{"id":42014,"date":"2025-09-10T09:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42014"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:23:07","slug":"shaped-by-the-cross-why-our-morals-are-still-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/shaped-by-the-cross-why-our-morals-are-still-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaped by the Cross: Why Our Morals Are Still Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cross is one of the most ubiquitous symbols in the world. People wear it on necklaces, ink it into their skin, raise it on steeples and mountains, and stitch it into clothing and flags. It\u2019s so familiar, we hardly see it anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though it offers the idea of hope today, the cross was not always a symbol of comfort. In the Roman world, it was an implement of torture, designed not only to kill but to shame. My confirmation pastor once compared it to wearing an electric chair around your neck\u2026only worse. That image has stuck with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ancient cross on the Isle of Iona, Scotland<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom Holland\u2019s <\/span>Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World<\/span><\/i> helps explain why the cross is everywhere, as well as the impact of the poor rabbi from Nazareth two thousand years ago. He shows how the early Christians scandalized the Roman world by claiming that a crucified criminal was God incarnate, and that his death wasn\u2019t a defeat but a victory. In doing so, they introduced a revolutionary moral idea in which <\/span>the powerless were honored, the rejected redeemed, and the last made first<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

That revolution didn\u2019t just reshape religion; it reshaped everything, including how we understand ourselves. Today\u2019s dominant conversations around human rights, dignity, social justice, and even personal identity are built on assumptions that would have been unthinkable in ancient Athens or imperial Rome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such a revolutionary conviction didn\u2019t just give rise to a new way of believing\u2026 but to a new way of being human. As no other paradigm or construct has ever done, Christianity redefined <\/span>identity<\/b>, not only at the personal level but also as a social, political, and moral force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reimagined Identity<\/b><\/h2>\n

In the ancient world, identity was mostly inherited. Whether you were free or enslaved, male or female, Greek or barbarian, citizen or outsider, your place in the social hierarchy was largely fixed. As Tom Holland puts it, \u201cAlthough the Great King was content to allow his subject people to uphold their own laws\u2014provided, of course, that they were dutifully submissive\u2014he never doubted the cosmic character of his own prerogatives and responsibilities.\u201d [1]<\/span>. Public esteem and honor defined the self, and value was assigned rather than received.<\/span><\/p>\n

Into this stratified world came Paul, a Roman citizen and Jewish Pharisee, announcing a radically new basis for identity: not law, lineage, or social class, but <\/span>faith<\/b>. Writing to churches scattered across the Roman Empire, Paul declared, \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus\u201d (Galatians 3:28). This wasn\u2019t just a spiritual metaphor; it was a seismic reordering of human value.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cross in South Africa<\/p><\/div>\n

Holland captures the force of this moment: \u201cThe claim of Christianity to a universal message\u2026 had to appeal to people of every class, and of every level of education\u2026 That an identity might be defined by belief was in itself a momentous innovation\u2026\u201d [2]<\/span>\u00a0The early Christians claimed an identity that transcended national, ethnic, and gender distinctions. Christian martyrs in Roman arenas refused to name their ethnicity or citizenship. When asked who they were, their answer was simple: <\/span>\u201cI am a Christian.\u201d<\/span><\/i> [3]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the first time in history, the individual\u2019s deepest identity was not something imposed by the state, inherited from a tribe, or defined by public honor. It was rooted in <\/span>being loved by God<\/b>, and loving others in return. As Paul wrote, \u201cThe only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love\u201d (Galatians 5:6). This was the seed of the modern moral imagination: that every person, regardless of station, deserves to be shown respect and dignity.<\/span><\/p>\n

N.T. Wright summarizes it this way: \u201cThe fulfillment of Israel\u2019s hopes is the means by which the nations of the world are to be welcomed into the people of the one true God.\u201d [4]<\/span>\u00a0Identity was no longer fate; it was invitation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cross and the Transformation of Power<\/b><\/h2>\n

