Your second point strikes me as a bit unfair. From speaking with people who found Dominion moving, they saw the history of Christianity not as happenstance but as providence. Particularly when considering the oddity of such success and impact coming from a man who was tortured and killed in public.
Everyone is looking for some sort of proof and validation for their beliefs, and readers of Tom Holland see such validation in history. I don't think that's as mercenary, or uninterested in fundamental truth as you make it out to be.
The problem I have with this is that it often doesn't stay personal. Evangelical apologists like Scrivener then use these arguments to try and create converts. There's always an implicit "therefore you should become a Christian" in these grand narratives.
I recall Tom Holland has said before that his approach to Christianity was largely inspired by Nietzsche. But while Nietzsche uses the historical contingency of Christianity as a way of arguing that both Christian morality and the secular values he claims are descended from it are arbitrary, Holland turns this around and makes it a positive: if you believe in modern Western values you are in some sense on the side of Christianity. He’s far from the first person to argue this, but he is arguably its biggest popularizer.
I don’t think it’s an illegitimate claim, but it is a singularly unuseful line of argument for the purposes for which it is being deployed by apologists, namely to defend Christian values against the woke left (which is also just as much the inheritor of Christianity by Holland’s standards) or to establish why we should want to defend these values. If anything, if you dislike modern liberalism you could very well turn this book into an anti-Christian polemic about how Christianity created wokeness and Marxism and we should therefore return to paganism.
Yeah, I don’t really get why it’s conservatives that are using this argument for Christianity, because if anything, it should be left-wing Christians using this argument. If Christianity led to “woke” values, then wouldn’t returning to Christianity just lead to leftist progressivism? If anything, Dominion is a powerful book for right-wing Nietzscheans to make their case against Christian values.
Thank you for writing this. I have never been comfortable with people linking Christianity to a kind of nostalgia for "all that once made the West great" or something like that.
Could Christian revival save Western civilization? I guess so, in some sense. But maybe it's worth reminding ourselves that, sooner or later, Western civilization is just as mortal as any individual human being. It will die, just as all things die. Christianity is about things that transcend death, and as such it is not about any particular civilization.
When read attentively, it is telling how much of Jesus' words in the New Testament record contain warnings, _not_ directed at non-believers or Pharisees or those of opposing faiths, but rather at those who are superficially and from external appearances "part of the church“.
-- ”Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing."
-- "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven."
-- "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn."
And in fact, one of the greatest pitfalls in modern day Christianity, is precisely the effort of those who identify with Christianity at some level to turn it into a worldly, a social, a political project. Such a project ends up _at best_ paying lip service to the individual repentance and transformation of each person's soul that is what makes it the Pearl of Great Price, and in fact usually ignores that aspect entirely, usually because such people have not understood it. As Seraphim Rose wrote: "The Church is in society because men are in society, but the end of the Church is the transformation of men, not society. .... a Christian society is not an end in itself, but simply a result of the fact that Christian men live in society."
Christianity contains a radical freedom at its core: there can be no coercion or "top down" impositions of rules and such in true Christianity. As well intentioned as many of the Tom Holland Argument people may be -- and I believe they are -- they are ultimately engaged in a dangerous project that is a kind of anti-Christ (in place of Christ). It is essentially a Clash of Civilizations worldview that is imperial, worldly and eschaton-immanentizing (trying to create heaven on earth), that is the hallmark of secularist fantasies of earthly progress and perfection. It is the Ring of Power rather than the Cross.
Finally, one last relevant quote from Seraphim Rose: "The Antichrist is not found primarily in the great deniers, but in the small affirmers." In ignoring the radical message of personal -- not social - transformation that is at the heart of Christianity, the Tom Holland Argument people must, unfortunately, be counted among the "small affirmers".
I’m curious how you’d situate Girard in this discussion. His view seems to parallel Holland’s in seeing Christianity as foundational, but he roots it in a deeper anthropological claim—that the Gospel uniquely reveals and subverts the scapegoat mechanism. Do you see his approach as similarly reductive, or something different?
I think he observes something aspectual and applies it as a theory of everything, ie memetic violence happens but there are other causes and such grand theories aren't actually that explanatory. There's some insight in it but it's still a reductionist view of history.
I totally get the hesitation around “theory of everything” frameworks. But what’s kept me interested in Girard is that he seems to be making a falsifiable, cross-cultural claim: that human cultures tend to stabilize around scapegoating, and that the Biblical tradition, especially the Gospels, is unique in revealing and subverting that pattern.
As I understand it, the theory would genuinely be challenged if we found a culture that achieved cohesion without scapegoating, or pre-Christian myths that clearly sided with the victim and condemned the crowd.
I’m still wrestling with all of this myself, so I’d be curious: do you know of examples or angles that you think poke real holes in Girard’s framework?
Scapegoating is something that you are going to find everywhere, I think part of the problem is about arguing for cause, plus lots of myths aren't about scapegoating and I don't think you can really establish a case that pagan myths always are and Christian myths are always subverting it. There are things it explains, it's just a bit over the top.
