"Christianity does not need declared believers to continue flourishing"

• Whoa! Bless, Lord

The Dominion thesis . A New History of Christianity , by Tom Holland (edited by the books), had a perfect illustration this week in the United States riots. On Monday, Donald Trump left the White House, went to a neighboring chapel and, with a Bible in hand, claimed that his authority was backed by the God of Christians. On the other side of the city, protesters were talking about the Reverend Martin Luther King, about the Roman occupation of Galilee, about King David ... Basically, that's what Dominion is about : spinning all the stories of Christianity (rather than building a chronological account of religion) and in presenting them as the framework that explains our current life, so apparently irreligious.

Charlie Hebdo's drawings ? They do not have their origin in the Enlightenment but in the iconoclastic lawsuit. ¿ Pulp Fiction ? It is full of Old Testament dialogues and dilemmas. The concept of human rights? Monogamy? Sexual liberation? The Beatles singing All you need is love ? Tom Holland writes in quasi-parables to search for the Christian roots of anything ... and its opposite.

His gaze is neither mystical, nor apologetic, nor reproachful . Rather it has the sympathetic and friendly tone given by historical analysis. Throughout the book, Holland is defined as a Christian-educated person who lost interest in transcendence but who remained close to many believers whom he loved and respected intellectually. For a time, he shared that critical view of religion in the style of William Blake : the success of Christianity has been a hindrance in the history of the human being, has condemned him to be less free, more gregarious, not to live his sexuality naturally ... Those kinds of ideas that are also, in short, true. But studying ancient history allowed him to understand how unbearably cruel and brutal the pagan world was, so what we lost in freedom, Holland argues, we gained in compassion and generosity.

And there begins the thread of Dominion : with what key did Christianity give to attract the faithful with enormous speed? The one of goodness and comfort. "Like a successful cocktail, Christianity knew how to combine various existing ingredients to create something new. It universalized the attractiveness of the God of Israel, a deity who loved his creations, and who had created man and woman in his likeness," Holland explains, "and fused it with the emphasis of Greek philosophy on conscience, adding a touch of Persian dualism. He knew how to project it in an attractive packaging for the future global empire of Rome. The original ingredient it offered (as Paul knew how to see) it was the paradox of a crucifixed god: a god who loved the world so much that he had suffered the most agonizing and humiliating death.That was the consolation offered by Christianity: that the slave could triumph over the master, the victim over his torturer. a charge of depth wrapped in the assumptions of Antiquity ".

Was the figure of Jesus of Nazareth historically necessary? That is to say: if Jesus had died at the age of 10, or if Paul of Tarsus had not had his revelation ... would another mystical figure have appeared to transmit to the world a similar message of love of neighbor from the outskirts of the Empire? "I don't think Jesus was substitutable, because the key ingredient in his success was the strangest and most aberrant: the crucifixion of the Messiah, the Son of God. The Christians themselves understood this perfectly. They understood the connotations of the crucifixion better than anyone . ' The mystery of the cross, which calls us to God, is something despised and dishonorable. "This was written by Justin Martyr, the leading Christian apologist for his generation, a century and a half after the death of Jesus. He knew how shocking that was. And unless we understand it that way too, we will not be able to understand how strange and novel Christianity was. "

Dominio says that in early Christianity there was another factor that seems natural to us today but that 2,000 years ago was revolutionary: faith became a strict code of conduct. And the Christians accepted it, despite what was illiberal .

Holland brings the question of freedom into the sexual realm, one of the most problematic expressions of our Christian framework: "Paul's mystical understanding of the marriage of Christ to his church is what underlies his (in our eyes, perhaps) strict insistence that this was the only acceptable model for a human sexual relationship. But to consider this as something that is not liberal is not to understand the context in which Paul lived and preached. In the Roman cities, in Corinth and in Rome itself, the Sex was primarily an exercise in power . For Roman men, the bodies they used sexually, whether through the vagina, the anus, or the mouth, were like the cities captured by the legions. Being penetrated, whether it was a man or of woman, was to be marked as inferior: to be marked as feminine, barbarian or servile. While the body of a free born Roman was sacrosanct, the bodies of others were available. 'It is accepted that every master has right I am going to use your slave as you wish. ' In Rome, men did not hesitate to use slaves and prostitutes to alleviate their sexual needs, just as they used a street wall or a road as a toilet. In Latin, the same word melo means ejaculating and urinating. "

"Paul," Holland continues, "brought a radically different perspective: 'Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ himself?' He asked the Corinthians. How could a man, knowing that his limbs were consecrated to the Lord, think of uniting them with those of a prostitute, mixing his sweat with hers and becoming one flesh with her? By proclaiming the body 'a temple of the Holy Spirit', Paul not only dismissed as sacrilegious the carefree attitude of men in Corinth or Rome towards sex, he also gave a glimpse of hope to those who served them : to women in taverns, to the boys who painted themselves in brothels, and the slaves that their masters used without guilt. To suffer like Christ, to be beaten and degraded, and mistreated was to share part of his glory. That God would adopt them promised them the redemption of their bodies, just as Paul promised his Roman listeners: 'And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, what I saw see in you ».

Power and rupture

Dominio also talks about politics and power schisms. The orthodox, for example. "Although the schism was conventionally dated to 1054, the people of that time did not realize the severity of the breakup. The fights between Christendom's twin capitals, Rome and Constantinople, were not new. Relations had been complicated since centuries ago, and the popes and patriarchs had excommunicated each other many times before . However, the breakup of the eleventh century did reflect something new: a heightened sense in Rome of the dignity of the papacy. It was a period of radical reform, and the The Roman Church had become the first revolutionary institution in Europe. Many reformers in Rome came to believe that what was at stake in their relations with Constantinople was nothing less than a fundamental point in their principles. What the cardinal who had proclaimed did the excommunication of the patriarch of Saint Sophia was a trumpet blast on a decisive battlefield. The message he sent to the rest of Christendom could not be less clear: nobody, not even even the patriarch of New Rome could afford to challenge the authority of the pope. "

And the Reformation? Any 21st century Catholic will acknowledge that Martin Luther was a moral shooter , that he was right in his claims, and that he helped believers prosper and often live more freely. Why did Catholicism survive then?

"Christianity has always been a religion that looks back, towards the primeval moment of its origin, and the great heritage of the liturgy, of knowledge and of the doctrine that has defined it throughout the centuries. And also forward, to a future guided by the Holy Spirit, because the wind, as Christ himself said, “blows where it pleases.” The Catholic tends to place the emphasis on the inheritance of tradition, Protestantism on the embers of the fire of Pentecost . it has a lot to offer believers, both are complementary in that sense, "Holland replies.

"Strange as it may seem in Europe, we live in one of the great eras of Christian growth and evolution," Holland continues. "This is evident in the great boom in conversions that Africa and Asia have experienced during the last century; in the conviction of millions and millions that the breath of the Spirit, like a living flame, still travels the world; and in Europe and in North America, in the beliefs of many millions more people who would never think of describing themselves as Christians . Spain is not a less Christian country because many Spaniards no longer attend mass. Christianity, in fact, does not need declared believers so that the assumptions that support it continue to flourish. "

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