That modern Western Civilisation is deeply indebted to its Christian origins, could seem like stating the blindingly obvious. Yet the central premise of Tom Holland's book is to remind us, lest we imagine we are living in a post Christian society entirely cleansed of its influence, that actually our values and assumptions about how civilised society should function and what we value, uphold and put our faith in, is still largely informed by ideals derived from Christianity. Even though the majority of us have long since ceased to know that is where they came from, or to be believing practitioners.
It is a common assertion that our democracy is a direct legacy from the Greek idea of demos. However, its clear those ancient Greeks might not recognise its current contemporary iteration at all. Slaves, women and men without land had no say or vote in Greek democracy. So transformed our sense of 'what democracy is' has been by the injection of Christian ideals into it - the collective responsibility for upholding fairness,equality, inclusivity, caring for the well being of the old, weak and disadvantaged in society.
Over the millennia Christianity has had periods where it needed to reform itself, even prior to the Protestant Reformation. The whole impetus for our society to purge itself of its faults, the concept that it can progress, change and reform for the better, that stimulated most of our social, cultural, economic and scientific developments. The occasional revolutions and upheavals proving necessary for progress to be maintained. All these have their source in Christian idealism.
Protestantism transformed Christian faith into an individual act, one of choice and practice, and by doing so unleashed other individualised ideas about personal fulfillment, reaching own potential, finding our vocation in life, of a meritocracy, the evolution of a survival of the fittest doctrine to becoming a creed of capitalism, to your own self be true.
That we compatmentalise issues in society into religious and secular concerns, was originally a Christian delineation. We now have to all intents and purposes an entirely secular morality, still borrowing its ethics from Christian ideals of equality, fairness and human rights. To campaign for the end of slavery, the furtherance of women's liberation, LGBTQ and racial equality. Its not without some irony that these have also thrown up huge doctrinal conflicts and dilemmas for Christianity itself. Essentially having the pursuit of its own ideals thrown back at it. To further challenge and undermines its ability to lead society, with a damaged moral authority. Christian institutions now frequently find themselves behind rather than ahead of the curve.
The fascinating history of our civilisation as an entirely Christian infused project is what Tom Holland recounts in this book. Subtitled - The Making of the Western Mind, it picks out a few of the ideas and concepts that still remain inhabiting the modern mindset. Such as -compassion and identification with others suffering and predicament in - love your neighbour as yourself. Though Marx may have pointed towards religions in general as opiates, enfeebling and diverting peoples attention away from challenging the powerful and striving to better their lives. His whole conception of raising up and improving the lot of the poor working class and disadvantaged has veins of pure Christian idealism running through it. Its hardly a coincidence then that the early development of Socialism in the UK became driven to some extent by Christian activism.
In The West we tend to conceive of ourselves as being in a unique, god given, superior position in the human race eg - Yorkshire brags on its tourist billboards about it being God's Own County for instance. This type of 'specialness', of having divine backing, justifies our use of resources, our treatment of people, animals, environment and the planet. Bringing the benefits of liberal democracy to 'less privileged', 'under developed,' 'primitive' societies are views informed by the same mindset. That humanity now sees itself as at the peak of the evolutionary pyramid and able to go beyond God, is itself founded upon the Christianised myth of a predestined superiority. Paradoxically this has also made possible the development of Humanist and Atheist doctrines.
Viewing an entire culture as encompassed by a coherent network of religious and ethical imperatives and to create an 'ism' to define it. Is something Christian Westerners first performed upon itself, then did the same to whatever it encountered whether it be Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism etc. To categorise what was other and therefore outside of itself. By doing so distorting our perception of both ourselves and of it.
The expansion of Empires, the invasion of sovereign countries, has changed little other than the reasons we state for doing so. From being a Christian duty to save and proselytise, to a benevolent humanitarian duty to liberate and bring oppressed people freedom and democracy. But essentially The West knows what you need and will give it to you, whether you ever wanted or asked for it. These sort of pseudo religious crusades do not have a good track record.
So you might say, well yes, all this may indeed be so, but what does that matter to us now? We've moved beyond all that haven't we, we jettisoned God a while back, and secularised our moral compass. We no longer require the moral authority of organised religion or a God. Holland is not saying that this isn't so, that we are doing this is clear, and that this could be seen as progress. But then when you look at our social media, climate campaigners, ideas like 'cancel culture' these are manifestations of a deeply ingrained puritanical impulse. For nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum - in this case its a moral one.
Tom Holland points out a flaw in our liberal secular democracy, one that we have not yet been able to resolve. When the values of our secularised liberal democracy come under real attack. Being challenged and undermined from without and within, as they currently are. How can we defend them? With what do we defend them? Tradition on its own is an extremely weak defense. Divorced as these traditions and ideas now are from their essentially Christian foundations and justifications? When even the concept of Human Rights was originally couched in entirely Christianised terms, how can we justifiably insist on them being Universal?
Is the current crisis in Western democracies in essence one of weakened faith in its own institutions and lack of moral authority? Can Western civilisation survive uncoupled from its own reasons for arising and existing in the first place?
As you can tell from the breadth of topics covered by this review, this has been an extremely thought provoking and important book to read.
CARROT REVIEW - 6/8
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