The Eric Metaxas Show - Tom Holland (Continued)

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat of The Blob. Well, way back when, Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his scene because The Blob was supposed to eat him. But he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest.

Eric the Texas! Well, part of... You just mentioned the civil rights movement and how it harkens back to Exodus, and it's exclusively Christian, of course, Exodus is pre-Christian. But the idea, and you talk about this in your book early on, the idea that the Exodus, here you have the God of the universe siding with slaves. And that's, you know, it's kind of like the scandal of the cross. It's not something that you say here then in a world where the gods tended to bestow their favors upon kings and conquerors was yet another mark of the distinctive character of the God of Israel that he had chosen as his favorites, slaves.

That really is something I don't know that I've thought about in the way that I think about it now because of how you've put it there. but it is a scandal. It's really weird. It's huge. And of course, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, 14 centuries before the crucifixion. Right. And, and then the crucifixion is, um, crucifixion is the fate that is paradigmatically visited on slaves because it is seen by the Romans as being the most repellent and degrading form of death.

So therefore, particularly suited to a slave, which is why it's so significant that Jesus suffers that fate. If he'd just been beheaded, it wouldn't have had the impact that it does. But because he is suffering the fate of a slave, I mean, clearly it enables Paul to pick up. You know, it's like he's looking at Exodus and suddenly, oh, I see. Right. Okay. So the Exodus, Exodus is a kind of paradigm for what has happened now with Jesus on the cross.

and it's shocking. And I think the measure of how shocking it is is that it takes Christians so long to kind of draw the conclusion that perhaps, therefore, institutional slavery itself is something that God would not want to see, which I think is the conclusion

that Christians eventually come to. I mean, you do get some Christians in late antiquity who do argue this, Gregory of Nyser, one of the bishop, in what's mouth. You write about that. I had never encountered that before. Say a little bit about that because there's a lot in the book.

I'm happy to say, delighted to say that I'd never seen before. I'd never noticed before. But the Gregory of nice and which century? In the fourth century. So, I mean, very soon after Constantine's conversion. And he is part of an extraordinary family that includes St. Basil, who basically sets up the first great hospital. he has this extraordinary passage about how refugees from war to the east can be found hiding like owls in little crevices and they have to be given food and how the sick have to be brought in and Basil would famously tend to lepers and kiss them as a sign of Christian love and by establishing the idea that the rich and the powerful,

have a duty of care to the sick. I mean, essentially, he's setting up the idea that underpins our understanding of public health to this very day. And then you have their extraordinary system, Akrina, who is going around the rubbish tips of various cities, looking for the weakest and humblest of all, which is abandoned babies. And, you know, girls might be picked up by... pimps or slave dealers, you know, and raised to be sold or prostituted. But most likely they would just die and they would then be flushed down into the drains. And archaeologists can

generally tell the pre and post-Christian period of a drainage system because pre-Christian, they're littered with tiny bones and post-Christian, there are no bones. And so McCreena there is, again, kind of looking forward to an understanding of the weaker. in society as being worthy of preservation because Christ had been weak and had suffered that death. But the most radical articulation of this is Gregory of Nyssa, who is their brother, another bishop, who argues on the basis that Christ suffered the death of a slave, that slavery therefore itself should be abolished. And Basil, his brother, turns around and says, but this is nonsense, because if the slaves get freed, how would they survive? They need, you know, God has given them

into slavery, and we as Christians have to tell owners that they have to care for their slaves, and that is the way in which they won't starve to death or whatever. And I think that what he's doing and what Christians over the course of the succeeding centuries is casting slavery as part of what it is to live in a fallen world, that, you know, there is hunger, there is suffering, all these terrible things. It's part of what. happened with the fall and therefore you can't hope to get rid of slavery. But of course, as you know, in time for radical reasons to do with the evolution of Christian doctrine and practice over, you know, through the kind of the radical Protestant dimension of 17th century and then

18th century Anglo-American world, that supposition comes to be radically challenged. And now the whole world is the air of that. In writing my own book on Luther, I saw this. It's so interesting how, you know, the Levin takes its way to work, it takes its time working its way through the whole lump, so to speak, and that these ideas, I mean, you know, Luther, without Luther, you don't get religious liberty, but Luther himself didn't get the idea of religious liberty. It took time.

