On the edge of my property a lone peach tree grows between the woods and the gravel drive. Years ago, someone probably finished eating a peach and carelessly tossed the pit out of their car window. With the dense undergrowth, the pit overcame insurmountable odds to sprout into a sapling and grow into a small tree.
Tom Holland’s magnificent book “Dominion” develops in detail what amounts to a very simple proposition – namely, that Christianity is responsible for many of the central values we take for granted and assume to be universal. In point of fact, he says, our insistence on the dignity of the individual, fundamental human rights, the principle of equality and, perhaps above all, that the poor, the marginalized and the victimized ought to be specially cherished, flows from basic Christian convictions.