How Christ Changed the World: A Synopsis of Tom Holland’s Dominion (Part 1)

In my opinion, Dominion, by the British historian Tom Holland, is the most important book written this century. It is a book about the domain of Jesus Christ; His majesty and power as it has grown over the centuries, to become the most powerful cultural force ever known to mankind. Western culture is a product of His walking the earth and Holland does a marvelous job of demonstrating this chapter after chapter. 

           No society is contemplating how much Islamic culture to incorporate. Or how much Buddhism or Hinduism to adopt. Or how much Shintoism or Animism. But every nation is wrestling with what to incorporate of the culture created by Jesus Christ—Western culture.

In his Preface Holland begins with a lengthy discussion of crucifixion: 

Romans viewed crucifixion as the worst possible death anyone could endure. Not only was it physically excruciating, (where do we get that word?) it was scandalous. A person felt tainted by even viewing it. For the Jews the crucifixion of Jesus created even greater problems than the horrible nature of His death. That the eternal God would have a Son who became flesh, and then be tortured to death on a cross was both stupefying and repellent; not “merely blasphemy but madness.” It took centuries but eventually “a corpse served as an icon of majesty.”

           Eventually Christians, because of Jesus, came to believe that God was closer to the weak than the mighty. Christianity began in paradox—in the midst of cultures that stressed power, pride, honor, and strength—it stressed the weak and the suffering. But it produced what one Jewish scholar called, “the most powerful of hegemonic cultural systems in the history of the world.”

           Holland states his purpose as examining those Christian currents that are the most widely held and enduring in the present day. “To live in a Western country is to live in a society saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions.  (I recommend this book be read in conjunction with my book, Seven Ideas That Changed the World, which is much shorter but has the same thesis.) The emergence of Christianity is “the single most transformative development in Western history.”

           The ambition of Dominion is to trace what one third-century writer termed, “the flood-tide of Christ.” “It is—to coin a phrase—the greatest story ever told.”

In Chapter 1, titled Athens 479 B.C., Holland looks at the ancient world, particularly Greece and Persia.

           Holland examines the Persian Empire and finds an interesting conceit: Cyrus and Darius—two of the greatest Persian kings--believed they were ruling by the will of some sort of divine being and this gave them the right to impose their will on others. The universe had a purpose. There was a “pattern to things.”

Over in Greece, Aristotle taught that in the heavens there was a circular orbit, eternal and obedient, yet it depended on “a mover which itself never moved.”

           So Aristotle looked out on the world and concluded that there was an earthly order, a hierarchy, with certain men at the top. He made this famous statement: He was thankful that he was not an animal, a barbarian, or a woman. The ancients all shared in this hierarchical view. It was commonly accepted that the way a man really became a man was by putting other men “in the shade.”

Chapter 2, is titled Jerusalem 63 B.C., and in it Holland moves from the Persians and Greeks to the Jews.

           The Jews came to the conclusion early that not only did they worship the supreme God, no other gods existed. Furthermore, mankind was unique. Only man had been fashioned in the image of the one God. And mankind alone possessed dominion over all other created things. God was separate from His creation. He did not fight with sea monsters—He created them. All of creation serves the one God. He is a God of order. God granted the Jews something He granted no other peoples—a covenant, and with that covenant He gave legislation authored by Himself. Every Jew, from the king to the simplest peasant, was subject to that law. This introduces one of the most important ideas in the history of the world—the rule of law.

In Chapter 3, Mission A.D. 19: Galatia, Holland begins to look at how the new religion of Christianity began to impact the world. He focuses on a rather amazing missionary: one Paul of Tarsus.

           The citizens of Galatia were profoundly committed to the worship of the Emperor. Then along came Paul with his intolerant message. “The Son of God proclaimed by Paul did not share his sovereignty with other deities. There were no other deities.” The idea that a man crucified as a common criminal could be the supreme deity was scandalous to both Galatians and Jews. “Command and swagger were the very essence of the cult of the Caesars.” And Holland talks about how powerful and influential that cult was.

           Paul’s message was revolutionary. Everyone who opened themselves to the Gospel of Jesus Christ “were henceforward God’s holy people.” Holland considers this a turning point in world history. “That the law of the God of Israel might be read inscribed on the human heart, written there by his Spirit, was a notion that drew alike on the teachings of Pharisees and Stoics—and yet equally was foreign to them both. Its impact was destined to render Paul’s letters—the correspondence of a bum, without position or reputation in the affairs of the world—the most influential, the most transformative, the most revolutionary ever written. Across the millennia, and in societies and continents unimagined by Paul himself, their impact would reverberate. His was a conception of law that would come to suffuse an entire civilisation.”

           In this chapter Holland also points out that Paul’s teaching on sexual ethics was revolutionary. Actually, it is his theology of the body that is unique. But in teaching that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Paul was not “merely casting as sacrilege attitudes toward sex that most men in Corinth or Rome took for granted. He was also giving to those who serviced them, the bar girls and the painted boys in brothels, the slaves used without compunction by their masters, a glimpse of salvation.”

           Into the darkness of the first-century pagan world something startling happened. Not as a leader of armies but as a victim the Messiah had appeared. “No one quite like him had ever been portrayed in literature.” There was no comparison in Persian kings, or Greek philosophers, or Jewish prophets. “The logos—the word—had become flesh.” 

           This person and message will unleash the greatest cultural force of all time.

More: My video, The Shocking Transformation: How the Most Repulsive Symbol Became the Dearest, is an elaboration on Holland’s preface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYzA6Eh__xo

My video, “The Moment Christianity Changed the World” is an elaboration of chapter three: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4y7DgATyq8

Hollands book is lengthy but wonderfully written and a delight to read. The Amazon link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World-ebook/dp/B07NCY9RG9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PBSCWW6QV5B&keywords=dominion+tom+holland+kindle&qid=1683396576&sprefix=dominion%2C+tom+holland%2Caps%2C2752&sr=8-1

If you want to read my entire synopsis it is here: https://www.the401stprophet.com/a-synopsis-of-dominion-by-tom-holland