{"id":42045,"date":"2025-09-11T17:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42045"},"modified":"2025-09-11T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:44:10","slug":"a-lot-of-questions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-lot-of-questions-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lot of Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever felt that you wanted to completely consume a book, lingering over pages, soaking in the lessons, and generally just wanting to absorb everything in it? That is where I am with Dominion<\/em> by Tom Holland. I like history and this book has lots of it with added depth as Holland provides copious details that seem to make the centuries come alive. His assertion that Christianity has informed much of western culture is bold, yet he backs it with historical references. This did make it difficult to narrow my focus.<\/p>\n

As I was reading, I was struck with how it reminded me Jordan Peterson\u2019s book, Maps of Meaning<\/em>. Both authors went into great detail to work out the meaning of life in relation to belief, and in particular related to Christianity. Yet, while neither author professed to being Christian, both acknowledges that they have been formed by Christianity[1]<\/a>. Peterson went so far as to recommend that people learn from and follow the teachings of Jesus[2]<\/a>. Where the men differed was in their focus and approach. Peterson is a psychologist and professor. Holland is an historian and author.<\/p>\n

While this book was dense, the area that drew me was his discussion regarding how people who were Jewish were marginalized and prohibited from becoming citizens in various Christian dominated realms. I\u2019ve often wondered why Jews have been so despised.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Was it because \u201cthey\u201d crucified Jesus?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Christian are taught that all of us are responsible for the suffering and death of Jesus as He submitted to it for each person.<\/p>\n

    \u201cfor our sake and for our salvation He was crucified under<\/p>\n

    Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried,<\/p>\n

    and rose again on the third day.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Portion of the Nicene Creed that dated back to approximately 381AD[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Is it because the Old Testament of the Bible recounts the many times God was displeased with His chosen people because of their sinfulness in worshipping idols?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The Old Testament is sometimes difficult to read. Not because of all the names of kings and descendants but because it is full of violence and people turning away from God, the laments of Jeremiah as he spoke God\u2019s word to a people who would not turn away from sin, the line up of kings who did not do right in the eyes of the Lord. I think of David, having Bathsheba\u2019s husband killed so David could take her for himself (2 Samuel 11), Solomon who was so gifted in wisdom, yet he also became wealthy and disobeyed God by taking foreign women as wives. (1Kings 11), Hezekiah who started out as a king who was very faithful to God but after God healed him of a deathly illness and offered him more years of life, he moved away from God. (2 Kings 18-20).<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Did they forget that Jesus was Jewish? He taught in the synagogue and held to many customs of his day. I have a lot of respect for people who are faithful Jews. Even with that, I pray that they get to know and believe in Jesus sooner than later. One of the most humbling times I had in college was when one of our Jewish friends accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Is it because the Bible refers to the descendants of David as the chosen people? Is it that causes people of other religions and nationalities to push them down?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

           <\/p>\n

            \n
          1. A thought that keeps coming back to me, though, is that many Jewish people were educated and financially successful[4]<\/a>. Could it be plausible that, people didn\u2019t like Jewish people because they were financially and professionally successful, thus prompting people in power to stop them from becoming a threat to their power.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Even\u00a0 with all those questions, people who are Jewish are not the only ones cast off. Throughout history groups of people have been hostile to migrants and people who looked, spoke, and sounded different for centuries. Putting up walls to keep people out has been going on since the beginnings of civilization[5]<\/a>. In The Identity Trap<\/em>, author Yascha Mounk voiced a possible remedy that well-meaning people have used to seek to rectify the disparities of discrimination by forming identity groups. People could function and even thrive within the bounds of their group. Perhaps those individuals were responding from a sense of right that has been taught to Christians worldwide. Yet, Mounk was worried that even though the identity groups where meant to support people of similar backgrounds and races, they also could further isolate people within those groups. I agree with Mounk that identity synthesis can be a political trap that makes it more difficult to maintain a diverse society where those living within can build mutual trust and respect for one another[6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

            While Christian thought and principles have had a great impact on the western world, Holland says \u00a0the culture in the United States today is more about politics not between Christians and people of other faiths, but between different factions of Christians[7]<\/a>. My often-simplistic view says that if Christians really tried to live a life that honors the person the faith was named after, there would be fewer wars, less violence, and little evil. There are pockets of people working together, but I think we will have to wait until Jesus returns to see it fully practiced.<\/p>\n

            [1]<\/a> FRDH Podcast with Michael Goldfarb, \u201cTom Holland On Dominion: Christianity and the Western Mind,\u201d Nov. 2, 2019, 4 Minutes.<\/p>\n

            [2]<\/a> Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning, The Architecture of Belief<\/em>, (New York, NY, Routledge, 1999), 455.<\/p>\n

            [3]<\/a> Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church<\/em>, 3rd<\/sup> ed., (New York, NY, Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons, 1970), 118. Nicene Creed, dated about 381 AD.<\/p>\n

            [4]<\/a> Tom Holland, Dominion, The Making of the Western Mind<\/em>,(London, Great Britain, Abacus, 2020), 406.<\/p>\n

            [5]<\/a> Holland, 500.<\/p>\n

            [6]<\/a> Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap, A Story of ideas and Power in Our Time, (New York, NY, Penguin Press,2023), 14.<\/p>\n

            [7]<\/a> Holland, 515.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Have you ever felt that you wanted to completely consume a book, lingering over pages, soaking in the lessons, and generally just wanting to absorb everything in it? That is where I am with Dominion by Tom Holland. I like history and this book has lots of it with added depth as Holland provides copious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[2967,2627],"class_list":["post-42045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-holland","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42045","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\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42046,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42045\/revisions\/42046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}