Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and the Providence of God in the Tradition of Western Civilization

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.
(Gal 4.4; ESV).

I glanced at the calendar enroute to my coveted first cup of morning coffee - Monday (10/12): Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day.[1] That’s all it took for my noetic Delorean of nostalgia to hit 88 mph, and I was back in my elementary school classroom singing along: “Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two; with the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María.” Fast forward to 9th grade U.S. history where I was taught that Columbus was an evil colonialist, and imperialist, in all its forms, should be decried, not celebrated. As Christians, we understand that great sin has been perpetrated in the history of Western civilization, even in the name of Christendom, but does that negate the entire project?

Last week the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech, with the awe-inspiring Acropolis of Athens as his backdrop. I have never been to Greece, but I have dawned the steps of the Parthenon replica in Nashville - a structure both powerful and pulchritudinous. In this majestic setting, Secretary Rubio spoke with extraordinary clarity on the enduring influence of the Western Tradition - “The story of our civilization is the greatest story ever known to man,”[2]declared the statesman. Standing before the pride of Athens, he traced the roots of Western civilization to Athens and Rome - “For 25 centuries since, the Parthenon has stood.  Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow.  And the progeny of the men who built it – the sons of Athens and Rome – have carried their civilization with them to the ends of the Earth.”[3]

One paragraph from Rubio’s remarks left an indelible impression:

“This was the foundation of the Western mind: our math, our science, our medicine.  Our philosophy, ethics, and religion.  It paved the way for the gospel of Jesus Christ to find fertile soil in Europe and flourish into the empire of Christendom. It was the foundation of the riches of Christian theology – of Augustine and Aquinas and the whole tradition of natural law.”[4]

In Monday’s edition of his Briefing[5], Dr. Albert Mohler commented that it is not only remarkable that a modern U.S. Secretary of State would make such public remarks extolling the virtues of Western civilization, but for him to rightly acknowledge that ancient Western civilization was the “fertile soil” for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which flourished into Christendom; for the sitting Secretary of State to affirm the foundation of Christian theology, name dropping Augustine, Aquinas, and the whole tradition of natural law is almost inconceivable in the modern mood. There’s much that can be dissected from this speech; far too much for a humble essay such as this, but what captured my imagination was the providence of God in the propagating, protection, and preservation of the gospel in the Western tradition.

Most trace the roots of Western civilization to Athens and Rome; in a stroke of his usual brilliance, Dr. Mohler[6]suggests that Jerusalem should head this list - Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. Much has been written about how the law, medicine, philosophy, politics, economics, ethics, and artistry, etc. of the West embody a golden thread[7] blossoming from the soil of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. In God’s providence the promise of the Messiah (Gen 3.15) was preserved through the history, wisdom, prophecy, law, ethics, liturgy, and culture of ancient Jerusalem. But when the fullness of time had comeGod sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law (Gal 4.4); Jerusalem’s law.

The incarnate Son of God was born under Jerusalem’s law, in a Roman occupied Hellenized culture. In God’s providence, it was at the exact confluence of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome that Jesus of Nazareth was born, lived, died, was buried, and resurrected from the dead. The gospel of Jesus spread via Rome’s infrastructure, and in time, infiltrated Greek moral and political philosophy. In God’s providence, the fullness of time gestated Christendom, giving birth to the Protestant Reformation. Out of the Reformation, the Anglo-Saxon thread of Western civilization sailed to the new world, and the sons of Reformed Puritan New England declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”[8]

Without reservation, we must acknowledge that the history of the Western Tradition is tainted with sin - after all, we are Calvinists who believe in total depravity. Still, despite our sin (and the sins of our fathers), Western civilization has produced human flourishing unimaginable to the ancient mind. The Christ event changed the world - first and foremost through the announcement of the reversal of the curse, the forgiveness of sin, and the justification of sinners through faith alone. The resurrection of Christ has also shaped the ethics, politics, philosophy, economics, education, law, science, and medicine of the modern world through the Tradition of Western civilization. Last week, to the surprise of many, with the awe-inspiring Acropolis of Athens in the background, the United States Secretary of State acknowledged as much.

[1]The overwhelming consensus of historians is that the first explorers to reach North America were Nors Vikings led by Leif Eriksson around AD 1,000. Archeological findings from 1963 in Newfoundland, Canada support Icelandic sagas unknown to the outside world for a long time. Even within Iceland, these sagas were thought to be tall tales because of the Nors tradition of mixing history with legend. At the dawn of the eleventh century, Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red, sailed west from Greenland and landed on North American soil on October 9, 1,002 – nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. The Vikings called the new world Vinland (“Wine-land”) because the land was rich with wild grapes and wheat. These Nors sailors never intended a permanent settlement, though, but instead were most interested in farming the vast forests of northern Canada for wood, before returning east. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/leif-eriksson-lands-north-america/

[2]https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesman/2026/10/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-remarks?mc_cid=cb5eb59d14&mc_eid=a30bffc451

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid.

[5]https://albertmohler.com/2026/10/12/briefing-10-12-26/

[6]https://wng.org/opinions/secretary-rubio-and-the-crisis-of-our-age-1791802911

[7]https://thegoldenthreadinitiative.com/

[8]https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript