"The crowning achievement of Western civilization is not democracy, as one might suppose–for democracy had been tried in ancient Greece, and later in Rome, with decidedly mixed results: logos alone proved insufficient for rule by the people. It was instead the elevation of the value of the individual and the recognition of the true nature of man: made in God’s image, and therefore capable of great glory and goodness, but fallen, and therefore capable of great evil. This dawning realization and revelation was the gift of the Christianization of Europe, carrying forward to a barbarian land not merely the reason of the Greeks and the moral framework of Judaism (monotheism and the centrality of law in restraining moral errancy), but augmenting it with the Christian emphasis on mercy and forgiveness, redemption and the importance of the individual in God’s design and creation."
-www.docisinblog.com