Ramsay Lectures
Why the West is more Christian than it thinks
Tom Holland in conversation with Ramsay Centre Academic Director and Deputy CEO Dr Stephen McInerney.
What has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilisation? Could it have been so profound that it is now hidden from view? Even in a secular West, are we ‘goldfish swimming in a Christian pond’?
In our final Ramsay Lecture for 2021, Centre Academic Director and Deputy CEO Dr. Stephen McInerney interviews award-winning UK historian, biographer and broadcaster Tom Holland. Mr. Holland is author of the 2019 Sunday Times best-seller Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.
In their discussion Mr Holland presses his case for the central place of Christianity in the formation of Western values, arguing ‘Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, (and) its emergence the single most transformative development in Western history.
In this exclusive interview Dr McInerney and Mr Holland discuss:
- How Mr Holland’s interest in antiquity led him to explore the shift from the brutality of ancient times to a more compassionate society today;
- The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the ‘myth’ which lies at the heart of the development of Western values;
- The changing symbolism of the cross and its relationship to concepts of power;
- Christianity’s permeation in other ‘secular’ structures; and
- The influence of Christianity on modern concepts of love.
Please join us for this wide-spanning conversation.
Tom Holland
Tom Holland is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History and co-writer and co-presenter of the podcast, The Rest is History, with Dominic Sandbrook. He has written and presented several TV documentaries, for the BBC and Channel 4, on subjects ranging from dinosaurs to ISIS.
He is the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire which won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006; Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom; In the Shadow of the Sword, and Dynasty, a portrait of Rome’s first imperial dynasty.
Mr Holland has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’. In 2019 Tom released his latest book and Sunday Times best-seller Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.