Tom Holland re-enchants the Christian history of the West

[@yunpengzhang4944]

I really like the fact that they don’t cut off the pauses Tom takes when he’s thinking/organizing his language in the editing room like so many podcasts/interviews do. It makes the conversation sounds so much more natural.

[@PaulVanderKlay]

Oh! We've begun with Tom. Wonderful!

[@leluyaa]

Former atheist here, Jesus Christ is LORD. Greetings from Scandinavia! Love Tom and his books 🙏🏼

[@goyogo2601]

Absolutely great. I wish Tom the very best with his faith journey.

[@JohnWMorehead]

I just love not only his thesis for which he is well known, but also for his honest in existential wrestling. What an example and inspiration.

[@Stupidityindex]

Nothing fails like prayers in a children's hospital, & even Jesus Christ says faith is worthless if you can't get mountains to move with a verbal command. What literate person would suggest a god? They are so well known for perfectly doing nothing, we have a saying: God helps those helping themselves.

[@JohnWMorehead]

@@Stupidityindex What literate person would suggest a God? Perhaps a consideration of the history of intellectuals who have accepted God's existence from within the sciences and philosophy as a start. You may not find it persuasive, but to raise such a question in this way is a non-starter if you want to have conversations, let alone persuasive ones, with others.

[@steveflorida5849]

​@@Stupidityindexwhat literate person would believe the biological brain is the mental Mind. Values like love, goodness, truth, service and beauty are Not inherent in mechanistic atoms.

[@More13Feen]

I am an atheist and still greatly apriciate Tom and this interview. Humans do need storries and beliving in small and big things. I have a Terry Prachet aproach to this.

[@BirthingBetterSkills]

1. We are ALL one humanity. We all blink, cough, and can tighten our muscles. Any woman can get pregnant by any man. Any child can be brought up in any culture, religion, language, part of the world. We use Distorted Mind Beliefs to deny and suppress this Truth and see ‘Us’ and ‘Other’. 2. We are ALL born naked. Every Woman knows this. We are made to feel shame or unsafe due to Distorted Mind Beliefs and denied the Truth 3. We are ALL born equal because the sun shines on each of us. Distorted Mind Beliefs deny and suppress this Truth. 4. We ALL live on one planet shared with the Commons (Waters, Airs, Soils), All Species and Each Others. We use Distorted Mind Beliefs as a reason to kill one another, The Commons and Species.

[@elenahelen8958]

I have only just discovered this podcast- after listening to Tom Holland on another talk show about the Roman Empire and looking for more content.This was a Hugely engaging conversation! Tĥank you.

[@JohnWMorehead]

Great conversation. Glad to see you continuing to have talks about topics we need in this new venture.

[@Gracchus66]

Love the new podcast, off to a great start for sure ! Belle adds a wonderful complement to Justin as far as interviewing styles and types of questions. One suggestion though which I guess is a technical one : throughout 98% or so of each episode so far we only ever see Belle and also the guests in profile. It might be nice to be able to see their whole faces when they are speaking. No biggie, as I say just a suggestion. I'm really looking forward to more episodes.

[@helendeacon7637]

A wonderful conversation! Many thanks.

[@mau6086]

What a delight it is to listen to intelligent, educated people in a fantastic venue, discussing important topics. Love to hear Tom Holland, the guy is sooo British. Thank you for offering programs that raise our minds above the darkness that has imprisoned our world.

[@zgobermn6895]

Tom Holland is always a delight to listen to. Well done.

[@PaulVanderKlay]

What a lovely set!

[@02sweden]

Tom Holland is great, i gould listen to him all day.

[@dearestsimone]

Does Tom read messages? I have so longed to say: Dear Friend, Tom, thank you so much! Thank you so much for letting the giddy Christian feed on the fruit of your mind and spirit! I don't mean that disparagingly. We are opaque, generally, but your clean quest and exuberance signal to us something that we can trust and delight in; it restores our dignity a little bit. Jesus, (the Font of Enchantment!) will reward you! I am sure! Matthew 10:42

[@MariaPerez-uv8mm]

This is such a lovely comment! 🙂

[@wendellbabin6457]

41:27 I wish this guest could be on the DW/JBP podcast aeries on the New Testament similar to the Genesis and Exodus series.