Totally fair to push back on grand theories, but I think it’s important not to strawman Girard here. He’s not claiming all myths are overt scapegoat stories, or that Christianity is always morally perfect. What he argues is that the structure of myth (across cultures) tends to conceal collective violence, while the Gospels uniquely reveal and subvert that mechanism by siding with the innocent victim.
Not all victims are innocent. That is part of the progressive distortion. It is as false as the belief that infants are innocent. Christianity is not progressive. The good news is that Jesus came into the world to save the world, not to transform it.
Which brings me to the conviction that it is not the function of the Church nor Christianity to establish God's kingdom on this earth. There is much truth about how we could live better and improve conditions on earth. For instance, if we could learn to love each other and love God, the world would be peaceful and pleasant. That is, if we could all learn to love each other and love God.
But the history of Christianity confirms Jesus' teaching that if we follow him, we will be hated and persecuted just as the world hated him. The closest of his followers were murdered. You could argue that John was not murdered, but it was not because they didn't try on multiple occasions to kill him. At one point he was boiled in oil. He was condemned to death. He was imprisoned in very harsh conditions that could have resulted in his death due to exposure or starvation. It could be argued that his life was preserved by divine intervention.
The same was true of thousands of Christians in the first four centuries, and has periodically been true of Christians through the centuries, and is true now. Christian Israelis and Palestinians are being killed every day by Israelis, and to a lesser extent by Muslims. Christians are being killed in China and in many other nations also, including in America.
America was founded on Christian principles, but first had to violently revolt from another Christian nation. And our history has been stained by the beliefs and practices of other Christians. Majority sects of Christianity have periodically persecuted minority Christian sects. And other minority Christian sects have murdered and persecuted other Christians. Many of the slave owners were Christians, as were many of the slave traders and transporters.
And many Christian women and men are on every side of the abortion issue. Many Christian pastors council women parishioners to seek abortions. Christianity has never been a monolithic belief system. The Reformation was not, and is still not, a peaceful schism. There have been and still are internecine squabbles among Christians. Jesus warned his disciples early on that he did not come to bring peace, but to bring the sword. For truth always has a cutting edge.
People are people. Some become slightly better upon conversion, but some arguably become worse. If Christians were truly transformed, Diogenes would need a battery of floodlights to find find even one honest one. At the final judgement, there will not be very much gold left after the purifying fire. Most of our deeds will be consumed, and the few that have deeds that aren't consumed will lay them at Jesus' feet rather than were them as crowning achievements.
Why then become Christian? In recognition that we deserve worse. God sent not his son into the word to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:17.
Thanks for the response. I actually think there’s a lot here that resonates with Girard.
Just to clarify: Girard’s core argument isn’t that all victims are innocent. His point is that cultures have long stabilized themselves by uniting against a scapegoat and that the Gospels uniquely expose this mechanism by showing us the innocence of one victim: Jesus.
So when Jesus says he comes not to bring peace but a sword, Girard takes that seriously. The “sword” isn’t Christ’s intent, it’s the consequence of truth revealed. Once the scapegoat mechanism is exposed, the old false unity breaks down, and conflict surfaces. Christianity doesn’t cause the violence, but it removes the illusion that it was ever sacred or justified.
And you’re absolutely right that it’s not the Church’s role to establish God’s kingdom. Girard would agree: every attempt to enforce the kingdom risks falling right back into sacred violence. The Gospel’s power is not in conquest, but in witness, specifically, in revealing and forgiving the violence we so often justify.
To me, that’s not progressive or political, it’s deeply Christian, and deeply true.
Is that an assertion or do you have evidence? China doesn't keep statistics, nor even admit that they do it. Neither does Israel, or the United States. I can believe that Muslims would keep statistics; they think they are obeying the Koran. Run of the mill atheist governments are less of scorekeepers, they just want to be rid of us. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists kept records of how man Jews they killed, the statistics are estimates. Who knows the actual numbers?
I don't know the numbers of Christians being killed now, or by whom. Even the numbers that the Romans killed in the first few centuries are estimates, and Christians then or Jews in the forties had reasons to exaggerate, and probable no way to know in any case.
You wrote: "The point is, if you take this argument too far it becomes reductive, deterministic and essentially becomes unfalsifiable. Consider how you could go about arguing that trans activists are not motivated by Christian assumptions."
But all historical narratives are reductive and virtually unfalsifiable. A historical narrative should be backed by good evidence and historians should attempt to be as objective as possible, but such narratives are not theorems that can be proven or disproven through deduction and inference, they are not mathematical equations either. Historical arguments cannot be falsified, they are all unfalsifiable. They can only be discredited.
There's a difference between a historical narrative, e.g. event a happened at such and such a time, and a historical explanation, e.g. event happened because of some long incubated idea or something. The second point goes beyond history, and asks questions about psychology, motivations, the role of ideas and so on. What I mean by unfalsifiable is there is a danger with the latter kind of argument that you can present a theory that somebody did something because of some idea, then say that because it's psychologically unconscious all contrary evidence must be discounted. So if they say they did it for a different reason, it doesn't matter because they don't know why they're doing it. The danger thus is presenting an argument it's impossible to argue against, a kind of "heads I win tails you lose" argument. I'm not saying Holland is doing this all the time, he isn't, but sometimes he is.
