The Origins of Western Values and Practices

A wonderful podcast--reformations before the Reformation; "being woke" as a result of Christianity; Nietzsche, and morality apart from Christianity. 

Dominion: The making of the Western mind

“This isn’t a history of Christianity,” Holland says. “It’s a history of what’s been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world.

“People in the West, even those who may imagine that they have emancipated themselves from Christian belief, in fact, are shot through with Christian assumptions about almost everything.”

Dominion: The making of the Western mind, is published by Little, Brown at £25 (CT Bookshop £22.50).

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/27-september/regulars/podcast/tom-holland-talks-to-andrew-brown-about-dominion-the-making-of-the-western-mind
    

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Dominion argues that the democratisation of dignity rests upon the biblical claim that we are all made in God's image.This was then augmented by the early Christian claim that all people, no matter their social location, can experience salvation through Jesus.
It leads to the potentially uncomfortable conclusion that human rights originate because of the presence of religion, rather than its absence.

For each of these examples there is plenty we should debate. Dominion functions well as a first word rather than a last word. But the book raises vital questions about the social function of history in general, and the meaning of our history in its particulars.

One of the general values of history is that it reminds us things didn't have to turn out this way. Values and practices don't spring to life of their own accord. They have an origin and a story. It could have been different; it was different.Which presents us with a challenge about how we assess our present and our future.What do we want to keep from the past? And if we want to keep it, can we adequately nourish that future while we ignore or disparage the past?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-03/dominion-tom-holland-christianity-shaping-western-mind/11663018?pfmredir=sm