Hopefully to bring the briefly noted review of Dominion from New Yorker here soon.
Dominion, by Tom Holland (Basic Books). This lively, capacious history of Christianity emphasizes the extent to which the religion still underpins Western liberal values. Holland argues that Christianity is to thank for our belief in the “intrinsic value” of human life and our respect for poverty and suffering. He traces even emphatically secular ideas, such as Marxism, to religious ethics, including brotherhood and equality, and emphasizes Christianity’s progressive aspects. St. Catherine of Siena’s rejection of an arranged marriage—she claimed that she was betrothed to Christ and, later, that her wedding ring was the foreskin from Christ’s circumcision—is seen not as an example of virginal virtue but in quasi-feminist terms, as establishing the idea that “consent, not coercion,” is the “proper foundation of a marriage.”