Good article but I don't really feel like reading Holland's book, so I'm wondering if you or someone else here can answer a question/objection to it. What does Holland think about (1) there being non-Western societies and moralities, and (2) there nevertheless being overlap and similarities across cultures?
For example, my girlfriend is Chinese. As in, from China and not just ethnically Chinese. We get along and have similar values. We can talk and find common ground on abortion, to take one of your examples, or really anything else. Yet there isn't a single Christian in her family or friends circles, other than ones I've introduced to her. So, like, would Holland pop his head into a conversation we're having about abortion, neither of us making references to Christianity, and tell me that just I am indebted to Christian ethics? Or is my girlfriend somehow mysteriously indebted to a worldview about which she knows almost nothing?
I cannot emphasize enough how little she understands Christianity, or cares, to the point where she couldn't even tell you who King David or Saint Paul are. I quizzed her on some things, and she basically knew Jesus is the one who died on the cross and comes back to life, and she also knew about "Noah's big boat" because she "saw the movie." Again, none of the people who raised her were Christians or know any more about Christianity than she does.
Yet we can agree about most matters of first order normative ethics. We can and do engage in moral discourse. We share values. So, am I getting this straight, that one of us is a secret Christian or at least a post-Christian indebted to Christianity, while the other, with roughly all the same values and ability to have moral discourse, simply isn't a Christian?
So, umm, does Holland address occurrences like this anywhere in his massive book?
My observation is that he tends to minimise similarities in favour of emphasising differences in ethics to point out that there are ways in which Christianity is historically radical, but I'm not sure how he'd answer your question specifically.
I agree with most of your specific points, in terms of how this gets used by apologists, etc.
However, it seems to me that the point is to debunk some other quite common myths—in which most of our cherished ideas (science, individual value, etc) emerge from the rejection of Christianity.
If there's a deeper point I take here, it's that Christianity is particularly *generative*. Its ideas evolve, spread, and mutate much more rapidly than those of the cultures it replaced. And that might point to a deeper dynamic than is normally considered.
But do we know that those common myths are, in fact, myths? Ok, maybe it’s taking it far to say that it comes from an outright *rejection* of Christianity. But the pre-Christian Greco-Roman societies embraced science and knowledge. Pre-Christian Germanic societies embraced a far stronger sense of individualism than anything you find around the Mediterranean. When the ideas of Jesus filter into these pagan traditions and cultures, Christianity will have some influence, but I have a hard time accepting that Christianity should get a lot of credit.
If you study the scientific revolution, it’s very clear they are myths.
If anything, the scientific revolution required the rejection of pre-Christian thought, as in Galileo debunking and rejecting Aristotle.
More generally, from Martin Luther to Newton, the effort to accelerate science was theorized, argued for, and embraced on Christian terms. So the idea that the scientific revolution emerged from the rejection of Christianity is a myth, yes.
As I said, outright rejection is probably putting it strongly. The scientific revolution occurring *despite* Christianity being dominant in the culture is probably a better way to put it.
Gallileo is a good case in point, as he was put on trial for heresy by the inquisition. Bruno was burned at the stake. Copernicus was considered heretical.
By the time we get to Gallileo, however, it’s a bit late to distinguish the different influences in the culture, however. But even if Gallileo was a Christian, I suspect Plato an Pythagoras (and even Islamic scholars) had more direct influence on his work than the direct teachings of Jesus or the profets.
Which raises the question of which Christianity we’re even talking about … The one in the book, or the wider culture of the heirs to the Roman Empire?
Matt, I like the article, although I’m not sure I’ve fully gotten my head around it. I’ve read several of Tom Holland’s thick tomes and was struck at the time not by their clear articulation of a position (you don’t have that problem with Niall Ferguson, for example), but by their gentle accumulation of layer upon layer of narrative. It often left me wondering why he’d chosen to tell that story that way, or even that particular piece of the story or even why not a different story completely? I was also under the impression that his position was developing as he wrote — that most of his books were not written or started by a confessing believer, but I might be wrong.
Isn’t the interesting piece - that Glen Scrivener picks up so well - that the places we think our culture came from certainly did not believe in anything like what we hold dear?
And don’t forget, the story changes hugely when it passes from the thinker to the populariser — just think how misunderstood Schroedinger’s Cat must feel.
Nietzsche saw this coming: moral ideals unmoored from belief don’t endure—they soften into sentiment, then dissolve. Your analysis shows how the popularised ‘Tom Holland argument’ risks doing just that—turning Christianity into cultural scaffolding rather than a living truth.
As a Muslim, I’ve seen something similar in reverse: immigrants fearing the loss of identity, only to discover in displacement a purer, less encumbered Islam—stripped of the cultural sediment of “back home.” There’s something clarifying in returning to the essentials.
Your warning to believers is sharp and necessary: reduce faith to heritage, and it withers. It’s the difference between reviving a body and awakening a soul.
You leave us with the right question: after two millennia of civilisational weathering, can faith still be genuinely chosen—not inherited, not aestheticised, but surrendered to?
