“That human beings have rights; that they are born equal; that they are owed sustenance, and shelter, and refuge from persecution: these were never self-evident truths. The Nazis, certainly, knew as much – which is why, in today’s demonology, they retain their starring role. Communist dictators may have been no less murderous than fascist ones; but they – because communism was the expression of a concern for the oppressed masses – rarely seem as diabolical to people today. The measure of how Christian we as a society remain is that mass murder precipitated by racism tends to be seen as vastly more abhorrent than mass murder precipitated by an ambition to usher in a classless paradise. Liberals may not believe in hell; but they still believe in evil.”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

“The sanctity of work is its own reward; wage gains will take care of themselves over time.”

Lawrence Kudlow in National Review Feb. 20 1995

“the tide had ebbed as well as flowed: the occasional Bishop, caught out by an abrupt reversal of royal policy, had been forced to flee; the occasional king, cut down by a pagan rival, had been ritually dismembered. Nevertheless, by the time of Theodore’s arrival in Canterbury [668 AD], a majority of the Saxon and Anglian elites had tested the Christian god to their satisfaction. Like a sparrow flying swiftly through a hall and out again, into the storms of winter, so the brief life of man had seemed to these lords. ‘For of what went before it or what comes after, we know nothing. Therefore, if these new teachings can inform us more fully, it seems only right that we should follow them.’”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

“A remarkable quirk of our current moment in history is how hard people work to assure themselves and others that those they disagree with have no valid point – nor even a perspective of their own. Ever since the October 7 attacks on Israel last year, I’ve tried my best to adhere to a very simple rule: my time and energy are finite. I have demands upon both. I’m not going to spend a single moment of time or calorie of energy trying to change anyone’s mind about the situation in the Middle East. I’m not going to argue or reply to anyone who disagrees with me, beyond a polite acknowledgment. There is simply no value for me in a debate. That being said, I have been genuinely surprised over these last almost 12 months by how little even Israel’s many harsh critics seem to value understanding the Israeli perspective.”

Matt Gurney on The Line October 3, 2024 [in places frankly he flirts with relativism, but you can understand a differing point of view without succumbing to mental or moral paralysis]

“Even the Jacobins, the revolution’s dominant and most radical faction, had initially been welcoming to the clergy. For a while, indeed, priests were more disproportionately represented in their ranks than any other profession. As late as November 1791, the president elected by the Paris Jacobins had been a bishop. It seemed fitting, then, that their name should have derived from the Dominicans, whose former headquarters they had made their base. Certainly, to begin with, there had been little evidence to suggest that a revolution might precipitate an assault on religion.”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

“Have you heard this line? ‘Now that we know about brain physiology, it’s obvious that there could be no such thing as free will.’ That’s like saying that the circuitry of a cellphone determines the conversations which takes place on it.”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” August 26, 2024 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/telephones-and-free-will].

In my latest Epoch Times column I explore the ongoing fascination with the Catholic Church on the part of people who scorn its teachings.

“Already, by the time that Anselm died in 1109, Latin Christendom had been set upon a course so distinctive that what today we term ‘the West’ is less its heir than its continuation…. Today, at a time of seismic geopolitical realignment, when our values are proving to be not nearly as universal as some of us had assumed them to be, the need to recognize just how culturally contingent they are is more pressing than ever. To live in a western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions. This is no less true for Jews or Muslims than it is for Catholics or Protestants. Two thousand years on from the birth of Christ, it does not require a belief that he rose from the dead to be stamped by the formidable – indeed the inescapable – influence of Christianity. Whether it be the conviction that the workings of conscience are the surest determinants of good law, or that Church and state exist as distinct entities, or that polygamy is unacceptable, its trace elements are to be found everywhere in the West…. The West, increasingly empty though the pews may be, remains firmly moored to its Christian past.”

Author’s “Preface” in Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World