Tom Holland
Historian, Author, and Interpreter of Christianity’s Cultural Legacy
Born 1968
Tom Holland is a British historian, author, broadcaster, and podcaster known for writing large-scale narrative histories of the ancient and medieval worlds. His books include Rubicon, on the fall of the Roman Republic; Persian Fire, on the Greco-Persian Wars; Dynasty, on Rome’s first imperial dynasty; Pax, on the Roman Empire at its height; and In the Shadow of the Sword, on the late antique Near East and the emergence of Islam. He is also co-host of the widely heard history podcast The Rest Is History. (Hachette UK)
For the Berean Bible Study Project, Holland is especially important because of his 2019 book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. In it, he argues that Christianity transformed Western moral imagination so profoundly that even many modern people who reject Christian belief continue to think in categories shaped by Christianity. Ideas about the dignity of victims, concern for the weak, moral equality, human rights, and even some secular critiques of Christianity, Holland argues, developed within a culture deeply formed by the Christian story. (Hachette UK)
Holland’s perspective is particularly interesting because he approached Christianity first as a historian fascinated by Greece and Rome rather than as a conventional theologian or biblical scholar. His study of the ancient world led him to recognize how unusual many Christian moral assumptions were when compared with the values of classical pagan society. The crucifixion—a punishment associated with humiliation, slavery, and defeat—eventually became the central symbol of a civilization. For Holland, that transformation illustrates the extraordinary historical influence of the Christian proclamation.
He should therefore be classified differently from figures such as Augustine, Calvin, John Stott, or N. T. Wright. Holland is primarily a historian of civilization, not an exegete or systematic theologian. His contribution is to help readers see Christianity from the perspective of long-term cultural history: how biblical ideas moved beyond churches and became embedded in Western assumptions about morality, justice, suffering, power, and human worth.
Holland’s historical interpretations are broad and sometimes debated. Critics may question whether he attributes too much of Western moral development to Christianity or gives insufficient weight to Greek philosophy, Roman law, Judaism, Enlightenment thought, and other influences. His work should therefore be treated as an important historical argument rather than as the final account of Western civilization.
As a conversation partner, Holland is valuable because he raises a striking question for modern readers: How much of what the secular West regards as self-evidently moral is actually inherited from Christianity? His work helps illuminate the historical consequences of the gospel while reminding readers to distinguish between Christianity’s cultural influence and the truth claims of Scripture itself.
“You are the light of the world.”
—Matthew 5:14
View Tom Holland debate A. C. Grayling on YouTube → Did Christianity give the West its human values?