Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland (Review)
Over and again in 2020, I heard from a variety of sources that Dominion by Tom Holland was the best book of the year. It was finally Tim Keller’s endorsement that steered me move the book up my reading list. I’m pleased that so many people highlighted the virtues of Holland’s unique book that expounds on the far-reaching influence of Christianity—even in spheres that may seem irreligious on the surface. What may seem to be echoes of Christianity are oftentimes shouts, and, as Tim Stanley put it in History Today, “almost everything about the West is actually an inheritance from Christianity.”[1]
That Holland writes about the history of Christianity is interesting in itself. He has described himself as somewhere between atheist and a secular Christian (contradictory as those terms may be). The benefit is a critical analysis of Christianity’s scope of influence—one that may have been scoffed at if written by a Christian.
The result of Dominion is an expansive analysis that reminded me of Bill Bryson’s, A Short History of Nearly Everything, albeit without the numerous quips. Like Bryson’s book, the scope of Holland’s investigation is broader than what seems possible in a single book. Yet Holland successfully connects the narrative from pre-Christ all the way to post-9/11. Though dizzying at times, the book is well worth your time.
The only warning I’ll offer is that there are sequences, particularly early in the book, that seem to presume a broad foundation in both the classical antiquities and the middle ages. I have read a great deal about the early Christian church, I studied British literature in college, which included a great deal of history, and have read for interest about the middle ages (including Barbara Tuchman’s wonderful book, A Distant Mirror). Despite this background, I had to stop with some frequency during the early chapters to add more background. I may not be as solid on my history as I thought, but there were times I would have welcomed a bit more context in early years after the start of Christianity. Still, this is a mere quibble for an excellent book.
Here are some of my notes and thoughts from Dominion:
The development of hell’s more inflammatory traits occurred in the late sixth century under Pope Gregory. Some ideas flowed from biblical scriptures, but a number grew out of pagan ideas on eternity and spread from Gregory’s writing, Dialogues. It was this period when the reference to Lucifer banded to the verses on Satan to create more of a singular story for the origin of evil. As such, many remnants of these ideas have a longstanding tradition to the early church, but it bears evaluation how much is grounded in the Bible. Echoes from Gregory’s Dialogues are seen in much later works like Dante’s Divine Comedy and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Holland explained the development of the word “secular,” which grew out of the Roman word, “saeculum.” Saeculum was the span of a life and its temporal nature was the opposite pillar of the religious.
The Venerable Bede from northeastern England, wrote Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 731 AD. In it, Bede references Hadrian, said to be from modern-day Libya. Hadrian fled his home and arrived in Europe. He spoke Greek and Latin, which he leveraged into roles as translator, diplomat, and abbot. Later, Pope Vitalian sent Hadrian to Kent, England. Hadrian and Canterbury Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus restructured the English church and established a well-regarded school in Canterbury.
I enjoyed learning more about Saint Boniface, a name I knew but without any details. Holland pointed out the irony of Boniface’s death by willingly laying down arms. Boniface was one of the few early Christians to meaningfully “go and make disciples of all nations.” His evangelizing in Germania led to encounters with the Friesians, an ethnic group in the modern-day Netherlands and northwestern Germany. A group of armed robbers attacked Boniface in 754, and he commanded his followers to lay down their arms. For this sacrifice, the church venerated Boniface, but his sacrificial death also laid the groundwork for the crusades and converting people by force.
Charles the Great (Charlemagne) is a good example of the tug-of-war between king and church. Pope Leo III anointed Charles as Holy Roman Emperor. By doing so, Pope Leo was assuming the power to confer kingship on others. Charlemagne was also protector of the Roman Catholic Church, which untied to two entities. Yet this advancement of the church’s power in 800 AD gave way to conflict with Pope Gregory VII and the Schism of 1378.
Charlemagne’s conclusion that his people needed education in order to learn of Christ’s love was a model that Christians followed for generations to come. As it pertained to Charlemagne, his initiative had a monumental effect on the west by introducing mass education.
Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand of Sovana) brought the church-v-state battle to a head in the 1400s. He declared the corollary of Pope Leo anointing Charlemagne as emperor. Pope Gregory VII stated that popes also have papal-deposing power to remove rulers from power. As the representative of God and the loose nature of European powers, such a declaration could ruin a ruler’s power. Pope Gregory excommunicated King Henry IV, which prompted the king to appoint Antipope Clement III. Gregory’s reforms also led to the church as an independent state, and he ushered in celibacy for priests.
It was fun refreshing my memory about St. Elizabeth, a revered figure at Wartburg College. Holland told the story of a woman born to royalty in Hungary who lived most of her life at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany with her husband, Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia. Louis died of the plague and Elizabeth lived most of her life as a widow. Despite her royalty and wealth, Elizabeth gave away much of what she had and served the poor, also building a hospital for the poor at the base of Wartburg Castle. Her life reflects the model of St. Francis of Assisi.
In 1231, Gregory IX granted Konrad von Marburg power to investigate heresy in a way that had not happened before; Konrad thus became an inquisitor. Historical accounts suggest Konrad was an unjust man who presumed guilt with any allegation. His followers became mobs that burned alive those he accused. Konrad eventually accused Henry III, a count in modern-day Germany, of satanic orgies. Henry appealed to an assembly of bishops who postponed the verdict. In his disgust at the delay, Konrad returned home and was killed by knights along the way. Though the pope lauded Konrad for his actions, history regards him as the ugly side of Catholicism. Konrad was also the driving force behind ending clerical marriage.
