Early River Valley Civilizations Fall Final Review Answers Key

Cultures and civilizations go through cycles. Over time, many civilizations and cultures have risen and then fallen. We who alive in painful times like these do well to recall these truths. Cultures and civilizations come up and go; just the Church (though oft in demand of reform) and truthful biblical culture remain. An old song says, "Only what you lot do for Christ will concluding." Yes, all else passes; the Church is similar an ark in the passing waters of this world and in the floodwaters of times like these.

For those of united states of america who love our country and our civilisation, the pain is real. By God'due south grace, many fair flowers have come from Western civilisation as it grew over the by millennium. Whatever its imperfections (and there were many), great dazzler, civilization, and progress emerged at the crossroads of faith and human giftedness. Only now information technology appears that we are at the end of an era. We are in a tailspin we don't we seem to be able to pull ourselves out of. Greed, aversion to sacrifice, secularism, divorce, promiscuity, and the devastation of the most basic unit of civilization (the family), do not brand for a healthy culture. There seems to be no ground for true reform and the deepening darkness suggests that we are moving into the last stages of a disease. This is painful but not unprecedented.

Sociologists and anthropologists take described the stages of the rising and fall of the world's bully civilizations. Scottish philosopher Alexander Tyler of the University of Edinburg noted 8 stages that articulate well what history discloses. I first encountered these in in Ted Flynn's volume The Great Transformation. They provide a cracking deal of perspective to what we are currently experiencing.

Let's look at each of the 8 stages. The names of the stages are from Tyler's book and are presented in assuming red text . My brief reflections follow in plain text.

1. From bondage to spiritual growth – Great civilizations are formed in the crucible. The Ancient Jews were in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. The Christian religion and the Church came out of 300 years of persecution. Western Christendom emerged from the chaotic conflicts during the turn down of the Roman Empire and the movements of often fierce "barbarian" tribes. American civilization was formed by the injustices that grew in colonial times. Sufferings and injustices crusade—even force—spiritual growth. Suffering brings wisdom and demands a spiritual discipline that seeks justice and solutions.
2. From spiritual growth to great backbone – Having been steeled in the crucible of suffering, courage and the ability to endure bully sacrifice come along. Anointed leaders emerge and people are summoned to courage and sacrifice (including loss of life) in guild to create a better, more but world for succeeding generations. People who have little or nothing, besides have little or aught to lose and are oftentimes more willing to alive for something more important than themselves and their own pleasance. A battle is begun, a battle requiring courage, discipline, and other virtues.
3. From courage to liberty – As a issue of the courageous fight, the foe is vanquished and liberty and greater justice emerges. At this signal a civilisation comes forth, rooted in its greatest ethics. Many who led the battle are still alive, and the legacy of those who are not is still fresh. Heroism and the virtues that brought near liberty are however esteemed. The ethics that were struggled for during the years in the crucible are nevertheless largely agreed upon.
4. From freedom to abundance – Liberty ushers in greater prosperity, because a civilization is yet operation with the virtues of sacrifice and hard work. Simply then comes the start danger: abundance. Things that are in as well dandy an affluence tend to weigh usa downward and take on a life of their own. At the aforementioned time, the struggles that engender wisdom and steel the soul to proper discipline and priorities movement to the groundwork. Jesus said that man'due south life does not consist in his possessions. But but endeavor to tell that to people in a civilization that starts to experience affluence. Such a culture is living on the fumes of earlier sacrifices; its people become less and less willing to make such sacrifices. Ethics diminish in importance and affluence weighs down the souls of the citizens. The sacrifices, subject, and virtues responsible for the thriving of the civilisation are increasingly remote from the collective conscience; the enjoyment of their fruits becomes the focus.
5. From abundance to complacency – To be complacent ways to exist self-satisfied and increasingly unaware of serious trends that undermine health and the ability to thrive. Everything looks fine, and then it must be fine. Yet foundations, resources, infrastructures, and necessary virtues are all crumbling. As virtues, disciplines, and ideals get ever more than remote, those who raise alarms are labeled by the complacent as "killjoys" and considered farthermost, harsh, or judgmental.
6. From self-approbation to aloofness – The word apathy comes from the Greek and refers to a lack of involvement in, or passion for, the things that once animated and inspired. Due to the complacency of the previous stage, the growing lack of attending to disturbing trends advances to outright dismissal. Many seldom recall or care nearly the sacrifices of previous generations and lose a sense that they must work for and contribute to the mutual skillful. "Civilization" suffers the serious accident of being replaced by personalization and privatization in growing degrees. Working and sacrificing for others becomes more remote. Growing numbers condign increasingly willing to alive on the carcass of previous sacrifices. They park on someone else's dime, but volition not make full the parking meter themselves. Hard work and self-discipline continue to erode.
7. From aloofness to dependence – Increasing numbers of people lack the virtues and zeal necessary to work and contribute. The suffering and the sacrifices that congenital the civilization are now a distant memory. As field of study and piece of work increasingly seem "also hard," dependence grows. The collective culture now tips in the direction of dependence. Suffering of any sort seems intolerable. But virtue is non seen equally the solution. Having lived on the sacrifices of others for years, the civilization now insists that "others" must solve their woes. This ushers in growing demands for governmental, collective solutions. This in turns deepens dependence, equally solutions move from personal virtue and local, family-based sacrifices to centralized ones.
8. From dependence back to chains – As dependence increases, so does centralized ability. Dependent people tend to become increasingly dysfunctional and desperate. Seeking a savior, they wait to strong central leadership. Merely centralized power corrupts, and tends to usher in increasing intrusion past centralized ability. Injustice and intrusion multiplies. But those in bondage know of no other solutions. Family unit and personal virtue (essential ingredients for any culture) are now effectively replaced by an increasingly dark and despotic centralized control, hungry for more and more than ability. In this way, the civilisation is gradually ended, because people in bondage no longer take the virtues necessary to fight.