I used to rail against the notion that the United States is founded on Christian values. I see now that my discomfort was conflated with remarks made by some MAGA folks declaring that "The US is a Christian nation." The cultural diversity we see in contemporary America puts that argument to rest. However, religion—particularly Christianity— when treated as a worldview and a philosophy, deserves to be considered when thinking about our country’s origins. So, I've lately come to revise my thinking about the influence of Christianity on America’s founding values and by extension Enlightenment values that influenced Jefferson and other founding fathers. The FP article just adds another brick to that particular wall as it cites Locke's influence, whose writings and philosophical views were deeply rooted in his Protestant Christian beliefs: Here's the quote from the article "We focus on Jefferson because he was the man tasked to write the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. But it’s important to note here that he was more of a curator. The Declaration is akin to a quilt or a collage: It’s a reordering and restatement of prominent ideas that were circulating in this age of enlightenment. The biggest tributary came from John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government. He first came up with inalienable rights and enumerated them as the rights to life, liberty, and property, more or less. Jefferson would later write that one of his fellow Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, had said the Declaration’s preamble was copied from Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government. Locke himself was influenced by the Hebraic monotheism he found in the Old Testament."
Good thoughts! I can see where this thesis can be pushed too far, but I contend that it is still important when thinking about Christianity in a not strictly 'logical' way.
On an episode of "The Two Cities" podcast, during their apologetics series, they had an episode with John Dickson on the problem of Christian history. He had at the time just published his book called "Bullies and Saints" which traces the good and bad of church history too. An issue he raised on why this question is important is how people come to consider a tradition and faith like Christianity. Dickson explains how people intuitively understand that if something is 'good' it most likely has a strong relationship with 'truth'. He further elaborated that it is an intuitive way of thinking that links to the transcendentals (the good, true, and beautiful) to elevate it from folk intuition to a more sophisticated topic.
Another part of this is that many people will not consider Christianity if they believe crusades, witchhunts, and the Galileo Trials are the only fruits it has produced. Hence, clearing up narrow narratives and historical inaccuracies is integral in our public witness. At the same time, honesty and repentance for the times Christians have not acted Christ-like is an apologetic in of itself. Humility has a surprising effect on people's hearts, and perhaps God's grace is lavished when we sincerely repent for our sins.
A philosopher, Stefani Ruper, became a Christian a few years ago. In her story, which you can find on Instagram and YouTube, she talks about growing up in a secular household. Much of her journey included going to Boston College and living in the dorms for the divinity and theology students. This included experiencing Christian hospitality and folks journeying with her instead of twisting her wrist via aggressive proselytization or iron-clad arguments (a verse in Scripture speaks to people knowing Jesus by how Christians love each other, not by their arguments).
Over her studies in science & religion, she learned that religious belief is rational, intelligent, and rich existentially, politically, and metaphysically. This all does not 'prove' the truth of Christianity, but was important in her journey nevertheless. Her journey continued with the help of William James' pragmatism, which places value on clues that point towards a given truth or proposition, but also whether that tradition or life orientation will make you a happier and better person. Justifications and reasons matter (besides the normal available reasons/arguments for Christianity, she also experienced physical healing and two large 'seemings' or providential happenings).
The point is that considering Christian history and effects is a factor that regular people consider in choosing Christianity. After all, it is more than propositions; it is a life orientation.
On another point, Lee Strobel, on X (formerly known as Twitter), posted studies related to religiosity and mental health that I think came from the Human Flourishing Project. Either way, it talked about the positive aspects of religiosity in people's lives on a psychological level at the least. A commentator commented that this has nothing to do with the truth of any Christian propositions. I never saw a response from Strobel, but personally, I found that statement rich. Ever since Sigmund Freud, a popular argument against religion is that it makes one over-anxious, neurotic, repressed, and maladaptive. So when evidence points against that, it is fair game to attack these Freudian critiques head-on. New Athiest types will make these types of arguments, but then when there is evidence against it, they will move the goal post. The commentator is right to point out that it has nothing to do with the truth of Christianity per se, but as long as people make these Freudian arguments, it is fair game to make counterarguments based on the best in research. Plus, these are not uninteresting questions. Christianity is not a set of propositions, but a whole life and existential orientation. We'd hope that if it were true, good, and beautiful, it'd not make us a bundle of neurosis, but help us inhabit the world and our bodies in a holistic and restorative way.
On a final note, we most likely agree on 95 %+ on this topic, especially the misuse of the 'Dominions' argument (and the socio-political appropriation that Luke Bretherton warns/discusses), but do not discount the relevance and importance of this type of thesis in public discourse about Christianity.
Your second point strikes me as a bit unfair. From speaking with people who found Dominion moving, they saw the history of Christianity not as happenstance but as providence. Particularly when considering the oddity of such success and impact coming from a man who was tortured and killed in public.
Everyone is looking for some sort of proof and validation for their beliefs, and readers of Tom Holland see such validation in history. I don't think that's as mercenary, or uninterested in fundamental truth as you make it out to be.
The problem I have with this is that it often doesn't stay personal. Evangelical apologists like Scrivener then use these arguments to try and create converts. There's always an implicit "therefore you should become a Christian" in these grand narratives.
I loved the essay but I like this comment too.