[@stefanlouw6395]

7 minutes in and this is already a brilliant conversation.

[@nelsonang]

Tom, you are absolutely right to despise the anaemic form of Christianity dished out today… and as a Christian, i sincerely apologise to you for the Church’s failure… the Church has abandoned the awe-full God, and abstracted for itself an awe-some tinker bell caricature…

[@ridif]

thank you for this.

[@Icarus838]

Amen. Love you, Tom

[@webMonkey_]

Unfortunately Religion is the chain around humanity’s neck, we need stories but these stories are terrible and almost universally violent, misogynistic and othering. I love Tom’s delivery, wit and passion.

[@sfdint]

Appreciate Mr. Holland's work so much, just one quibble. I think saying that universal human rights is a Christian idea needs some nuancing. I hardly read Jesus or Paul or the early church as champions of what we now call human rights. What I do find is a clear affirmation of universality and that class, race, gender or nationality is not what qualifies or disqualifies one for relationship with God. ALL human life is of equal value and worth, all are objects of God's grace and salvation. Modern human rights affirms equal value and worth but also seems to insist that each of us should have the right to live our own lives just as we please as long as we respect other's rights. In John Locke's view we are simply a bunch of free individuals who contractually agree to honor each other's rights. Primitive Christianity called believers to die to self and follow rather rigorous moral disciplines as they grew into the likeness of Christ. Modern human rights has some Christian assumptions behind it but it is a hybrid product produced by the Enlightenment.

[@leeosborn4641]

....hybrid, and as you allude to; extremely tepid!

[@somexp12]

The idea of allowing other humans to live as they please also comes from Christianity. It's just not something Christians wanted. It was a natural consequence of their own actions. After the Reformation, Christianity fractured into a million warring cults, each lusting after having its own theocracy. Unfortunately, this meant that each of these cults desperately needed protection from all the other cults. Otherwise, most of them would've been wiped out or forced into subordination to the biggest guy on the block. Not wanting this, not being able to finish what they started, they called up some secularists to broker a truce. It's actually a bit more involved than all of that. For example, there were some weak attempts at secularism led by some Christian leaders before the true secularists came forward to help them, but overall this is how it played out.

[@den8863]

The primitive Christianity takes place in modern times. The persecution of Christians in communism and in many islamic nations brings this out in many Christians.

[@Jer.616]

At 42:35, THAT is also a Christian value... not issuing death threats to your opponents! But that is disappearing as we become less Christian in the West! We absolutely cannot keep the fruits without the roots. It WILL die. We must face that. We need the roots again. All these intellectuals who want to live in a world with Christian values without personally being a Christian are being intellectually self-indulgent. Just surrender to Christianity already! And revive the roots once again.

[@leeosborn4641]

"Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never die." It is part of man's self-defeating pride and arrogance to believe he can wipe away the fact, the meaning and the legacy of Jesus Christ and what He achieved for Man on the Cross. Most pastors need to grow a spine and bring back the glorious good news of the Christian message.

[@somexp12]

Christians 100% *do* issue threats (and of stuff much worse than death) to their opponents. They just do it in such a way as to pretend to wash their hands of the outcome. It's, "Oh, just wait and see. You'll find out how wrong you are and it'll be too late then." Very mobster like.

[@somexp12]

They 100% *do* issue threats, and threats of stuff far worse than death. They just do it in a way that pretends to wash their hands of the outcome. Kinda mafia-like actually. Heck, they absolutely did use death threats for nearly all of their history. Such threats were, for a long time, a major (if not the primary) way they acquired converts. It was "submit or die" up until the point they fractured into a thousand tiny warring sects and had to come to a secular truce. Every denomination that could was willing to kill people in order acquire and sustain dominance, but, once their dreams of dominance were no longer viable, they opened the door for religious freedom in order to protect themselves from what they had started.

