact that the world trusted in American character and American’s word; but as the moral leg of the stool has crumbled, the economic leg is crumbling and the political leg is following suit very rapidly.

And the courts are busy… and the political system is busy destroying marriage destroying institutions, institution of marriage and family in umpteen ways, because they have become incapable of defining the simple truths such as what is happiness, who is man, what is life.

As President Obama said during the campaign, “These questions are above my pay grade, I don’t even know when life begins.” So he and the Supreme Court justices have a lot of issues above their pay grades. They don’t know. They can’t know. They refuse to take the revelation that God gives, so they try and become wise; in the process they become fools and destroy everything they inherit.

So the great culture, which was built on the stool of three legs, the eagle that flew on these two wings, all of that is collapsing because essentially, my thesis is, the West has amputated its soul.

For more information on Dr. Mangawadi, visit his Web site at www.vishalmangalwadi.com, and check back here tomorrow for part two of the interview.

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I’ve always had the desire to know things. With the Internet, I can know things right away. I like that. However, there are times when I wish I could unlearn things. Today is one of those days. I was just surfing and minding my own business, then I saw what promised to be a link to an interesting video.

It was called: Black Jesus: It’s Getting Old.

I should have known that it was going to be crazy because it’s by Aaron McGruder. Some of you might be familiar with his work from the Boondocks.

Anyways, I watched the video and I really didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know whether to be offended or to commend McGruder for his insightful satire.

After all my thinking, I decided that it’s okay to be offended and to commend McGruder. This video is an indictment on society, as well as a reflection of it.

I think the video is meant to be offensive. First off, the video features a non-Caucasian Jesus. This flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught. I’m not trying to start a debate on Jesus’ skin color, but we know for a fact that he wasn’t Caucasian.

The video portrays Jesus as a profane caricature of who He is. The way Jesus was portrayed will be shocking to a lot of people, but when I thought about it a little more, I realized that that’s how society as a whole treats Him. As John Calvin said, man is “fabricum idolarum,” an idol factory. So, we always make God into our own image. Some people think Jesus is fun and games, so they actually relate to a false Jesus, who is an exaggeration of the true Jesus.

The other thing in this video that got me thinking was the occasion for Black Jesus being on the scene. Jesus is talking to some thugs in their SUV. He’s trying to get them to give him something.

He says, “Did I not lay my life down for you?” And the thugs reply, “Yeah, we know that, but it’s getting old Jesus.”

For me, that exchange was profound. Because we have been glutted with the Christian message, so many people in the Western world think that the message of the gospel is “old.” All of us know people who don’t care if a Savior died and shed his blood for them. It’s pretty sad.

To wrap it all up. McGruder was wrong for making this video. Jesus is holy, and He is God. He will judge the living and the dead. Most will see this video and laugh or run away. BUT I’m glad he made this video. Because some people will see the deeper meaning (their hypocrisy), and turn to the Truth.

Watch: Black Jesus: It’s Getting Old

This video features profanity. Watch it at your own risk.

–Tiff, The Underground editor

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