I recall Tom Holland has said before that his approach to Christianity was largely inspired by Nietzsche. But while Nietzsche uses the historical contingency of Christianity as a way of arguing that both Christian morality and the secular values he claims are descended from it are arbitrary, Holland turns this around and makes it a positive: if you believe in modern Western values you are in some sense on the side of Christianity. He’s far from the first person to argue this, but he is arguably its biggest popularizer.
I don’t think it’s an illegitimate claim, but it is a singularly unuseful line of argument for the purposes for which it is being deployed by apologists, namely to defend Christian values against the woke left (which is also just as much the inheritor of Christianity by Holland’s standards) or to establish why we should want to defend these values. If anything, if you dislike modern liberalism you could very well turn this book into an anti-Christian polemic about how Christianity created wokeness and Marxism and we should therefore return to paganism.
Yeah, I don’t really get why it’s conservatives that are using this argument for Christianity, because if anything, it should be left-wing Christians using this argument. If Christianity led to “woke” values, then wouldn’t returning to Christianity just lead to leftist progressivism? If anything, Dominion is a powerful book for right-wing Nietzscheans to make their case against Christian values.
Thank you for writing this. I have never been comfortable with people linking Christianity to a kind of nostalgia for "all that once made the West great" or something like that.
Could Christian revival save Western civilization? I guess so, in some sense. But maybe it's worth reminding ourselves that, sooner or later, Western civilization is just as mortal as any individual human being. It will die, just as all things die. Christianity is about things that transcend death, and as such it is not about any particular civilization.
When read attentively, it is telling how much of Jesus' words in the New Testament record contain warnings, _not_ directed at non-believers or Pharisees or those of opposing faiths, but rather at those who are superficially and from external appearances "part of the church“.
-- ”Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing."
-- "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven."
-- "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn."
And in fact, one of the greatest pitfalls in modern day Christianity, is precisely the effort of those who identify with Christianity at some level to turn it into a worldly, a social, a political project. Such a project ends up _at best_ paying lip service to the individual repentance and transformation of each person's soul that is what makes it the Pearl of Great Price, and in fact usually ignores that aspect entirely, usually because such people have not understood it. As Seraphim Rose wrote: "The Church is in society because men are in society, but the end of the Church is the transformation of men, not society. .... a Christian society is not an end in itself, but simply a result of the fact that Christian men live in society."
Christianity contains a radical freedom at its core: there can be no coercion or "top down" impositions of rules and such in true Christianity. As well intentioned as many of the Tom Holland Argument people may be -- and I believe they are -- they are ultimately engaged in a dangerous project that is a kind of anti-Christ (in place of Christ). It is essentially a Clash of Civilizations worldview that is imperial, worldly and eschaton-immanentizing (trying to create heaven on earth), that is the hallmark of secularist fantasies of earthly progress and perfection. It is the Ring of Power rather than the Cross.
Finally, one last relevant quote from Seraphim Rose: "The Antichrist is not found primarily in the great deniers, but in the small affirmers." In ignoring the radical message of personal -- not social - transformation that is at the heart of Christianity, the Tom Holland Argument people must, unfortunately, be counted among the "small affirmers".
I’m curious how you’d situate Girard in this discussion. His view seems to parallel Holland’s in seeing Christianity as foundational, but he roots it in a deeper anthropological claim—that the Gospel uniquely reveals and subverts the scapegoat mechanism. Do you see his approach as similarly reductive, or something different?
I think he observes something aspectual and applies it as a theory of everything, ie memetic violence happens but there are other causes and such grand theories aren't actually that explanatory. There's some insight in it but it's still a reductionist view of history.
I totally get the hesitation around “theory of everything” frameworks. But what’s kept me interested in Girard is that he seems to be making a falsifiable, cross-cultural claim: that human cultures tend to stabilize around scapegoating, and that the Biblical tradition, especially the Gospels, is unique in revealing and subverting that pattern.
As I understand it, the theory would genuinely be challenged if we found a culture that achieved cohesion without scapegoating, or pre-Christian myths that clearly sided with the victim and condemned the crowd.
I’m still wrestling with all of this myself, so I’d be curious: do you know of examples or angles that you think poke real holes in Girard’s framework?
Scapegoating is something that you are going to find everywhere, I think part of the problem is about arguing for cause, plus lots of myths aren't about scapegoating and I don't think you can really establish a case that pagan myths always are and Christian myths are always subverting it. There are things it explains, it's just a bit over the top.
Totally fair to push back on grand theories, but I think it’s important not to strawman Girard here. He’s not claiming all myths are overt scapegoat stories, or that Christianity is always morally perfect. What he argues is that the structure of myth (across cultures) tends to conceal collective violence, while the Gospels uniquely reveal and subvert that mechanism by siding with the innocent victim.
Not all victims are innocent. That is part of the progressive distortion. It is as false as the belief that infants are innocent. Christianity is not progressive. The good news is that Jesus came into the world to save the world, not to transform it.
Which brings me to the conviction that it is not the function of the Church nor Christianity to establish God's kingdom on this earth. There is much truth about how we could live better and improve conditions on earth. For instance, if we could learn to love each other and love God, the world would be peaceful and pleasant. That is, if we could all learn to love each other and love God.