Another possibility is that a more powerful nation or group is able to enter, by invasion or replacement, and destroy the final vestiges of a corrupt civilization and replace it with their ain civilization.

Either mode, it'due south back to crucible, until suffering and conflict bring nearly plenty of the wisdom, virtue, and courage necessary to begin a new civilization that will rise from the ashes.

Thus are the stages of civilizations. Sic transit gloria mundi. The Church has witnessed a lot of this in just the brief 2 millennia of her time. In addition to civilizations, nations have come up and gone quite frequently over the years. Few nations accept lasted longer than 200 years. Civilizations are harder to define with exact years, but at the offset of the New Covenant, Rome was already in decline. In the Church'due south future would exist other large nations and empires in the Westward: the "Holy" Roman Empire, various colonial powers, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French.  Information technology was once said that "The sun never sets on the British Empire." At present it does. As the Due west began a long decline, Napoleon made his move. Afterwards, Hitler strove to build a German empire. And so came the USSR. And prior to all this, in the Sometime Testament menstruation, there had been the Kingdom of David, to be succeeded by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Hellenic republic, and Rome.

The only true ark of safety is the Church building, who received her hope of indefectibility from the Lord ( Matt 16:18 ). Only the Church, too, is always in need of reform and will have much to suffer. Yet she lone will survive this changing world, because she is the Bride of Christ and too His Body.

These are hard days, but perspective can help. It is hard to deny that we are living at the cease of an era. It is painful because something nosotros love is dying. Simply from death comes along new life. Simply the Lord knows the next stage and long this interregnum will be. Wait to Him. Go ahead and vote, but put not your trust in princes ( Ps 146:3 ). God will preserve His people, as He did in the One-time Covenant. He will preserve those of us who are now joined to Him in the New Covenant. Discover your place in the ark, ever ancient and nevertheless new.

This video of psalm 121 is sung in an aboriginal language and manner, just its bulletin is still electric current:

I lift mine eyes to the Mountains from whence cometh my help (Psalm 121).

alexanderwipt1982.blogspot.com

Source: https://blog.adw.org/2016/10/eight-stages-rise-fall-civilizations/

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