[@somexp12]

"We absolutely cannot keep the fruit without the roots . . ." I guess that means Christianity's survival requires everyone to convert to Judaism. Or that the success of chemistry depends on the continued practice and reverance for alchemical principals. There's absolutely zero logic in this conclusion of yours. It's not like modern Christians are actually *doing* anything that's influencing secular people to act decently. Modern values evolving out of Christian ones does not mean they are sustained in any way whatsoever by people who refuse to even adopt these modern values. These values are sustained by their own logic, just as Christianity could keep going on its own steam even if there were zero Jews around to provide the "roots."

[@Dimple_5]

It's not simple as that. If you don't believe then you can't just make yourself believe.

[@Rome_77]

You can hear the Remi Brague influence. Remi’s big influence was Ratzinger.

[@piushalg8175]

Somebody once characterized humanism as toothless vegetarianism. I think this person had a good point.

[@richfroiland2337]

All that is necessary for salvation is repentance and trusting Christ. God never leaves us where we are. But as he was saying about Christianity itself the joy of Jesus is for the long haul to trust Christ everyday, very hour and every minute.

[@marcuspollett3157]

Profoundly moved by what I perceive to be the humility of TH's disposition.

[@robmessenger6895]

I'd love it if Tom & Crew would turn their attention to the history and latest science of the Shroud of Turin. If true - the Shroud of Turin is a 3D photo, burnt into a linen cloth by micro laser energy and forensic evidence which records the moment in history when Jesus rose from the dead - in a new incarnated body,

[@liewcheng6664]

An interesting question is why Paul wanted to embark to the East to preach Christianity but was prevented by the Holy Spirit?

[@faithburns8379]

I wonder if Tom Holland has seen Netflix’s series the last Kingdom and if so what he thinks about it. For instance, how historically accurate it is or is not, etc.

[@Vrailly]

(it's not historically accurate at all)

[@tensevo]

1 minute in, hits hard

[@spgdoyle]

TRIH ... It's the dynamic - absolutely, but also they are quintessentially English.

[@leeosborn4641]

Woven into the very fibre of our beings, at the core of what it is to be human is our love of, and need for, stories, myths, legends and traditions. Secularism and all the other concomitant -isms of the modern world, are very light on when it comes to these ancient legacies that sustain and nourish us. This is why in essence Secularism is so boring, cold and bleak. That is why in particular, I totally opt for the greatest, most moving, story ever told.

[@minakoaino3917]

I wonder if he uses the Pisces symbolism intentionally as we are heading into Aquarius

[@sfdint]

I doubt it. Holland's general thrust is away from, not toward pagan ideas.

[@minakoaino3917]

@@sfdint I got the impression he might have read carl jungs Aion from something he said. It has a lengthy chapter about the astrology of Christianity. But you're more likely right, and its just synchronism

[@peterarnesen4046]

What does Tom feel when the Bells, embedded in our culture, ring out. Despair, nausea, despicableness ? Or is it only the talk about the ,bells“ which are what? A call to power, iron forged madness?

[@skylinefever]

These things about Athenian democracy makes me think of the humorous "Magic dirt" arguments. I have found debates interesting, because I only did God stuff out of fear of the wrath of Pascal's Wager. I never felt a benefit a single day in my life. I concluded that some people have a God circuit in them and some don't, and one side does not understand the other. A diagnosis of OCD explained my life so much.

[@corinaijac4381]

it's impossible for me to write the story further. I told to a gipsy, not a dummy one, you'll do it well whitout me and he understood very well. Never will be my mind to kill a good, it's the most I can carry. I think I feel when the point of no return is here, believe me. I do love you still. Corina Can't play others roles, has no sense. 15 sept ; wish you the best in communism there is uggly idea to buy an egg package with a bribe to ?, so wish you the best, you.

[@corinaijac4381]

*an icon

[@MarkLeBay]

More credit should be given to Stoicism and Aristotelian ethics. It’s hard to find much that Christianity added to our Western sense of morality that wasn’t already explored by Hellenistic pagan philosophers.

[@humbertojimenez3475]

Numbers 5-21 “here the priest is to put the woman under this curse-“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

[@skylinefever]

I love Bible verses that holy people never bother to mention.