But the history of Christianity confirms Jesus' teaching that if we follow him, we will be hated and persecuted just as the world hated him. The closest of his followers were murdered. You could argue that John was not murdered, but it was not because they didn't try on multiple occasions to kill him. At one point he was boiled in oil. He was condemned to death. He was imprisoned in very harsh conditions that could have resulted in his death due to exposure or starvation. It could be argued that his life was preserved by divine intervention.
The same was true of thousands of Christians in the first four centuries, and has periodically been true of Christians through the centuries, and is true now. Christian Israelis and Palestinians are being killed every day by Israelis, and to a lesser extent by Muslims. Christians are being killed in China and in many other nations also, including in America.
America was founded on Christian principles, but first had to violently revolt from another Christian nation. And our history has been stained by the beliefs and practices of other Christians. Majority sects of Christianity have periodically persecuted minority Christian sects. And other minority Christian sects have murdered and persecuted other Christians. Many of the slave owners were Christians, as were many of the slave traders and transporters.
And many Christian women and men are on every side of the abortion issue. Many Christian pastors council women parishioners to seek abortions. Christianity has never been a monolithic belief system. The Reformation was not, and is still not, a peaceful schism. There have been and still are internecine squabbles among Christians. Jesus warned his disciples early on that he did not come to bring peace, but to bring the sword. For truth always has a cutting edge.
People are people. Some become slightly better upon conversion, but some arguably become worse. If Christians were truly transformed, Diogenes would need a battery of floodlights to find find even one honest one. At the final judgement, there will not be very much gold left after the purifying fire. Most of our deeds will be consumed, and the few that have deeds that aren't consumed will lay them at Jesus' feet rather than were them as crowning achievements.
Why then become Christian? In recognition that we deserve worse. God sent not his son into the word to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:17.
Thanks for the response. I actually think there’s a lot here that resonates with Girard.
Just to clarify: Girard’s core argument isn’t that all victims are innocent. His point is that cultures have long stabilized themselves by uniting against a scapegoat and that the Gospels uniquely expose this mechanism by showing us the innocence of one victim: Jesus.
So when Jesus says he comes not to bring peace but a sword, Girard takes that seriously. The “sword” isn’t Christ’s intent, it’s the consequence of truth revealed. Once the scapegoat mechanism is exposed, the old false unity breaks down, and conflict surfaces. Christianity doesn’t cause the violence, but it removes the illusion that it was ever sacred or justified.
And you’re absolutely right that it’s not the Church’s role to establish God’s kingdom. Girard would agree: every attempt to enforce the kingdom risks falling right back into sacred violence. The Gospel’s power is not in conquest, but in witness, specifically, in revealing and forgiving the violence we so often justify.
To me, that’s not progressive or political, it’s deeply Christian, and deeply true.
The overwhelming majority of Christians martyred in our times are martyred by Muslims.
Is that an assertion or do you have evidence? China doesn't keep statistics, nor even admit that they do it. Neither does Israel, or the United States. I can believe that Muslims would keep statistics; they think they are obeying the Koran. Run of the mill atheist governments are less of scorekeepers, they just want to be rid of us. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists kept records of how man Jews they killed, the statistics are estimates. Who knows the actual numbers?
I don't know the numbers of Christians being killed now, or by whom. Even the numbers that the Romans killed in the first few centuries are estimates, and Christians then or Jews in the forties had reasons to exaggerate, and probable no way to know in any case.
You wrote: "The point is, if you take this argument too far it becomes reductive, deterministic and essentially becomes unfalsifiable. Consider how you could go about arguing that trans activists are not motivated by Christian assumptions."
But all historical narratives are reductive and virtually unfalsifiable. A historical narrative should be backed by good evidence and historians should attempt to be as objective as possible, but such narratives are not theorems that can be proven or disproven through deduction and inference, they are not mathematical equations either. Historical arguments cannot be falsified, they are all unfalsifiable. They can only be discredited.
There's a difference between a historical narrative, e.g. event a happened at such and such a time, and a historical explanation, e.g. event happened because of some long incubated idea or something. The second point goes beyond history, and asks questions about psychology, motivations, the role of ideas and so on. What I mean by unfalsifiable is there is a danger with the latter kind of argument that you can present a theory that somebody did something because of some idea, then say that because it's psychologically unconscious all contrary evidence must be discounted. So if they say they did it for a different reason, it doesn't matter because they don't know why they're doing it. The danger thus is presenting an argument it's impossible to argue against, a kind of "heads I win tails you lose" argument. I'm not saying Holland is doing this all the time, he isn't, but sometimes he is.
Good article but I don't really feel like reading Holland's book, so I'm wondering if you or someone else here can answer a question/objection to it. What does Holland think about (1) there being non-Western societies and moralities, and (2) there nevertheless being overlap and similarities across cultures?
For example, my girlfriend is Chinese. As in, from China and not just ethnically Chinese. We get along and have similar values. We can talk and find common ground on abortion, to take one of your examples, or really anything else. Yet there isn't a single Christian in her family or friends circles, other than ones I've introduced to her. So, like, would Holland pop his head into a conversation we're having about abortion, neither of us making references to Christianity, and tell me that just I am indebted to Christian ethics? Or is my girlfriend somehow mysteriously indebted to a worldview about which she knows almost nothing?
