these concepts later developed in their own way in Western Christendom, and gave rise to humanism, a philosophy placing the God-like man at the center of nature. In this sense, the Revolutions of the 18 and 19th centuries, which placed man at the ultimate end of existence, were a product of the Christian conception of the divine nature of each human being. Just like the Gospels had to be preached throughout the world for every one’s salvation, so was this new revolutionary ideals to be conveyed to the end of the world. Our modern nations which struggle so hard to spread democracy are thus continuing the work of the missionaries, only a work whose ultimate goal has shifted from God to man, even if their core concepts are the same.
Of course, not everything in Western history has been good, even in the church itself, which was supposed to have instilled these concepts in the mind of all–the Inquisition and the Crusades, the World wars and colonialism may testify against the argument I am trying to make here. But Western ideals were carried not by States or institutions, but rather by living persons who carried these in their bosom. Our civilization rests not on abstract, theoretical ideas or books, but on the minds of persons who have formulated them and of those who have applied them. However much we depart from our ideals, however much we fail to live up to our ideals, these nonetheless remain the core of our culture. In this sense, the revolutionaries movement, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, sought to take up and, again, revise the concepts that both Church and the sacred authority of the State had failed to live up to since the end of the Middle Ages. It is in this respect that the American Constitution, and all Western European institutions, are the heir of the Gospels, even though church and State are legally separated.
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