Amazon.es:Opiniones de clientes: Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

Inicia sesión para filtrar las reseñas

779 valoraciones totales, 52 con reseñas

Ha surgido un problema al filtrar las opiniones justo en este momento. Vuelva a intentarlo en otro momento.

Traducir todas las opiniones al español

Desde España

De otros países

David Lindsay

Western Values are Christian Values

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 13 de agosto de 2020

Compra verificada

Tom Holland has written a superb overview of the impact of Christianity on the West. He argues we in the West are moored to our Christian past and our morals and ethics derive from Christianity. Holland believes that Christian values permeate Western culture and thinking. If anything, Christianity's influence has been underestimated. Holland claims that many beliefs that we take for granted have Christian origins. He argues that George W. Bush was mistaken in assuming that Muslims shared a Christian worldview and such values are universal.

Holland does not fully explain what he means by Christian values. Jesus spoke repeatedly about inequality and injustice. He spent a lot of his time helping the poor and society’s outcasts. He wanted his followers to love their enemies. The Bible suggests that God is closer to the poor than to the rich. Matthew 25 states the key test for a disciple is treating the poor and the hungry as if they were Jesus. Professor Richard Hays of Duke Divinity School believes that Christians are meant to direct their energies towards the renunciation of violence, the sharing of possessions, and overcoming ethnic divisions. Holland discusses the impact of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, who were both students of the Bible. They preached a message of non-violence and forgiveness.

Saint Paul claimed that Christ's church was open to all, slave and free, Greek and Jew, male and female. He taught that everyone is equal before God and we should love one another. These were revolutionary ideas in the Roman world and we still struggle with them today. Holland argues that because God loves each of us unconditionally, we are in turn meant to love and respect our fellow man. Holland discusses the Beatles and he claims that songs like “All You Need is Love” and “Imagine” express Christian beliefs.

Holland has written extensively about Rome, ancient Greece, and Islam. He claims that the more he studied classical antiquity the more alien he found it. Holland concluded that his values were distinctly Christian. Christianity became the dominant religion in Western Europe because of the Romans. Pagan Rome was a barbaric place. It was depraved and violent. The Romans entertained themselves by having criminals eaten alive by wild animals. Rome was also corrupt and materialistic, with only the rich having any rights. Julius Caesar is fondly remembered by classical scholars but he carried out genocide in Gaul. The Romans tended to destroy societies that got in their way. The Romans and Greek philosophers like Aristotle did not care about the poor and the downtrodden, they viewed them as losers. Aristotle justified slavery as natural, claiming some humans were slaves by nature, lacking the moral reason to be regarded as the equals of free men. Christianity must have seemed an attractive option for many ordinary people in the ancient world.

Holland does not believe that God exists but he was raised a Christian. He claims that we in the West have retained our Christian morals and ethics even though many of us have stopped believing in God. The book is not a history of Christianity. He mentions theologians like Irenaeus, Anselm, Origen, Marcion, and Pelagius. It helps to have some knowledge of Christian history to understand their significance.

When the Britain Empire occupied a country it would usually be forced by Christians to ban practices they considered barbaric. In India, Hindu widows would sacrifice themselves by sitting atop their deceased husband's funeral pyre. The British banned this practice because of pressure from Christian evangelicals. William Wilberforce was a devout Christian, who forced the British Parliament to ban the slave trade in 1807. The Bible did not seem to condemn slavery, but British Christians knew it was wrong. As Western culture has become more liberal we have embraced behavior that the Bible specifically forbids, like divorce, working on the Sabbath, and homosexuality. We are now making our own rules, but they are still rooted in the gospels.

In 2002, the World Humanist Congress affirmed “the worth, dignity, and autonomy of the individual.” Holland views this as a quintessentially Christian idea that finds no parallel in the ancient world, or in other parts of the world today. Humanists believe “that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others.” Holland argues that the source of humanist values is not to be found in science or reason but in Christianity.

Holland suggests that Western secular liberals are deluding themselves in believing that Western views on human rights are universally shared. Western Liberals have insisted that Afghans should embrace gender equality. Holland claims that "To be a Muslim was to know that humans do not have rights. There was no natural law in Islam. There were only laws authored by God." For some Islamic scholars, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi the idea of equality between men and women, or between Islam and other religions, is “a monstrous blasphemy”. There is no such thing as “human rights” only the laws of Allah; any attempt to impose those human rights on Islamic countries is infidel heresy and will lead to friction.