In other words, these things for them to work themselves out take sometimes centuries. But I think that for Christians, the implications of that can be quite disturbing, because I think that there is something, perhaps, within Christianity, that culminates in demands for its abolition. It kind of abolishes itself. So to give you, I mentioned how someone like Richard Dawkins

seems to me a deeply Christian figure. I mean, he's literally evangelical. He has good news. What's his good news? His good news is that if you look into your heart, you will know the truth, you will find the laws of behavior written on your heart, that if you overthrow idols and shatter them,

you will be brought into the light, that if you abolish superstition, if you drive it out, then you will be a better person. And he proclaims it with the vigor and enthusiasm and conviction of a radical Protestant from maybe a central person, ago. He's much more convinced of the rightness of his position than any Anglican bishop,

certainly that I have heard. It's not a very high boy. Sure, sure. But that is to say that the tradition, the kind of the fire of Protestantism has essentially gone from the established Protestant church into the heart of someone like Dawkins because all the things that I was describing what he's preaching, he's good news. I mean, this is reformation. This is the reformation. It's just that the drive to abolish superstition has ended up abolishing belief in God itself.

Hey, folks, listeners to my show know I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their faith. Thanks to you to date, CSI has freed more than 100,000 people from slavery in Sudan, but the work is not done yet. It's estimated that there are still tens of thousands more still in bond. and CSI is preparing right now for their final slave liberation of this year. I'm hoping you'll join me and help them liberate another 300 women and children. Your gift of just $250 will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life.

Call 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522 Christian Solidarity International, freeing and healing captives in Jesus' name. go to metaxis talk.com, metaxistock.com, click on the Christian Solidarity banner, metaxistock.com or 888-2533522. God bless you. I want to follow that line, but before that, I don't want to forget, again, early on in the book, I've marked it up. I'm almost ashamed of how much I've marked it up. But it's, you talk about another revolution. idea at the heart of the Bible, the biblical God. The idea, you say, gods served to witness treaties, to witness treaties, after all,

not to enter into one themselves. That idea, that amazing idea that God somehow models for us humbling ourselves. That, where in the world could that come from? I mean, I actually ask you that. I don't know. But I mean, that's very weird. That's kind of the question. I mean, at least for me, it's the question.

Where does that come from? And something in us seems to witness to it to say, yes, that's right. But it's so. You may feel that because, of course, in a sense, that is, again, prefiguring the uses that Christians will put to the idea that God becomes part of the mess of humanity. So there's one of my favorite quotes from all the church fathers. was from Oregon, writing in the late third century, where he's a brilliant intellectual, he's Alexandrian, he's deeply schooled in Greek philosophy as well as in biblical traditions.

And he's a very, very intellectual man, and he's framing his understanding of Christianity in intellectual terms. But then he, every so often he will step back and say, actually the truths are comprehensible by anyone. And he has this moment where he's talking about Christmas and saying, wow, God lay in a manger and was needed milk and cried. And it's unbelievable. I mean, just how mad is that?

Basically, he's saying, wow. And he's articulating something that anyone could understand. You don't have to be a. platinist to get that. The story is so powerful. The idea, the strangeness of it, the God is manifest in that,

you know, the most human you can be, the most defenseless to human you can be, a small baby. You know, this is why Macrina is touring the rubbish tips. It's so strange and it's so weird. And the corollaries of this reverberate through

our history. And because we are so familiar with them, we don't even realize what it is that we've experienced. You say something in the book, and I wrote, this is where history is hinged. You say once, like a child under the protection of a tutor, the Jews had been graced with the guardianship of a divinely authored law. But now with the coming of Christ, the need for such guardianship was passed. no longer were the Jews alone the children of God.