[@ay2052]

The discussion seems to end at rather sad place- a world without genuine faith. Christian faith - a faith with a kind and merciful Gold has done wonder for Britian and the Western World. Think of all those brilliant british scientists and political theoriest from Newton to Adam Smith, they all loved and feared the Lord. Perhaps it is the faith that gave them the calling and corage to explore the unknown world with humility and dignity. In the world portraited in this talk with no genuien faith, could it be that the trajatory of history would tilte back to the barbarian-Morality and value will be defined by who has the power. The powerless will be simply back to be the tool for the powerful...

[@wmarkfish]

We, the west, threw out the baby and kept the bath water.

[@hc8379-f4f]

It's a weak and muddled thesis. We don't know whether if the Roman Empire had successfully continued, without Christianity, it would not have developed a coherent jurisprudence of human and civil rights. After all, St. Paul relied on his Roman citizenship to demand the right to be tried in Rome. The Roman state didn't really insist on any specific religion as long as that religion didn't threaten the power of the state. This was essentially Rome's (and Constantinople's) opposition to Christianity, because Christians -- aside from their incredible story about virgin birth and resurrection which were empirically disbelieved -- claimed to bear allegiance only to their own god. Not to say that Christianity was not a powerful binding force holding communities together, especially as the Empire seemed to be falling apart. It was communistic, to say the least. And perhaps it was successful because of the vacuum left by the secular power of the Empire. People needed something else to hang on to. Constantine made good use of that. By the way, democracy was already described by Aristotle in a typology of how states could be governed, along with tyranny, for instance. It wasn't just a quaint idea existing only in the minds of Athenians But the groundwork for the idea of a single divinity, arising out of Judaism, was already well received by Platonists and Stoics. They had no objection to it. It simplified things. Judaism and Islam also have the concept of redemption, or salvation. Christians in the Roman Empire innovated by inserting some post-death salvation as their ultimate aim, and not the preservation of the Roman Empire. This made them suspect of disloyalty to the larger community. Jews were also suspect, for similar reasons. The Enlightenment reached back to pre-Chriatian ideas about the nature of man, the force of reason to explain things (not Aquinas' "reason" to explain why God must be in charge), much of it based on new learnings from science, empirical observation, and technological progress. This empowered people as agents of their own future. If I had to posit the factor about the ascendancy of Christianity I would say the discovery of the Americas. Christians got a whole new continent to themselves, which they developed utilizing slave labor from Africa. No continent, no slaves, no tobacco, no gold, no silver, or sugar or cotton to leverage trade, navigation, technology, etc., into raw power to dominate India and China temporarily. Or geography: being isolated in the far east of Eurasia, a nondescript part of the continent, forced Europeans to search the oceans for an escape route from their misery. If it had been Islam in the same place, we would all be Muslims today.

[@tigran56]

O brilliant! Thank the gods for him. I cannot find TRIH on Alexander which was so ridiculous, especially from someone as good as him. Dumbed down I guess for the 15 year olds they imagine are listening. Alex was the first Great? Nyet. Cyrus at least. And the shallow intellectual’s prayer that the classicals are responsible for teaching us racism, a Christian thing in it’s modern American/European version. Again, Cyrus, about whom Xenophon wrote a panygeric called Cyropedia, extolling the great prowess and unprecedented virtues of Cyrus, a Persian. The equivalent of Colin Powell sleeping with Ho Chi Minh’s biography under his pillow. Xenophon?

[@AHigherPrimate]

Absolutely adore Tom and the rest is history pod but to think it’s bigger than Hardcore History is insanity. Massive fan of both but a fact must be respected.

[@leeosborn4641]

The fact that you claim to know is relevant only to your level of understanding and belief...with respect.

[@AHigherPrimate]

@@leeosborn4641 their download numbers are a google search away for anyone curious to the pods popularity.

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

Yes and i shan`t drown mate

[@BijoyP-h2l]

Christianity has really changed the world. Moreover, all the higher education is the contribution of the Catholic bishop. You search and find who has begun the Oxford University and other renowned universities you will see a Christian missionary now people forgot.