Holland discusses the dark side of Christian history. Over time, he writes, Christians “have themselves become agents of terror. They have put the weak in their shadow; they have brought suffering, and persecution, and slavery in their wake.” He notes, for example, that the efforts of missionaries to bring Christianity to Africa were undermined by a “colonial hierarchy” in which black people “were deemed inferior.” But he also argues that the very standard by which we condemn colonizers is itself Christian.

A 60 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Mark Fox EvensAmazon Customer

Exceptional history of Christendom.

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 19 de mayo de 2023

Compra verificada

A terrific history that weaves in the magnificent story of the Church within the great sweep of history and philosophy.

A una persona le ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Macker

There is indeed nothing new under the Sun

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 24 de marzo de 2023

Compra verificada

This is a wonderful book. At 500 plus pages there of course going to be tests of a readers stamina but stick with it: like all great history books it’s greatest contribution is to shine a bright light on the present. The authorsconvincing, textured argument is that whatever it’s name or pretended source, be it enlightenment, reform, rationalism, humanism, concern for the poor, for equality, for rights, for justice, Christianity got there first.

While there are minor stylistic gratings the book structure, which marries chronology to vignettes of historical figures works well. Keep at it, it’s well worth the effort.

A 5 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Sotto voce

Mind fodder for Believers and Atheist alike

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 7 de abril de 2020

Compra verificada

Fascinating and intricate read. Holland pursues the so-called religion, broadly termed the understanding of Christianity, as a function of history and civilization. It's an intriguing angle to observe the pervasiveness of religion disguised as Christ-following. It's a dissonant read.

The book has stuck in my mind for some weeks before writing this review. That doesn't happen often. The book explores rarely cited history to enable the reader to consider the actions of men of religion who perpetrate the opposite of clear biblical teaching in the name of religion. Excellent examples include the dissonance of the 4th Crusade's sack and massacre of the devotedly Christian and Roman Constantinople. The political-papal designs of the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate and erase Cathars and seize their autonomous lands in the name of a French king and papal revenue. In the name of a religion, the worst crimes of men are perpetrated in the name of Christ. A wholly corrupt institution of religion imagined repeating the Cathar extermination in opposition to Reformation. The result was the near-total destruction of Europe in 100 years of cumulative and simultaneous wars (French Wars of Religion, 80-years War, the 30-years war) to no purpose. The Spanish conquest and enslavement of Western Hemisphere peoples in the name of religion. The invention and convenience of witch trials and inquisition. Holland goes on to explore the lowest lights and logic of the deconstruction of Christ's teachings for the methods of politics, money and men.
The later chapters move the issue into the modern context to consider beliefs and the nature of Christianity's effect on all aspects of morals and belief. Agnosticism and atheism and faiths in between are framed within a secular context that make the book a must-read.

The kindle edition enables a profound reading experience. References can be readily followed and then followed further. I spent a couple of nights simply deep-diving into a line of thought through Holland's references. There are some very cool back alleys to explore.

Holland is not an Apologetic in the sense that the Christ-following reader would notice. Some of his points will make an Apologetic wince. Don't wince. Engage the author's thought line through his references and conclude as you will. I, for one, could not determine what side of belief Holland lives in. It's thoroughly and perhaps antagonistically unbiased.

Much better than expected. It's a 'must-read'.

A 26 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Elvis Lives

One of the greatest non-fiction books ever

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 8 de marzo de 2023

Compra verificada

Holland does an amazing job curating a history of how our global culture evolved from the arrival, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of someone of faith, it was nice to see the author tell the story in an unbiased, “pure” light, one that was far from sacrilegious, but one that is passionately looked at the course of human events through a logical eye. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has any level of curiosity on how Christianity has shaped and continues to shape our society.

A 8 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Vincent Mathew

Absolutely amazing by Tom Holland

Revisado en Canadá 🇨🇦 el 17 de mayo de 2023

Compra verificada

Its a real page turner. It does well on the impossible task of summarizing 2000 years of Christian history and also has some good summary of the Jewish religion.

Traducir reseña a Español

Jason Carter

Christianity's enemies are profoundly Christian in many ways

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 24 de abril de 2021

Compra verificada

Tom Holland is no Christian, in that he doesn't believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was raised on the third day, and later ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. On the other hand, consistent with the thesis of this book, he recognizes clearly how profoundly Christian he really is, in the sense that the unspoken values that permeate western society are inherently Christian values formed in the milieu of 2000-plus years of Christian expansion. Most interestingly, he argues that for almost 1000 years, the very weapons used by the church's bitterest enemies were more often than not first expounded by St Paul and then forged in the fires of various Christian revolutions since the age of the Apostles.

