Resurrecting Christian history: Ted Byfield believes that appreciating western civilization's Christian roots is critical for everyone's future.

Alberta journalist Ted Byfield, 78, the conservative Christian founder of the Report newsmagazines, has devoted the last seven years to producing a multi-volume history series, The Christians--Their First Two Thousand Years. By late 2004, Byfield had published six of the projected 12 volumes, then his project ran out of money. He is now unabashedly seeking donors to complete the series. He spoke to the Western Standard in January, on the eve of a fundraising tour to a dozen Canadian and American centres.

WS: After starting the Report magazines (1973, 1980 and 1988), you produced the 12-volume Alberta history series. Why?

Ted Byfield: We--my wife Virginia and I--viewed the world as a battlefield between good and evil, and the secularist movement as the major enemy. They were trying to destroy the institutions of Christendom and gaining great ground. And one thing they did was eradicate history. Educators weren't hypocrites. They wanted to obliterate the old society and said so, [John] Dewey and the rest. They subverted history by making it a department of sociology ... like the kid at our school who knew Sir John A. Macdonald hanged Louis Riel--"because we studied minorities"--and knew nothing else about him. But there's a human craving for history. We all want to know where we're from, how we got here.

So your Alberta history series (1991-2000) was just a pilot project, looking forward to the Christian history project?

Well, history seemed our opening. We thought if we could produce a really interesting series on Christianity, based on good storytelling, well illustrated, people would come to find in these books answers they don't find anyplace else. Recovering Christian history could be a beachhead to begin regaining ground across the culture.

What happened to the first effort to produce the (12-volume) Christian history?

We raised $5 million from investors, but made one big mistake: telemarketing. No sooner did we start (2001) than [North America] turned against telemarketing with "no call" laws, and we didn't get off it soon enough. Hindsight's 20/20.

Still, the original project produced six very good volumes, very well received. I never realized how well received until the last months. Ten thousand people bought the entire series up to then, one to six, at $50 a volume. By the last volume, we had the cost down to $500,000 each, near break-even. But by then, we were in debt.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

So now?

We've formed a new non-profit society with a great board of directors in Canada and the States, and we're waiting for charitable status. We have the first six volumes. We've written schematics for the final six, and we need a million dollars to cover production of volumes seven and eight. When they're done, they'll generate the cash flow to produce nine through 12. So tell your readers to visit www.thechristians.ca or www.christianhistoryproject.com.

Why ought the ordinary, everyday Canadian care about Christian history?

In Orwell's 1984, it was illegal to teach history. (Laughs.) History gives us a platform to view our own era; if we don't have it, everything seems new and threatening, because we've nothing to compare it to. But maybe the present isn't so important. Maybe the past has something to tell the us.

But why Christian history?

What else is there? Religion is at the root of everybody. People at The Globe and Mail have a religion, though they don't know it. And it's even more doctrinaire than mine.

Couldn't somebody argue that Christianity is irrelevant to the future?

Unless Christianity is true. If Christianity is true, the modern religion is false. If you embrace false religion, you come to a bad end, and it seems society today is coming to a bad end. We think issues like gay marriage are decided by the courts, but they're really decided by whether society thrives or collapses. Christianity has died five times over 2,000 years, but then it's risen again five times to save civilization.

Why should a non-Christian care?

Christianity nurtured modern democracy, fed it, because a free society depends on people putting principle ahead of self-interest. Christianity has always provided the motivation needed to sustain a free society.

Why should Jews care about Christianity?

When societies fall apart, minorities are the first victims. Last century, Jews were victims of the formerly Christian societies that tried to destroy their own origins. That's why the chief rabbi in Britain (Jonathan Sacks) said the survival of Jewry depends on Christianity.