[@michaelspeir6086]

And the Early Church swam in pagan waters. It shows.

[@skatter44]

Hahaha. That's absurd. First century Jews would have nothing to do with paganism.

[@TeresaE116]

@@skatter44 • Exactly! Early Christianity was made up of Jews (the apostles and those gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast at Pentecost). Jewish people were the exact opposite of a pagan culture 🤦🏼‍♀️

[@michaelspeir6086]

@@skatter44 Not so, Sean. In the first place, keep in mind that the Jews were hardly monolithic in their religion in the first century. And there were more factions than the NT shows us. Philo was the great techer of the Torah in the first century. Yes, he was Jewish and, yes, he taught the Law. But Philo was a thoroughgoing Platonist. In fact, some have suggested that the earliest Christians derived their doctrine from Philo. I doubt that myself, but the similarities are there. Platonism was pretty much the air the intelligensia breathed back then. Read the first few verses of the Gospel of John and then read Plato's Timaeus. Plato didn't invent the idea of the Logos, that was Heraclitus in a previous generation, but it was Plato who fleshed in out. Remember in 2 Corinthians 12:2 Paul talks about a man who visited the "third heaven"? Huh? How many heavens are there? Well, that's Platonic teaching. There were seven spheres or "heavens." The lowest, completely material, was Earth. The highest, the "Seventh Heaven," entirely etherial, was where the ineffeable Theos sat on his throne. No, Christianity didn't arise out of nothing. It was heavily influenced by Jewish thought which in turn was influenced by Greek thought (and others), especially after Alexander took Judea.

[@skatter44]

@@michaelspeir6086 Interesting theory, but I don’t think it holds up under scrutiny. While it may be true to find some examples of 1st century Jews who did not follow Yahweh consistently, the fact remains that Jews in the Roman Empire was given an exemption to not worship the Roman gods but be allowed to worship their God exclusively. Your two examples from the New Testament are interesting but not conclusive. John’s use of Logos was to show his Gentile audience that the true Logos was in fact Jesus. Using an illustration they would understand does not mean that he was incorporating Platonic thinking into his Christology. As to Paul’s reference to the “third heaven” this does not imply that he is referring to the seven heaven structure found in Plato. Now, if he said he was caught up into the 4th or 5th heaven then there would be a problem. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are illusions to there being three “heavens”. Paul quotes two Greek sources in Acts 17 as support for his point that the creator God does not need temples or service from humans. The first allusion is to Epimenides the Cretan, a poet also cited in Titus 1:12. The original poem no longer exists, but it appears in a number of other ancient writers. The second citation is from Aratus, a Cilcian poet. The original line, “in him we move and live and have our being,” was pantheistic, but Paul spins this line into a statement about God as the source of our life. Does this imply that Paul was trying to say these poets somehow represented Christianity? No, he was using illustrations that they would understand. I never claimed that Christianity “arose out of nothing”. Far from it. As far as I’m concerned, there shouldn’t be a thing called “Christianity. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and the Gentile believers in him weren’t called “Christians” until much later, and it was a derisive term used by their opponents. Certainly, Platonic thinking did eventually creep into the church, but that wasn’t until much later.

[@michaelspeir6086]

@@skatter44 It's not a theory, Sean. Of course "John" meant Jesus, but the idea was old long before Jesus. And, like I said, Platonism was the grounding of most philosophical thought long before Christianity. It heavily infected Judaism, which gave rise to Christianity.

[@Kishan-pv3ub]

Is it possible to bring back Christendom ?

[@woff1959]

OK, here’s the view from the ’Other Europe’: Cool stuff on the non-Christian civilisations, impact etc. But, slight correction: At 22:47. Ooops! Tom Holland claims only four monarchs were anointed in Medieval Europe. But this is not true. I can think of the King of Hungary, the first case of which was in 1000 and lasted until the Western Allies destroyed the kingdom in 1920. I’m sure this wasn’t the only other example. Oh dear! At 46:00 Holland claims the ’Russian revolutionaries…did not target the heart of Christianity.’ Goodness, what indescribable ignorance!! No wonder Marx is still acceptable to quote in the UK!!! If Holland experienced Communism, he would have fully realised how wrong that statement is! His statement is also deeply insulting to those of us who lost entire families to Communism. There is no excuse for this.