I cannot emphasize enough how little she understands Christianity, or cares, to the point where she couldn't even tell you who King David or Saint Paul are. I quizzed her on some things, and she basically knew Jesus is the one who died on the cross and comes back to life, and she also knew about "Noah's big boat" because she "saw the movie." Again, none of the people who raised her were Christians or know any more about Christianity than she does.
Yet we can agree about most matters of first order normative ethics. We can and do engage in moral discourse. We share values. So, am I getting this straight, that one of us is a secret Christian or at least a post-Christian indebted to Christianity, while the other, with roughly all the same values and ability to have moral discourse, simply isn't a Christian?
So, umm, does Holland address occurrences like this anywhere in his massive book?
My observation is that he tends to minimise similarities in favour of emphasising differences in ethics to point out that there are ways in which Christianity is historically radical, but I'm not sure how he'd answer your question specifically.
I agree with most of your specific points, in terms of how this gets used by apologists, etc.
However, it seems to me that the point is to debunk some other quite common myths—in which most of our cherished ideas (science, individual value, etc) emerge from the rejection of Christianity.
If there's a deeper point I take here, it's that Christianity is particularly *generative*. Its ideas evolve, spread, and mutate much more rapidly than those of the cultures it replaced. And that might point to a deeper dynamic than is normally considered.
But do we know that those common myths are, in fact, myths? Ok, maybe it’s taking it far to say that it comes from an outright *rejection* of Christianity. But the pre-Christian Greco-Roman societies embraced science and knowledge. Pre-Christian Germanic societies embraced a far stronger sense of individualism than anything you find around the Mediterranean. When the ideas of Jesus filter into these pagan traditions and cultures, Christianity will have some influence, but I have a hard time accepting that Christianity should get a lot of credit.
If you study the scientific revolution, it’s very clear they are myths.
If anything, the scientific revolution required the rejection of pre-Christian thought, as in Galileo debunking and rejecting Aristotle.
More generally, from Martin Luther to Newton, the effort to accelerate science was theorized, argued for, and embraced on Christian terms. So the idea that the scientific revolution emerged from the rejection of Christianity is a myth, yes.
As I said, outright rejection is probably putting it strongly. The scientific revolution occurring *despite* Christianity being dominant in the culture is probably a better way to put it.
Gallileo is a good case in point, as he was put on trial for heresy by the inquisition. Bruno was burned at the stake. Copernicus was considered heretical.
By the time we get to Gallileo, however, it’s a bit late to distinguish the different influences in the culture, however. But even if Gallileo was a Christian, I suspect Plato an Pythagoras (and even Islamic scholars) had more direct influence on his work than the direct teachings of Jesus or the profets.
Which raises the question of which Christianity we’re even talking about … The one in the book, or the wider culture of the heirs to the Roman Empire?
Matt, I like the article, although I’m not sure I’ve fully gotten my head around it. I’ve read several of Tom Holland’s thick tomes and was struck at the time not by their clear articulation of a position (you don’t have that problem with Niall Ferguson, for example), but by their gentle accumulation of layer upon layer of narrative. It often left me wondering why he’d chosen to tell that story that way, or even that particular piece of the story or even why not a different story completely? I was also under the impression that his position was developing as he wrote — that most of his books were not written or started by a confessing believer, but I might be wrong.
Isn’t the interesting piece - that Glen Scrivener picks up so well - that the places we think our culture came from certainly did not believe in anything like what we hold dear?
And don’t forget, the story changes hugely when it passes from the thinker to the populariser — just think how misunderstood Schroedinger’s Cat must feel.
Enjoy….
Nietzsche saw this coming: moral ideals unmoored from belief don’t endure—they soften into sentiment, then dissolve. Your analysis shows how the popularised ‘Tom Holland argument’ risks doing just that—turning Christianity into cultural scaffolding rather than a living truth.
As a Muslim, I’ve seen something similar in reverse: immigrants fearing the loss of identity, only to discover in displacement a purer, less encumbered Islam—stripped of the cultural sediment of “back home.” There’s something clarifying in returning to the essentials.
Your warning to believers is sharp and necessary: reduce faith to heritage, and it withers. It’s the difference between reviving a body and awakening a soul.
You leave us with the right question: after two millennia of civilisational weathering, can faith still be genuinely chosen—not inherited, not aestheticised, but surrendered to?
I really appreciate this post. While I’m a fan of both Glenn Schriner and Tom Holland, I also find their arguments unconvincing from either a secular or Christian perspective. A few weeks ago, I shared my own take on the topic—coming at it from a slightly different angle. Thanks again for your thoughts.https://open.substack.com/pub/jimfield/p/tom-hollands-evil-twin?r=1ekhgj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
David Bentley Hart has referred to the ways in which modernity is parasitic on much from Christianity.
