{"id":31346,"date":"2023-02-24T12:50:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T20:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31346"},"modified":"2023-02-24T12:50:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T20:50:10","slug":"world-full-of-gods-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/world-full-of-gods-love\/","title":{"rendered":"World full of God’s Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Holland, the author of Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em>, is a British writer who wrote novels and historical non-fiction books on topics of classical and medieval history. In Dominion<\/em>, Tom analyzes the rise and impact of Christianity on the western world. He divides the book into three parts \u2013 Antiquity, Christendom, and Modernitas to bring historical perspective in a narrative writing style to explore \u201cwhat it was that made Christianity so subversive and disruptive; how completely it came to saturate the mindset of Latin Christendom; and why, in a West that is often doubtful of religion\u2019s claims, so many of its instincts remain \u2013 for good and ill \u2013 thoroughly Christian.\u201d[1]<\/a> The book is thick because Tom covers over 2000 years of history to point out the impact of Christianity on development of western civilization. He explains the modern western society \u201cwere not bred of classical antiquity, still less of \u2018human nature\u2019, but very distinctively of that civilizations\u2019 Christian past.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

I find his sudden personal realization and assertion on how our current western world is deeply rooted in Christianity very interesting. After many years, Tom came to conclude and saw his world filled with the historical impacts of Christianity. Tom first started writing novels on vampires, and it somehow led to writing non-fiction historical books, and somehow it changed his beliefs over the years to now find his faith in Christianity. Even though Tom was raised in the Church, his Christian faith grew dimmer as he grew up, but somehow his passion for history and research led him to find himself back at his Christian faith with a new set of the frame.[3]<\/a> I thought that Tom Holland did a fascinating work on narrating the snapshots of history by telling a story. He writes in a way where the reader feels being there in that historical moment that many aren\u2019t familiar with. It took a while for me to understand the significance of each chapter (I probably couldn\u2019t do it without the help from Wikipedia because a date and a word weren\u2019t enough to pick up which historical event he was writing about), and I appreciated his gifting in narrative writing. It was a very different way to engage with history and present history using a storytelling style.<\/p>\n

Tom narratives over 2000 years of history in 500 pages by using stories. The stories are told through events, people reacting to the events, and the values they held at that time. The Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 63 BC, Paul was trying to fulfill his mission in 19 AD, the priest, Ramihrdus of Cambrai, was burned to death by an angry mob in 1076, and the city Leiden became full of abundance and temptation in 1620, and the chorus for all you need is love recorded in Abbey Road Studios in 1967. Over the years in our history all over the globe, history is taking place through events, people, and values. But it isn\u2019t enough to hear and understand the details of events, people, and values, one must ask oneself, at the end of the day \u2013 What am I learning about myself, the world, and most importantly, God. The new learning about myself, the world, and God will bring the latest map and the frame of mind to navigate and lead the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em> (London: Abacus, 2020), xxiv.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unbelievable\/2020\/09\/tom-holland-i-began-to-realise-that-actually-in-almost-every-way-i-am-christian\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Holland, the author of Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, is a British writer who wrote novels and historical non-fiction books on topics of classical and medieval history. In Dominion, Tom analyzes the rise and impact of Christianity on the western world. He divides the book into three parts \u2013 Antiquity, Christendom, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2649],"class_list":["post-31346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tom-holland","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31347,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31346\/revisions\/31347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}