It was helpful learning that crusade was a general term with several different types. Capturing Jerusalem for Christianity was distinctly about acquiring land occupied by Muslims and Jews. Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade from 1209–1229, which was focused on converting people to Christianity and rooting out heresy. While connected, the objectives were different from past crusades. It would be interesting hearing from the instigators of the Albigensian Crusade whether they really believed that forced confessions afforded saving grace. Such a belief seems explicitly contradictory to Romans 10:9 and John 5:24: confessing without belief means nothing.
From the middle 12th century into the 13th century, scholars began translating and the western world began rediscovering Aristotle. Because of some of Aristotle’s views conflicted with Christianity, the Catholic Church censored some of his writing. In Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas worked to reconcile the views of Aristotle with Christianity, which helped further the spread of both Aristotle and Plato in the western world.
St. Catherine of Siena was an inspiration for freedom of choice by choosing to wed herself to Christ instead of her parents’ wish for betrothal.
The settlement of Tábor, Bohemia (the current Czech Republic) occurred as a result of Jan Hus and his teachings. His followers were called Hussites, and a radical wing of this group called themselves, “Taborites.” This city was expected to be a New Jerusalem, which was a vision of interest in those days. Tábor is also interesting because the Hussites were the forebears of the Protestants and a counter to the Catholic Church. He followed John Wycliffe and was also martyred for his beliefs. Before his death, Hus was a dean and rector at the Chatles University in Prague. In addition to helping launch Protestantism, Hus’s death also sparked the Hussite Wars, a group of rebellions against the Catholic Church from 1419 to approximately 1434.
The next pursuit of the New Jerusalem grew out of Spain when Isabella and Ferdinand commissioned Christopher Columbus to cross the Atlantic. Spain’s destruction of the Aztecs through disease and violence is one of the bleakest historical periods of cruelty done in the name of God. Still, Holland contrasted the horrors of Spain’s treatment of the Aztecs with that of Bartolomé de Las Casas, a missionary in the West Indies who opposed slavery and Spanish imperialism, all in the name of Jesus. Italian Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, leader of the Dominicans, also opposed slavery in the new world. He argued that Christianity must spread by persuasion and not force.
Cardinal Cajetan played another significant role in the spread of Christianity by his interactions with Martin Luther, the monk who advanced Protestantism. Cajetan intended to steer Luther toward the view that holiness could only occur through the Catholic Church. Luther, however, had other ideas.
My longtime knowledge of Martin Luther can somewhat numb the remarkable nature of his story. His defiance of the entire Catholic Church at the Diet of Worms followed by Prince Frederick III’s scheme to fake Luther’s kidnapping sounds like a Hollywood picture. That Luther translated the Bible from Greek to German to give the masses access to the words that had awakened him is a similarly remarkable page of the story.
I did not have a good handle on the closeness in time of Luther and Calvin. I thought Calvin came a generation later rather than overlapping. The close proximity in time of Luther and Calvin to the pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth was also closer than I had locked into my mind. Holland’s book is a good reminder how short our history really is.
Another insight was how early the Jesuits reached Beijing and began spreading Catholicism, even to leaders in China. This ignorance on my part was despite having seen Scorsese’s film, Silence, which occurred in Japan in the 1600s. The Jesuits covered a remarkable span of the globe long before I would have guessed.
Holland provided a helpful historical framework for religious liberty first with the writing of Paul the Apostle, then exploring Oliver Cromwell’s approach to tolerance for divergent beliefs and then by pivoting to Baruch Spinoza. These individuals set the stage for the Quakers, William Penn, and the religious diversity of Philadelphia.
George Washington declared America as tribute to enlightenment. The merger between Protestantism and the Enlightenment was foundational to the new country. Philadelphia’s religious liberty had a significant effect on all the colonies.
The effect of Britain banning the practice of Sati—self-immolation of Hindu widows—was quite interesting. The lead British opponents cast it as a secular misreading of Hindu texts. This distinction between religious and secular was new to India. When it became an independent nation years later as a secular country, it occurred in part because of ideas that grew out of the Sati ban in the 1800s.
When Holland explored the effect of Darwin on the idea of mankind being in God’s image, I would have liked to hear some the ideas Barbara Tuchman explored in Proud Tower. He did touch upon it with Horst Wessel’s giving speeches like his pastor father would have done in churches. Joseph Goebbels turned Wessel into a martyr, and soon after German churches were comparing Vessel’s death to that of Christ.
It was interesting to hear the connection between natural selection and communism.
I appreciated how Holland presented Nietzsche and his point that morality cannot exist in the absence of religion. Nietzsche observed that ideas like human rights, caring for the weak, and even moral absolutes were not possible without God. Relatedly, it is impossible to read through the history of Nazi Germany and not see the influence of Nietzsche on its leaders.
Holland’s analysis of Islam was insightful. He noted Muslim scholars who maintain that there is not a concept of natural law or the freedoms as espoused in the United Nations. There is only the law of Allah; anything else is apostasy. See Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Holland’s conclusion includes this thoughtful paragraph: “If secular humanism derives not from reason or from science but from the distinctive course of Christianity’s evolution—a course that in the opinion of growing numbers in Europe and America has left God dead—then how are its values anything more than a shadow of a corpse? What are the foundations of its morality if not a myth? A myth though is not a lie.”
Also worthwhile is the conclusion that for each of the wrongs done in the name of Christianity, it is Christianity’s standards by which we judge the wrongdoing.
As suggested above, Dominion was a bit heavy during the early chapters, but it was always worthwhile. Holland’s writing is compelling and thought-provoking in the best of ways. He lends great insight into why things are the way they are and does so in a contemplative manner. I recommend Dominion to anyone who enjoys history, religion, or having a better foundation for how the world works. The multiple recommendations I encountered for Holland’s book were certainly justified.
[1] Stanley, Tim. 2019. “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.” History Today 69 (11), Nov. 2019.