I'm curious what you think of this Free Press article and my thoughts on it below: https://www.thefp.com/p/america-has-always-been-a-dangerous-idea?utm_campaign=260347&utm_source=cross-post&r=4cg82z&utm_medium=email
I used to rail against the notion that the United States is founded on Christian values. I see now that my discomfort was conflated with remarks made by some MAGA folks declaring that "The US is a Christian nation." The cultural diversity we see in contemporary America puts that argument to rest. However, religion—particularly Christianity— when treated as a worldview and a philosophy, deserves to be considered when thinking about our country’s origins. So, I've lately come to revise my thinking about the influence of Christianity on America’s founding values and by extension Enlightenment values that influenced Jefferson and other founding fathers. The FP article just adds another brick to that particular wall as it cites Locke's influence, whose writings and philosophical views were deeply rooted in his Protestant Christian beliefs: Here's the quote from the article "We focus on Jefferson because he was the man tasked to write the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. But it’s important to note here that he was more of a curator. The Declaration is akin to a quilt or a collage: It’s a reordering and restatement of prominent ideas that were circulating in this age of enlightenment. The biggest tributary came from John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government. He first came up with inalienable rights and enumerated them as the rights to life, liberty, and property, more or less. Jefferson would later write that one of his fellow Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, had said the Declaration’s preamble was copied from Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government. Locke himself was influenced by the Hebraic monotheism he found in the Old Testament."
Based article, enjoyed reading.
I don't begrudge Tom Holland his mid-life crisis/spiritual journey, but I think he went a bit far in rewriting Western history to try and justify it.
Good thoughts! I can see where this thesis can be pushed too far, but I contend that it is still important when thinking about Christianity in a not strictly 'logical' way.
On an episode of "The Two Cities" podcast, during their apologetics series, they had an episode with John Dickson on the problem of Christian history. He had at the time just published his book called "Bullies and Saints" which traces the good and bad of church history too. An issue he raised on why this question is important is how people come to consider a tradition and faith like Christianity. Dickson explains how people intuitively understand that if something is 'good' it most likely has a strong relationship with 'truth'. He further elaborated that it is an intuitive way of thinking that links to the transcendentals (the good, true, and beautiful) to elevate it from folk intuition to a more sophisticated topic.
Another part of this is that many people will not consider Christianity if they believe crusades, witchhunts, and the Galileo Trials are the only fruits it has produced. Hence, clearing up narrow narratives and historical inaccuracies is integral in our public witness. At the same time, honesty and repentance for the times Christians have not acted Christ-like is an apologetic in of itself. Humility has a surprising effect on people's hearts, and perhaps God's grace is lavished when we sincerely repent for our sins.
A philosopher, Stefani Ruper, became a Christian a few years ago. In her story, which you can find on Instagram and YouTube, she talks about growing up in a secular household. Much of her journey included going to Boston College and living in the dorms for the divinity and theology students. This included experiencing Christian hospitality and folks journeying with her instead of twisting her wrist via aggressive proselytization or iron-clad arguments (a verse in Scripture speaks to people knowing Jesus by how Christians love each other, not by their arguments).
Over her studies in science & religion, she learned that religious belief is rational, intelligent, and rich existentially, politically, and metaphysically. This all does not 'prove' the truth of Christianity, but was important in her journey nevertheless. Her journey continued with the help of William James' pragmatism, which places value on clues that point towards a given truth or proposition, but also whether that tradition or life orientation will make you a happier and better person. Justifications and reasons matter (besides the normal available reasons/arguments for Christianity, she also experienced physical healing and two large 'seemings' or providential happenings).
The point is that considering Christian history and effects is a factor that regular people consider in choosing Christianity. After all, it is more than propositions; it is a life orientation.
On another point, Lee Strobel, on X (formerly known as Twitter), posted studies related to religiosity and mental health that I think came from the Human Flourishing Project. Either way, it talked about the positive aspects of religiosity in people's lives on a psychological level at the least. A commentator commented that this has nothing to do with the truth of any Christian propositions. I never saw a response from Strobel, but personally, I found that statement rich. Ever since Sigmund Freud, a popular argument against religion is that it makes one over-anxious, neurotic, repressed, and maladaptive. So when evidence points against that, it is fair game to attack these Freudian critiques head-on. New Athiest types will make these types of arguments, but then when there is evidence against it, they will move the goal post. The commentator is right to point out that it has nothing to do with the truth of Christianity per se, but as long as people make these Freudian arguments, it is fair game to make counterarguments based on the best in research. Plus, these are not uninteresting questions. Christianity is not a set of propositions, but a whole life and existential orientation. We'd hope that if it were true, good, and beautiful, it'd not make us a bundle of neurosis, but help us inhabit the world and our bodies in a holistic and restorative way.
On a final note, we most likely agree on 95 %+ on this topic, especially the misuse of the 'Dominions' argument (and the socio-political appropriation that Luke Bretherton warns/discusses), but do not discount the relevance and importance of this type of thesis in public discourse about Christianity.
tl;dr
Sorry, I tried.
Tom Holland laid out the case that we swim in Christian waters. He has an incredibly firm grasp of the obvious.
I thought he buried the lede when he pointed out, very early in the book, that gays and transsexuals hijacked MLK‘s civil rights revolution.
MLK based his rhetoric on Saint Paul’s teachings and nobody could argue against him.
But, gays and transsexuals substituted sexual fetish for race and before we could blink. the camel‘s nose was under the tent.
This is where we are today. I didn’t leave the Democrat party, the Democrat party left me.
Trump won the election because minority Latino voters, young males and skeptical older guys like me pushed back against the liberal, left agenda.