Imagine a mining town that develops over the centuries its own foundry, factories, and logistics networks centered around the mineral wealth of the mines. The town grows into a city built on this wealth. All of the glory of the city flows from this fountain. As do many of its ills. Periodically, some of the townspeople rise up against those ills--the smog, the corruption, the byproducts dumped into the nearby streams. When fights break out, those same townspeople use swords forged in the city factories (and in later years, rifles, cannons, and tanks) to wage their warfare, never recognizing the irony of their utter dependance on the very thing they are fighting.

Such, in many ways, is Holland's view of Western Civilization. Christianity's inner strength relies on a paradox in that the weaknesses of Christendom are really only correctable by first taking for granted its underlying assumptions.

"For two thousand years, though, Christians have disputed <that power was the driving force of history>. Many of them, over the course of this time, have themselves become agents of terror. They have put the weak in their shadow; they have brought suffering, and persecution, and slavery in their wake. Yet the standards by which they stand condemned for this are themselves Christian; nor, even if churches across the West continue to empty, does it seem likely that these standards will quickly change. 'God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.' This is the myth that we in the West still persist in clinging to. Christendom, in that sense, remains Christendom still."

Nietzsche was and is perhaps the philosopher who saw this most clearly, recognizing that if God is really dead, the Will to Power was a much more consistent ethic than caring for the weak and poor. Hitler took this and ran with it, and for a few years the 20th century got a glimpse of the pre-Christian world--one that cared not for the weak and poor, but for power and glory.

The modern woke secularists rely on these same underlying Christian assumptions to attack the church that seems to be the source of many of their grievances. They do not realize the Pandora's box they may be opening.

A 25 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Ira M. Edwards

From a follower of Jesus

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 23 de septiembre de 2022

Compra verificada

Artistic book! The author writes artistic sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Very readable if the reader first knows some context.
The author hops and skips through history, picking people and events most relevant to the theme. This necessarily leaves out much context. The title theme does not become evident until later chapters.
It is not a beginner's book. A reader that does not have some knowledge of the history of Western civilization would need maps and an encyclopedia at hand. Relevant connections of events are often not plain.
A more complete book might include Lynn White's Science article that credits Christianity with the development of science, and so, leaves Christians responsible for civilization's environmental damage.
And it might include contributions, outside of established Christendom, of individuals and small groups that changed the world by following the risen and present Jesus, who promised to always be with us. I think of Zinzendorf and the Moravians; Gladys Aylward, an English housemaid who changed China, and Mary Slessor, a weaver who changed Africa.
Other books that highlight sources of civilization: The Gifts of the Jews. How the Irish Saved Civilization. How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Michener's historic fiction The Source.
I thought the author did not give due credit to the Bible as a historic source.

A 14 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

Joseph Myren

AWESOME

Revisado en Canadá 🇨🇦 el 23 de mayo de 2023

Compra verificada

AWESOME

Traducir reseña a Español

Tom Walsh

A great scholarly work documenting how Christianity changed the world.

Revisado en los Estados Unidos 🇺🇸 el 3 de enero de 2023

Compra verificada

Politics and religion had a great influence on our world, long before Christianity changed the way we look at the meaning of life. Understanding what came before the Christ, what happened to His Church after He ascended and what indelible marks He has left behind, add fullness to what we have been given. This scholarly work has obviously been painstakingly researched and poetically written by a man who speaks with the authority of one who has fallen in love with the Master.

A 3 personas les ha parecido esto útil

Traducir reseña a Español

¿Necesita el servicio de asistencia al cliente? Haga clic aquí

‹ Mostrar todos los detalles para Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

5 estrellas		81%
4 estrellas		13%
3 estrellas		5%
2 estrellas		1%
1 estrella 0% (0%)		0%

Amazon Music Transmite millones de canciones	IberLibro Libros, arte & artículos de colección	Amazon Web Services Servicios Cloud Computing de Amazon	Book Depository Libros con entrega gratis en todo el mundo	Kindle Direct Publishing Publica tu libro en papel y digital de manera independiente

Amazon Segunda mano Productos devueltos y como nuevos	Shopbop Marcas de moda de diseño	Amazon Business Servicio para clientes de empresa	Audible Disfruta de miles de audiolibros y podcasts originales

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World › Opiniones de clientes

Opiniones de clientes

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

Ha surgido un problema al filtrar las opiniones justo en este momento. Vuelva a intentarlo en otro momento.

Desde España

De otros países

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

›

Opiniones de clientes