The exclusive character of their covenant was abrogated. That is another just amazing thing somehow. I comment on that because there's so much to it. So I, in my most recent book, which is about the heyday of the Roman Empire, and covers the destruction of Jerusalem both by Titus and then by the second great war. independence against Hadrian, I call the Jews Judeans because I came to the conclusion that actually in English to use the word Jew to describe the pre-Christian world is anachronistic because the idea of Judaism is a Christian one. And Judeanness, you could call it,

Judaism is the Greek word, doesn't mean what we mean by Judaism. It's kind of to be Judean. And it's really a kind of bandwidth in the pre-Christian world. And there are two kind of endpoints. And one is to emphasize the role of God as the God of Israel, specifically Israel. And the other is to emphasize the role of God as the creator of everything and all human beings who are created in his image.

And essentially what today we would call Christianity and Judaism, And, you know, to repeat, the conceptualization of there being something called Judaism that balances Christianity is a Christian notion. It's not a Jewish one. That these are basically the split from that bandwidth. That what becomes Judaism is the air of that aspect of Judeanness that emphasizes the God of Israel. And what becomes Christianity is the one that emphasizes God as the creator of everything. The Catholicos, the universal character. and I think that this is why right from the beginning,

even in Paul's letter to the Glacians, the famous phrase that there is no Jew or Greek in Christ, no Judean or Greek, I should say. This is the underpinning of Western universalism. It's also the underpinning of the Western ideal of the multicultural, multi-ethnic state, the melting pot, the idea that identity is lost in a common universal identity. But of course, the fact that Paul famously does not bring most of his fellow Judeans with him

is a reminder that there is a potential problem here, because what if you do not want to have your distinctive identity dissolved into a kind of universalist mush as a Judean might have seen it? And so right from the beginning, that is a question that shadows Christian universal. What do you do with people who want to stand outside this universalism? And it's a problem that the liberal state has inherited. Yes. Boy, that opens things up because you're quite right.

Well, there's so much here. It's challenging. You talk, one of the things I love about the book is you talk about people whom many of us have forgotten. Charlemagne, talk a little bit, if you would, to remind us of who he was and why he was significant in the 8th century. So Charlemagne, Charlemagne, Charles Great, is a Frankish king, and the Franks have inherited the Roman province of Gaul, what's now France, and of course France takes its name from

the Franks. and Charlemagne ends up ruling this enormous empire which covers much of France, Germany, goes down into Italy, and on Christmas Day, 80,800, he is crowned Caesar in Rome by the Pope himself and thereby proclaims the resurrection

of the extinct Roman Empire in the West. And it, it, the power of it, is the idea that has been inherited from the age of Constantine, that the Roman Empire has a particular role to play in God's plan. And you'll know that this is very significant in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Constantinople, this is the great ideology. And in due course, the Third Rome, Moscow will also inherit it.

And it takes a long time for the idea that the emperor, the Roman emperor, has a role to play in God. plan, that the idea that this actually isn't fundamental to Christianity takes quite a long time to make itself manifest, but it is, I think, a completely crucial process of discovery because actually, long before Charlemagne, long even before the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, there is a very, very great Christian scholar who is arguing that Rome has no significance in God's plan, that the Roman Empire is simply like any human life, that it is part of a fallen world, that it has been created, it will exist, it will fall away, it will be swept away

on the great currents of time. And this great scholar, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, he uses the Latin word cyclum to sum up the instability of human affairs. The cyclum is the span of a human life, but it could be applied to an earthly state like the Roman Empire. And he's writing specifically the city of God in the context of the fall of Rome, the city of man. And he's saying, ultimately, the fall of the Roman Empire doesn't matter because what matters is the eternity of heaven. And humanity, even amid all the turbulence of the cyclum, can be joined. There is a bond, what in Latin is called a religio that will join fallen humanity to the eternity of heaven. So he's counterpointing the cyclum to this religio, this bond that joins the Christian people