If Paul reimagined identity, it was the cross that redefined power.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Roman world, crucifixion was not just execution, it was humiliation. Reserved for slaves and rebels, it was a public spectacle designed to erase a person\u2019s dignity. To claim that such a death revealed divine power was incomprehensible. As Holland puts it, \u201cThat a man who had himself been crucified might be hailed as a god could not help but be seen\u2026 as scandalous, obscene, grotesque.\u201d [5]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the early Christians did more than claim this crucified man as divine; they claimed his death as the ultimate revelation of <\/span>love<\/b>, <\/span>justice<\/b>, and <\/span>strength<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Holland\u2019s most haunting stories is the martyrdom of Blandina, a young slave girl tortured in the Roman amphitheater at Lyon. Repeatedly, she was asked to deny her faith. She refused. Her body was broken, but her spirit was not. \u201cThe radiance of her heroism had put even her fellow martyrs in the shade\u2026 It was Blandina who had won every bout, every contest\u2014and thereby secured the crown.\u201d [6] Her persecutors were shamed; she was honored.<\/span><\/p>\n

This inversion\u2014of shame turned to glory, of weakness turned to moral authority\u2014became a defining feature of Christian identity. The cross was no longer a symbol of defeat but of radical victory. Power was reframed from dominance to <\/span>self-giving love<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim Keller explains this reversal with pastoral clarity: \u201cIf you see Jesus losing the infinite love of his Father [while on the cross] out of his infinite love for you, it will melt your hardness. No matter who you are, it will open your eyes and shatter your darkness.\u201d [7]<\/span>\u00a0In this new ethic, the highest status was not held by the conqueror, but by the one who <\/span>suffered in love for others<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This idea remains the foundation for understanding moral leadership today. From Desmond Tutu to Martin Luther King Jr., the power of protest against the loss of individual freedom, dignity, and autonomy has flowed from conviction, conscience, and sacrifice.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Identity to Action: Protest, Justice, and Conscience<\/b><\/h2>\n

Christian identity empowered action. Once people believed they were loved by God and equal in Christ, they began to <\/span>challenge the systems<\/b> that said otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin Luther, standing before imperial power, refused to recant his beliefs, declaring, \u201cHere I stand.\u201d His conscience had become his compass. This shift\u2014placing the authority of <\/span>inner conviction<\/b> over external requirements\u2014has shaped how the West understands justice and protest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom Holland traces this line from Paul to Luther to Martin Luther King Jr., who preached that \u201cEvery human being has the indelible stamp of the Creator.\u201d [8]<\/span>\u00a0Protest, in this tradition, is not rebellion for its own sake, but <\/span>a defense of dignity<\/b> rooted in divine worth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even secular movements today\u2014civil rights, human rights, social equity\u2014borrow from this Christian moral legacy. Holland writes, \u201cThat all men had been created equal and endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, were not remotely self-evident truths.\u201d [9] But the ethos of Christianity changed all that, creating our modern instinct to side with the oppressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Haunted by Christianity<\/b><\/h2>\n

We imagine our values\u2014human dignity, equality, compassion\u2014as universal. But Holland argues they are deeply shaped by the Christian story, particularly the image of a crucified God who sides with the victim. Even in a secular age, Western morality carries deep Christian roots. Holland writes, \u201cWhether it be the conviction that the workings of conscience are the surest determinants of good law, or the Church and state exist as distinct entities, or that polygamy is unacceptable, its trace elements are to be found everywhere in the West.\u201d [10]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern culture may believe it has moved past Christianity, but in many ways, it still thinks with its categories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rediscovering Identity in a Christian Key<\/b><\/h2>\n

The cross is easy to overlook now: flattened into jewelry, logos, and d\u00e9cor. But as <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i> makes clear, it once upended the world\u2019s understanding of who matters and why.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a culture that often struggles with questions of identity, value, and justice, the Christian revolution offers a deep reservoir of meaning. It teaches that worth is not achieved, but received; that power is most true when it serves; and that identity is rooted not in status, tribe, or performance, but in love.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Holland writes, \u201cThe power of the strangeness remains as alive as it has ever been.\u201d [11] <\/span>Perhaps it is time to remember how strange\u2014and how beautiful\u2014that ongoing revolution really is.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. Tom Holland, <\/span>Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World<\/span><\/i> (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 5.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 106.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 97.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. N.T. Wright, <\/span>The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus\u2019s Crucifixion<\/span><\/i> (New York: HarperOne, 2016), 150.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, xviii.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 93.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Timothy Keller, <\/span>King\u2019s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus<\/span><\/i> (New York: Dutton, 2011), 210.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 478.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 384.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. Holland, <\/span>Dominion<\/span><\/i>, xxv.<\/span><\/li>\n
  11. Holland, Dominion<\/span><\/i>, 524.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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