Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

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Most interesting to the modern reader is how, towards the end of the book, Holland ties together historic precedents peppered through the book and how seemingly novel and original ideas, such as Communism, are familiar to the reader by the end of the book. Widen the focus, though, and Christianity's enduring impact upon the West can be seen in the emergence of much that has traditionally been cast as its nemesis: in science, in secularism, and yes, even in atheism. Prefiguring the book, in 2016 Holland penned an essay in the New Statesman describing how he was "wrong about Christianity".

There is even a medieval forerunner of feminism in the figure of the Milanese noblewoman Guglielma, who announced that she was the Holy Spirit made flesh for the redemption of women, and with engaging modesty baptised them in the name of the Father, the Son and herself. For Cajetan, the teachings of the Church were universal in their reach; Christianity should be imposed not by force but solely by persuasion; that neither kings nor emperors nor the Church itself had any right to ordain their conquest. The author has a rare gift for narrative and a lively sense of drama with his message delivered directly through the lives of Christians as much as via complex theological debates. Holland highlights the pivotal role of Martin Luther King, a southern pastor a magnificent orator and organiser who sought the peaceful route to challenge discriminatory actions and legislation.C. Grayling has rejected Holland's interpretation of Christianity's influence on modern morality, [21] [22] meeting Tom Holland for debate on the subject. Samuel Moyn, writing for the Financial Times, similarly stated that "Holland shines in his panoramic survey of how disruptive Christianity was for the ethical and political assumptions that preceded it", though also criticizing how "the illustration of the conquest of the west by Christianity risks becoming so total that it explains everything and nothing. In Holland's view, pre-Christian societies and deities, such as in the Greco-Roman world, tended to focus on and glorify strength, might and power; this was inverted with the spread of Christianity, which proclaimed the primacy of the weak and suffering. The concept of human rights and equality, as well as solidarity with the weak against the strong, Holland argues, ultimately derive from the theology built on the teachings of Jesus and Paul the Apostle. Indeed, his characterisation of St Paul does seem to be questionable in some areas and it is surprising that we hear more of Paul rather than of Christ himself even if Paul was a key transmitter of the Christian message.

The organisers of the Women’s March sought to invoke the authority of those at the bottom of the pile.Kinship and blood ties no longer matter, and Jesus’s treatment of his mother is by no means always that of a good Jewish boy. According to Holland, over the course of writing about the " apex predators" of the ancient world, particularly the Romans, "I came to feel they were increasingly alien, increasingly frightening to me". The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls, and enslaved a million more. Holland remarks that the early Christians’ refusal to identify themselves with a homeland was a cause of scandal. Holland claims that the multiple injustices suffered by marginalised individuals in recent years has created an awakening which has its origins in Christianity.

But if you are open minded and not already an expert, it should be an enjoyable and worthwhile read. The Los Angeles Review of Books stated that " Dominion's most important contribution is in emphasizing how terms we take for granted, even concepts seemingly as fundamental as 'religion' and 'secular,' come 'freighted with the legacy of Christendom'", stating that his argument about the Christian origin of "human rights, socialism, revolution, feminism, science, and even the division between religion and the secular" is carried out in a "mostly convincing way". Followers of Satan around the same time were obliged to suck on the tongue of a giant toad and lick the anus of a black cat.The powerless came to be seen a God’s children and therefore deserving of respect as much as the highest in society. A hierarchy of victimhood that could be summed up as” the last shall be first and the last first” In 2017 Harvey Weinstein a movie mogul had allegations brought against him for harassment , rape and assault by eighty women. Yet Holland is surely right to argue that when we condemn the moral obscenities committed in the name of Christ, it is hard to do so without implicitly invoking his own teaching. If you really have to be nailed to a cross, the best thing to do is lose a lot of blood beforehand, so by scourging Jesus the Romans unwittingly helped him on his way.