A cursory look at the world will tell us the human development disparities in different regions of the world. Without many efforts we can say human development is the highest in Europe, North America and Australia; then have a look at the ethos dominant in these continents and anybody would agree that it is Christian.

When the United Nations defined human development, though not stated explicitly, that too was from a Christian background and perspective, and that is natural because the majority of its member states are influenced by Christian ethos. When I speak of Christian ethos, I don’t mean Christianity as a religion but as a value system or ideology.

The UN defines human development as the process of enlarging people’s choices allowing them to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living as well as political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect.

This definition clearly brings about the essential characteristics of human development: healthy long life, education, guaranteed human rights, self-respect.

The most fundamental principle that emerges from the life and works of Jesus is love, forgiveness and freedom. Love your neighbor as yourself and forgiveness explains the core of Christianity and every type of freedom comes forth only from such a philosophy. Without love and freedom human development is not possible at all.

Political scientist Harold Laski has said it in another way: “…civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain… those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men.”

For Laski, one who inflicts pain on others and one who blindly submits to authority cannot call himself or herself as civilized. Another version of Christian love and freedom which Jesus demonstrates in different ways.

When the same Christian principle was applied in politics and economics, human development took place and that is why Christian influenced regions show better human development index. Take the case of Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland in UK, and Germany; they have the highest human development index, and obviously they are dominantly Christian countries. We can observe the same in India also.

When India ranks 130 in HDI out of 189, within India the best HDI we find in the most Christianized states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and the north-eastern states. Mizoram, Tripura and Kerala rank the highest in literacy and the contributions of Christianity to educate these states is a commonplace knowledge.

Through his monumental work “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” German sociologist and economist Max Weber has proved that socio-economic development of a people has definite relation to Christian ethos. This same relationship is very much evident in another German thinker Karl Marx and his famous work Das Kapital and a key Marxian principle is that to each according to his need and from each according to his ability, and it has an undeniable basis in the Acts of the Apostles.

There are eight fundamental values that come forth from the Christian ethos: grace, hope, faith, love, justice, joy, service and peace. All these eight can be summed up in three: faith, hope and charity. All the nations which show a better human development index or human capital index, they all will have these values in good measure.

So we can easily say that Christian ethos holds the key to human development and Pope Paul VI has confirmed it when he said of authentic human development as integral growth promoting the good of every human person.

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Christmas message of 2015 better reflect this in a Christian and national context: “As a Christian country, we must remember what His birth represents: peace, mercy, goodwill and, above all, hope. I believe that we should also reflect on the fact that it is because of these important religious roots and Christian values that Britain has been such a successful home to people of all faiths and none.”

Joe Palathunkal