Reflecting the Character of Christ

John 13:34-35 says, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (CSB). These words have inspired millions of people over the centuries. But as a child, British Historian and award-winning author Tom Holland labeled them “boring.”

Tom Holland, Ph.D., not to be confused with Spiderman ?, was raised by a devout Anglican mother and an atheistic father. Holland learned the Bible stories by attending church with his mom. He became so fascinated with the Bible’s great imperial powers such as the Persians, the Babylonians, and the Romans, that he built his career around studying his named heroes.

Holland admits that his affinity for the great powers who dominated history clouded his analysis even as he established his career as a historical novelist. Because he had romanticized and idealized the Romans and Greeks, he didn’t think deeply about their choices to devalue other humans.

Eventually, Holland realized something within himself. With each book contract, Tom Holland’s research revealed polarizing differences between the morals and ethics of his self-proclaimed heroes and himself.

Holland said, “The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics, and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more. It was not just the extremes of callousness that I came to find shocking, but the lack of a sense that the poor or the weak might have any intrinsic value.”

With an accurate study of world history, Tom Holland not only changed his views on the Romans and Greeks but also realized that while he declared himself agnostic, his life was deeply infused with Christianity.

In an article he penned in 2016 called, “Why I Was Wrong about Christianity,” Holland wrote,

Today, even as belief in God fades across the West, the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian (emphasis added).

In the years since publishing this essay, Holland went on to write Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, which expands on Friedrich Nietzsche’s argument that the character of Christ was still present in the core values of the those choosing science over God rather than science and God—an assertion that caused him to be committed to an asylum.

Beth M. Walker is an author, speaker, and experienced digital marketer. Married to a football coach and raising two sons, she has waded through the challenges of balancing home life with the work she loves. One of Beth’s gifts is helping others discern their gifts and take them to the next level. With many years of expertise in writing and digital marketing, she has helped countless people identify their unique calling, thrive in their life purpose, and pursue their courageous next step vocationally. She blogs at BethMWalker.com.

Photograph © Aaron Burden, used with permission