to heaven. And over the course of the centuries that sees the reign of Charlemagne, the rebirth of the Roman Empire in the West, the idea that the emperor has a role analogous to the role of the Pope, you're also getting this idea that society can be conceptualized as containing the twin dimensions of the cyclum and of religio. And in the 11th century, this gets weaponised by people who, by radicals, by reformers, who essentially take possession of the bishopric of Rome, which has this kind of preeminence in the Latin West because of its historical status. Through this idea that the body of the church, because it is the religio,

because it is the thing that joins the Christian people to heaven should have nothing to do with the dimension of the cyclum, which includes emperors. And so there's a phaed tatemic moment where the emperor is humbled by the pope. The emperor has to kneel in the snow and beg absolution from the pope. And there's this grinding process of revolution throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, whereby the revolutionaries in the church are essentially saying,

the dimension of religio should have nothing to do with the cyclum, split off. And so you start to get this sense that there are these twin dimensions. And of course, in the long run, cyclum will be anglicized to become secular. And religio will be anglicized to become religion. And this idea that there is a state that is secular and a condition that is religion, this is something that we in the West completely take for granted. We just assume that there is something called the secular and you know you no more need to explain it than you would have rain

what rain is or a dog or something. It's just something that is. But it isn't. It's a wholly weird and novel way of understanding the world. No other civilization has ever come up with anything like this. And because we are so marinated in it, we don't recognize that. But you can see the bewilderment that say people in India feel when British Protestants turn up and start asking, well, what is the religion, you know, what's the religion here?

You know, the British call it Hindustan. They call the people who live in India Hindus. And they say, well, what is the religion of the Hindus? It must be Hinduism. Right. Completely invented. Yeah. So the very idea of there being religions, of world religions, you know, Judaism would be another example. Jews in the 19th century in the wake of the French Revolution are allowed to become citizens of France and other. countries, but in doing so, they have to give up the notion that they are a distinct people and accept that they belong to something called a religion.

And the same is happening now for Muslims in Western countries. Islam, again, has no concept of the secular and the fact that there is something called Islam that is a religion. And a huge part of the kind of the growing pains of Islam in Europe at the moment is that Muslims are granted freedom of religion, but that requires them to accept. that they belong to something that is called a religion. Right. And there are also Muslims you don't want to think that.

Well, again, that's, you've been touching on it, and you touch on it through the book. It's, it is a radical idea because for many people, you know, there's, there's theocracy, there's this idea that it's all one, that it's, right, these things can't be separated. I think it's just the, actually, I think it's, I think it's the idea that the supernatural is, it's like the gin in a gin and tonic. You know, the tonic and the gin are separate,

but they're completely, they're so interfused that it would just be mad to try and extract the gin from a gin and tonic. But that's basically what the papal reformers in the 11th and 12th century do. Yeah. With... Well, with historic long-term consequences. There's way too much here. We have to leap in the interest of time.

To the last chapter, titled, Woke. I found myself not tracking with some of what you say. So I wanted to talk about it, because if you don't mind, and you've already touched on it, but say a little bit about about what you're getting at in the last chapter. Well, this book came out in 2019, so just before the pandemic and then that lives matter and I have to say that nothing that has happened since

the book came out has in any way caused me to think that I might as in any way of been wrong. So that's brilliant news for me. So underpinning whatever we want to call it,

wokeism, progressiveism, I mean, we don't have a really word for it, but everyone probably knows what is signified by that is a valorization of those who historically have been disadvantaged. And the fact that the disadvantage should be valorized is kind of taken for granted.

Right, right. But you can imagine what Nietzsche's take on this would be. And he would say this is just reheated Christianity. Yeah. And I think he's completely right on that. And it's often been said that woke kind of ties in with the notion of awakenings that have been part of Anglo-American Protestantism for centuries. Well, you talk about Angola Merkel.

