THE AIR THAT WE BREATH

I recently came across Tom Holland - NOT the Spiderman version but the historian and author! His latest book titled Dominion is provocative, not least because he is an unbeliever. He argues that the Creator of all things, the Son of God, dying on a Roman cross, as Christians claimed, changed everything! This is because Roman civilization, and every civilization before it - excluding the Jews, operated on the basis of the strong oppressing the weak... the survival of the fittest... might is right. But the cross turns this modus operandi on its head, because on the cross God becomes weak and triumphs over the strong to offer salvation to everyone, which in turn brings equality and gives dignity to every human being. As Paul claims, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).

His radical conclusion is that Western civilization, although secular and anti-Christian, is still deeply influenced by Christianity without knowing it. He states that the moment you stand up for human rites... a very modern thing to do... you are appealing to the gospel because you have no other basis in the history of civilization to do so. Closer to home, he uses the example of Apartheid claiming that the only conceivable way Apartheid could have ended without the shedding of blood was because whites and blacks in South Africa had Christianity in common. And so, whites realised their need to repent of their sins and blacks realised their need to forgive. Simply put, Christianity is in the "air that we breathe" whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not!

Yours in Christ
Gavin