{"id":42059,"date":"2025-09-11T22:38:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T05:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42059"},"modified":"2025-09-11T22:38:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T05:38:39","slug":"the-strangeness-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-strangeness-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strangeness Remains"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a>, Atticus Finch stands in a courtroom in a small Southern town, defending a man society has already judged guilty. His arguments are not just legal\u2014they are moral. He appeals to fairness, compassion, and the dignity of every human being, even when the world around him resists. What makes this so striking, as Tom Holland argues in Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind[2]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>, is that the very values Atticus embodies\u2014human rights, equality, and justice\u2014are deeply rooted in a Christian moral imagination, even in a culture that often claims to have outgrown its religious foundations. Holland highlights a paradox: the West frequently prides itself on secular ideals, yet it continues to rely on moral categories the ancient world would have found incomprehensible.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This article will explore Holland\u2019s argument, reflect critically on its scope, and connect his insights to the ongoing influence of the gospel in shaping both culture and individual lives. It will also examine how the myth of rugged individualism, so prominent in modern American culture, intersects with and often resists the Christian vision of human flourishing.<\/p>\n

Holland\u2019s Contribution<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Holland\u2019s central claim is sweeping but clear: Christianity transformed the moral imagination of the West. In the Greco-Roman world, strength, honor, and hierarchy defined humanity, while weakness and humility were despised. Christianity inverted these assumptions. At the heart of the gospel was a God who embraced weakness, suffered, and died for the undeserving. Suddenly, humility was exalted, and every human life was endowed with dignity and worth.<\/p>\n

This reimagining of what it means to be human rippled across history. From the early Church challenging Roman power structures to the rise of hospitals and universities, to the abolitionist movements against slavery, Christianity provided the moral framework that made such developments possible. Compassion for the vulnerable, equality before God, and the dignity of every person were not self-evident truths\u2014they were distinctly Christian convictions.<\/p>\n

What makes Holland\u2019s argument compelling is his emphasis on continuity. Even as societies grew more secular, the moral instincts they carried forward remained Christian at their core. Modern human rights, women\u2019s suffrage, and contemporary movements for social justice all depend on categories that would have been foreign to the ancient world but familiar to the early church.<\/p>\n

Competing Myths<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Holland himself names the heart of the tension in his work:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf secular humanism derives not from reason or from science, but from the distinctive course of Christianity’s evolution\u2014a course that, in the opinion of growing numbers in Europe and America, has left God dead\u2014then how are its values anything more than the shadow of a corpse? What are the foundations of its morality, if not a myth? A myth, though, is not a lie. At its most profound\u2014as Tolkien, that devout Catholic, always argued\u2014a myth can be true. To be a Christian is to believe that God became man, and suffered a death as terrible as any mortal has ever suffered. This is why the cross, that ancient implement of torture, remains what it has always been: the fitting symbol of the Christian revolution. It is the audacity of it\u2014the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe\u2014that serves to explain, more surely than anything else, the sheer strangeness of Christianity, and of the civilisation to which it gave birth. Today, the power of this strangeness remains as alive as it has ever been.\u201d[4]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage captures Holland at his best. He refuses to reduce Christianity to cultural residue or moral sentiment. Instead, he recognizes that at the center of Western morality lies not an abstract principle but a crucified God. The power of Christianity, Holland reminds us, lies in its audacity: strength revealed through weakness, victory achieved through apparent defeat.<\/p>\n

And yet, even here, Holland frames Christianity primarily as the myth that animates Western\"\" civilization. Jordan Peterson\u2019s Maps of Meaning[5]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em> helps clarify both the strength and the limitations of this approach. Peterson insists that myths are not mere stories but the deep structures by which human beings orient themselves toward meaning. In this sense, Holland is right: Christianity functions as the mythic foundation of the West, shaping moral imagination in ways no other narrative has matched.<\/p>\n

But Christianity does not stand alone in shaping culture. Another myth flavors the cultural waters of America: the myth of rugged individualism. While distinctively American in expression, its roots reach back to the Greco-Roman world. As mentioned earlier, in Rome, to be truly human was to exercise mastery over others, to rise above dependence, and to pursue honor and self-sufficiency. Weakness, vulnerability, and need were despised. It is not surprising, then, that this older vision of humanity\u2014power defined by autonomy\u2014re-emerges in the American myth of the self-made individual. Rugged individualism migrated with the earliest settlers, pushed westward with the pioneers, and continues to echo through our politics, saturate our pop culture, and, unfortunately, seep into our churches.<\/p>\n

Where Christianity proclaims the paradox of strength through surrender, rugged individualism insists on autonomy, self-reliance, and mastery over life\u2019s challenges. These two myths exist side by side, often in tension\u2014one calling for trust in the crucified Christ, the other calling for confidence in the autonomous self.<\/p>\n

Peterson\u2019s framework helps us see why this tension matters. Myths, he argues, are not ornamental but foundational: they orient how individuals and societies navigate meaning, suffering, and flourishing. Holland is right that Christianity\u2019s strangeness still exerts enormous influence. Yet America shows how competing myths can coexist\u2014sometimes reinforcing, at other times undermining one another. The question, then, is not whether myths shape us, but which myth ultimately tells us the truth about life and flourishing.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, (London: Arrow, 2020)..<\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em>, (London, UK: Little Brown, 2019).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid., xxix.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid., 524.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief<\/em>, (New York: Routledge, 1999).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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