You say the truly, the only Christian thing to do, this is Merkel, faced by the flood tide of misery lapping at Europe's borders, was to abandon any lingering sense of the continent as Christendom and open it up to the wretched of the earth. So obviously there is this... So that's the paradox. Yeah. But I mean, I want to talk about that

because that's where I found myself not ultimately tracking where you were going with it. Hey, folks, listeners to my show know I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted

and enslaved for their faith. Thanks to you to date, CSI has freed more than 100,000 people from slavery in Sudan, but the work is. is not done yet. It's estimated that there are still tens of thousands more still in bondage. And CSI is preparing right now for their final slave liberation of this year. I'm hoping you'll join me and help them liberate another 300 women and children. Your gift of just $250 will free a woman

in Sudan who has been enslaved for years and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Call 888-253-3522. 888-253-2522. Christian Solid International, freeing and healing captives in Jesus' name. Go to metaxistalk.com. Metaxistock.com. Click on the Christian Solidarity banner. Metaxistock.com or 888-2533522. God bless you.

For the poor, we should care for those outside. I mean, I think most people in the modern world would say, of course, that's right. The question, of course, becomes the specifics. That's what I meant. Yeah. I think the Chinese would. No, no, that's a, well, correct. So you say, yes, that's right.

But then the question is one of application, right? I mean, the specifics. Is it wise to open up one's borders? Will it actually bless many people or will it ultimately have a bad effect? And I think folks like Merkel were really thinking emotionally in a way. So I mentioned St. Basil, right? this incredible piece about refugees coming into, you know, the cities of Capodokia in the Roman Empire.

And he, of course, you know, he cites the parable of the Good Samaritan. And Angela Merkel, likewise, is the daughter of a, you know, a Lutheran pastor who was, so she would have, you know, she would have heard him preaching on the, the, The Good Samaritan, Sunday after Sunday. And I think there's a case for saying that the parable of Good Samaritan is the most influential short story ever written. I mean, it's because the whole point is that it's about loving your enemy. You know, Judeans and Samaritans hate each other. That's the whole point.

That you should love and care for and welcome people who you don't like, who you're hostile to, who might try and destroy you. I mean, that's the madness of it. The strangeness of it. And so there is a strain within Christianity that has always tried to hold true to that. But in that chapter on the refugee crisis in Europe,

in whatever it was, 2015 or whatever, I do also cite another Christian approach to dealing with outsiders, which is that of Victor Orban, who is the leader of a country that was occupied by the, Ottomans by a Muslim power for centuries and centuries, and so the Hungarians are not tremendously keen on welcoming Muslims back in. And his attitude, unlike Merkel's, was to say,

well, brilliant, let's put up the barbed by fences and keep them out. And that also is an enduring Christian approach, because to reiterate, Christianity is full of paradoxes and tensions and is capable of multiple interpretations. And the Christianity that says we should care and love for our enemies and welcome them in is also counterpointed by the Christianity that says, you know, Christ came not to bring Paul's but peace, but to wield a sword. And the Crusades are as much a part of Christian history as the Quakers.

And the argument about what should. to be done, you know, how should a Western state respond to the pressure on borders? I mean, it's framed as a political debate, but again, I think it's a theological debate. Which aspect of that Christian inheritance do you emphasize? And I can't help but think that Merkel's decision to let in so many really simply comes out of national guilt for the Holocaust. I can't see it any other way. hoping to atone somehow. I'm sure that as a politician,

that must have been on her mind. Yeah. Because she needed to take the German people with her. And so I'm sure she, you know, she understood that. Yeah. But I suspect that, I mean, she's very, she's very shaped by the teachings of the gospel. And so she will have her own personal understanding of what they mean.

So I'm sure that she did it because she thought that, you know, wasn't just kind of wasn't just the political calculation. And I'm sure it wasn't even about thinking, well, how can Germany expiate its sins. But just she thought it was the right thing to do, exactly as Orban. Similarly, thought it was the right thing to do. The right thing to do morally. Right. Yeah.

So why do you think we like the idea, the subversive, crazy idea, that we who have power should use it to bless those who don't have power? Why do we approve of the idea that we should care about slaves or should want to eradicate slavery? I mean, we all agree that it's right, but why? Do you... I think... I mean, I guess my question is...

