Tom Holland on Christianity’s enduring influence

Is secularism Christianity by other means?

tom holland Notre-Dame stands charred in Paris in the aftermath of a fire that devastated the cathedral
Notre-Dame stands charred in Paris in the aftermath of a fire that devastated the cathedral

In this week’s Book Club, my guest is the historian Tom Holland, author of the new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. The book, though as Tom remarks, you might not know it from the cover, is essentially a history of Christianity — and an account of the myriad ways, many of them invisible to us, that it has shaped and continues to shape Western culture. It’s a book and an argument that takes us from Ancient Babylon to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room, draws in the Beatles and the Nazis, and orbits…

In this week’s Book Club, my guest is the historian Tom Holland, author of the new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. The book, though as Tom remarks, you might not know it from the cover, is essentially a history of Christianity — and an account of the myriad ways, many of them invisible to us, that it has shaped and continues to shape Western culture. It’s a book and an argument that takes us from Ancient Babylon to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room, draws in the Beatles and the Nazis, and orbits around two giant figures: St Paul and Nietzsche. Is there a single discernible, distinctive Christian way of thinking? Is secularism Christianity by other means? And are our modern-day culture wars between alt-righters and woke progressives a post-Christian phenomenon or, as Tom argues, essentially a civil war between two Christian sects?

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