I\u2019m sitting alone at my computer, shaking my head, and laughing.<\/p>\n
After 2 years of inspectionally reading books, I\u2019m staring at a thick and dense volume that virtually defies me to engage it with the efficient approach I learned in this program.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not ending our semester\u2014and our whole series of lead mentor classes\u2014with a breezy book like Pressfield\u2019s The War of Art,<\/em> Kleon\u2019s Steal Like An Artist<\/em>, or even Wilder\u2019s RARE Leadership<\/em>.<\/p>\n I thought we might have finished the program by reading another brief but important book, such as Max DuPree\u2019s Leadership is an<\/em> Art.<\/p>\n (By the way, If you haven\u2019t<\/em> read that book, I think it\u2019s a must for leaders).<\/p>\n No, we\u2019re wrapping this thing up with an honest-to-goodness doctoral-level read.<\/p>\n As it probably should be.<\/p>\n Tom Holland\u2019s Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em> is a perfect book to conclude our time together. We signed up for a seminary program to become more attuned to understanding and expressing leadership from a global perspective. Dominion<\/em> tackles the Christian faith, history, power and influence, social structures, and cultures, approaching them not from a US point of view but from a global one.<\/p>\n There is so much I could<\/em> write about this weighty book.<\/p>\n I could wrestle with Holland\u2019s clear Western frame of reference. Though I just lauded the book\u2019s global, not US, perspective, it still comes from a place grounded in Western thought. That is a limitation of the book but not a condemnation; every book has a framework that includes boundaries for what it is and is not.<\/p>\n I could also camp out on how Christianity, with its emphasis on love of the enemy and care for the weak, came to replace the pagan values of dominance and power, and how when Christianity embraced those pagan principles, it didn’t manifest Jesus\u2019 intentions for it.<\/p>\n Or I could admit that I had never heard of the writer Tom Holland until lately. Up until about a year ago, when people talked about this book or Holland\u2019s podcast, I honestly thought they were referencing the guy who played Spider-Man (and I\u2019m not kidding).<\/p>\n But for the end of our program (or at least this part of the program), I want to keep my comments simple.<\/p>\n My coffee table analysis of Dominion<\/em> is that so much of our Western worldview, including our values (such as the inherent worth of all humans, individual rights, and compassion for the hurting), is not only influenced by Christianity but is directly attributed to it, even though the explicit connection has been downplayed in a postmodern secular society.<\/p>\n That\u2019s quite a mouthful for a brief synopsis, but did I mention this is a big book?<\/p>\n Though the book is thick, the pace is quick. Holland doesn\u2019t bog us down with facts and figures but is adept at expressing narrative in a way that draws the reader in. Compelling stories about key Christian figures, as well as unknown ones, are all over this book and illustrate his points.<\/p>\n One of those points is that throughout history, the Church has been both a victim of persecution and a perpetrator of it. I appreciate that Holland doesn\u2019t shy away from criticism, and he exposes Christianity’s significant failures in history.<\/p>\n However, he uses those failures to build a strong argument for Christianity\u2019s influence. We see those failures AS<\/strong> failures because our faith teaches us a moral framework that allows us to recognize when wrong is done.<\/p>\n John Fehlen shared something with me that Tim Keller had pointed out, \u201cChristianity has such an enduring, pervasive influence that we cannot condemn the church for its failures without invoking Christian teaching and beliefs in order to do so.\u201d<\/em> [1]<\/a><\/p>\n I accept Holland\u2019s thesis and I think it\u2019s compelling. But I do have a critical question: Is it possible that some of the moral values that he attributes to Christianity are instead part of the ethical framework the God of Christianity instilled into every person?<\/p>\n In other words, when we engage cultures that have no connection to Christianity but that embrace the moral precepts Christianity teaches, perhaps we are encountering basic God-given human archetypes we learned about when we read Campbell or that we read about in Romans 2. \u201cwhen Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law… they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts\u201d<\/em>(Romans 2:12-15).<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t ruin the book for me. I will go back and read it more carefully (because, despite my initial intimidation, I did \u201cinspect\u201d this). It looks like a fascinating cover-to-cover read, and I would<\/em> like to do our final assigned book justice.<\/p>\n And finally, there’s this:<\/p>\n In the book I recommended, Leadership Is An Art<\/em>, Max DuPree famously wrote, \u201cThe first responsibility of a leader is to define reality, and the last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n So, I want to thank you, my classmates, for your encouragement, challenge, and friendship. This cohort has changed my life; I am a better leader and a different person because of you.<\/p>\n And I also want to thank Jason, who has shepherded us through these four semesters so well. I\u2019m grateful for the books we were told to read and how we were led to critically engage with them. I can’t imagine a better leader to shape us through this process.<\/p>\n