Okay, so a cynical answer would be. Cynical answer would be, you know, why does it take off in the Roman world? It takes off partly because it enables the rich. It gives them a new source of patronage. They obtain moral credit by using their wealth to care for the poor. And it opens up a new way in addition to kind of the raw power. You have a kind of moral power that gives you credit. The broadening of ways for you to get status.

always benefits the society, I think. But for the poor, obviously, you know, if suddenly you have an ideology that says that the sick or the weak or the hungry or whatever should be cared for, I mean, what's not to like? So I think that different classes of society are getting different things from it. Well, but I, that is a very cynical answer. So because I, I can't, you know, I can't help but wonder. Well, so the Christian answer would be that it works because it's true, because it chimes with the universe that God created and that he then entered as a human being. And so therefore, you know, Paul writes about the law of God being written on the heart.

Right. And that is what, that is why, that's why it works. is because that's the law of God. Conscience opens it up. You can feel it. So that would be the Christian answer. That's the Christian answer. But the question is, what is the answer?

I've given you what I think my answer. Well, you've given me two answers. I have, so you can choose. I can choose. Well, there's God and the devil. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, to me, that's the beauty of your book and of your thinking and your writing. is that you're able to talk from many sides about things that are so important and so central. So I think we'll open things up to the audience. But before we do that, let me say from the bottom of my heart, Tom Holland, thank you. Before I forget, I've got a number of things I want to share before we sign off for today. But I would remind you, first of all, of our friends at the Herzog Foundation. I've talked so much on this program about how our nation's public schools have been captured by, let's say, progressive ideologues, to put it nicely.

Marxist lunatics is another term you might use. Now, this doesn't mean everybody who teaches in public schools, but so many that if I could homeschool my kids or send them to a quality Christian school, I would absolutely. Absolutely do that. So that's why we're friends with the Herzog Foundation because they make it possible for anybody to do this. If you go to their website, they have all kinds of free resources, folks, for you. If you're thinking about homeschooling, you're thinking about quality K-12 Christian education, you go to Herzog Foundation.com. That's Herzoggfoundation.com.

They are a tremendous resource. Take advantage of them. They're there to help. Herdsock Foundation.com. Okay, a lot of other stuff before we sign off of the day, I want to remind you again of our campaign with CSI. Very important that everybody participate. This is an amazing opportunity. Everyone can participate at some level.

Everyone. You could do $5 a month. This is freeing slaves. This is helping our friends at CSI, Christian Solidarity International, freeing slaves. It's real. It's beautiful that we get to do this. Every year we partner with them. So we're asking you to go to the website. It's metaxis talk.com. That's our radio website. Lots of other stuff there. But if you go to Metaxotococcom, right at the top of the page, you'll see it. If you'd prefer to call, some people prefer to do that. I will give you the phone number. If you're ready, are you ready? You're ready for the phone number? You can call it today. Here it is. 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. Since we're talking about Christmas gifts,

I want to remind you about the Socrates in the city book, brand new book. It's called Conversations on the Examined Life. You can find it at Socratesin-the-city.com. A great gift, trust me, on this. If you give that to somebody who's a thoughtful person and they start reading it, they're going to encounter great ideas.

I don't say these things lightly. it's at the heart of my whole life. You can go to Socratesinthe city.com. There's actually all this other swag, really, like the sweatshirts are gorgeous. They're just beautifully designed. A lot of fun stuff. Socrates in the city.

com. Hey, folks, listeners to my show know I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their faith. Thanks to you to date, CSI has freed more than 100,000 people from slaves, in Sudan, but the work is not done yet. It's estimated that there are still tens of thousands more,

still in bondage. And CSI is preparing right now for their final slave liberation of this year. I'm hoping you'll join me and help them liberate another 300 women and children. Your gift of just $250 will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Call 888-253-3522. 888-253.5-3.000. 8-8-28-353. 3522, Christian Solidarity International, freeing and healing captives in Jesus's name. Go to metaxistalk.com. Metaxistock.com. Click on the Christian Solidarity banner. Metaxistock.com or 888-252. God bless you. Okay. Every new year, we all spend a few days seriously thinking about what we can do to improve our lives. And usually it revolves around better health, right?

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