[@Andre_Louis_Moreau]

Holland is specifically referring to why the 'west' gives communism a pass. Not that it he thinks should, only why it does. Where nazi fascism were determined to dispose of the 'weak', but communism ideologically claims to elevate the weak, and oppressed. That in practice communism does none of what it claims, and is just as much of a literal house of horrors, is why it should never get a pass. It's marxist professors of the west, you need to convince its as guilty or more so of the same atrocities we held Nuremberg trials over with nazi fascism.

[@woff1959]

@@Andre_Louis_Moreau Good point, and I don't disagree. However, Holland did not make the distinction, which I believe he should have. The problem is precisely that many people consider his words as approval of, for instance, Lenin, whereas had he taken a few seconds to make the distinctions you pointed out, all would be OK.

[@corinaijac4381]

It's not funny what happened with many of us. Yes, I know how much you let done on you to help me, ...

[@The123rasputin]

Question to Tom, are Christian values righteous? Yes they are surely,; it's the true Church no?

[@corinaijac4381]

I know you are the descendent from Joanne d'Arc, cause I saw you, recognize you shape from a icon, of someone who killed the monster, with a cross on the head. It's impossible to be a orthodox icon, it must be a catholic one.

[@grahamblack1961]

Christianity completely dominates America's cultural life. The Church of England is part of the UK state and is headed by the monarch. In what way has the West distanced itself from its christian heritage. It seems to be an intrinsic part of Christianity to always be playing the victim even when they've completely won the religion war. I'm an atheist and have never denied I am culturally Christian, am also culturally pagan, and culturally celtic. I don't quite get this weird argument from Chtsitians. The fact that I have a christian heritage has absolutely zero bearing on the truth claims of christianity.

[@mikedowning4869]

46:00 Usual false dichotomy between Communism and Fascism. But the Nazis were Socialists, Stalin was virulently anti-semitic, and also killed more Russians than Hitler. The original aims may have been different in some ways without the hyper-racialisation of the Nazis, but all Communist regimes ultimately became tyrannical with vast numbers of victims.

[@10.6.12.]

What is this whole reenchantmemt thing it is purely gnostic .

[@corinaijac4381]

your*

[@markwinter7511]

Tom... do you believe Christ was the son of God is perhaps the question

[@danielshade710]

Ugh. What he’s saying is Christians began to adhere to the philosophy of Hobbes Bentham Calvin etc more than the dogma of the Bible. So it’s philosophy water we’re swimming in not the cess pool of religion.

[@NickdeVera]

as an atheist, this is frustrating. imagine an alternate timeline where islam dominated, someone saying intellectual atheism came from islam, it's right there in the islamic golden age, in the quran, the bismillah, the shahada, secular atheism is infused right through with islam

[@TheNutmegStitcher]

It's worthwhile to compare the differences between the two. They have profoundly different claims, means, ends.

[@CScott-wh5yk]

Tom’s hang up is thinking science is the only way to prove something objectively true.

[@t8br00k36]

True. But Christ wasn’t divine. It’s mental isn’t it?

[@Dustinthewind707]

Jesus was a full-blown Jew. He did not invent kindness, compassion, humility, support for the poor and downtrodden, but he made Judaism accessible to gentiles- or more accurately it was Saul/Paul

[@kevinb9830]

The fact that the UK has a Christian past doesn't mean I need to believe in sky daddies...

[@liewcheng6664]

UK Christian past was very muddy

[@skatter44]

Your logic doesn't follow.

[@TeresaE116]

@@liewcheng6664 • Your comment is intriguing. Would you care to elaborate?

[@kbeetles]

Sky daddies? Now THAT sounds pretty pagan to me!!

[@liewcheng6664]

@@TeresaE116 Christians killing Christians. It is too bloody to elaborate. Theological differences turned to the killing fields. UK future is dim.