The Impulse of Power: Formative Ideals of Western Civilization by Michael W. Kelley

A fierce dispute has arisen between the older traditionalists who believe in the goodness of Western culture and the newer multiculturists who revile it as evil and oppressive.  While the former seek to rejuvenate its core belief, the latter wish only to destroy it.  Should they be heeded who suggest that the ideals of classical man need to be recovered in order to revive the lost vision of culture that made the West what it was in the first place?

Form a Christian perspective, each and every cultural endeavor of man, Western man included, must be subjected to a careful scrutiny based upon what does not derive from culture itself; indeed, does not derive from man in any sense.  The Christian perspective on all human life and endeavor must ultimately rest upon what can only be described as the Divine point of view, in other words, on revelation.

Michael W. Kelley is a graduate of Biola University, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Villanova University.  He holds a PhD in philosophy from Duquesne University.  He is the author of The Burden of God: Studies in Wisdom and Civilization from the Book of Ecclesiastes and On Stone or Sand: The Ethics of Christianity, Capitalism and Socialism.