Classic: Tom Holland vs AC Grayling: Did Christianity Shape Western Values?

Unbelievable?

Premier Unbelievable?

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

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Summary

Tom Holland and philosopher A.C. Grayling differ deliciously in this classic Big Conversation part of Premier's Unbelievable? Podcast. Where does the West’s moral compass really come from? Drawing on Holland’s bestselling Dominion and Grayling’s secular humanism, they spar over the roots of dignity, equality and rights. Was the cross a moral revolution that overturned Rome’s hierarchy reshaping attitudes to slavery, sex, and the status of victims? Or do our ethics flow chiefly from classical philosophy, the Renaissance and Enlightenment? Expect lively exchanges on Paul, Stoicism, preserving ancient texts, the abolition of slavery, and whether humanism is a “godless Protestantism”. A riveting clash of history and philosophy and what it means for faith, reason, science, law, culture and public life today and beyond. For AC Grayling’s ‘The History of Philosophy’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Philosophy-C-Grayling/dp/0241304539 For Tom Holland’s ‘Dominion’ https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

Transcript

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0:00.0	Children face unimaginable hardship worldwide.
0:03.0	But each Christmas, thanks to you, they receive great joy and the good news of Jesus in a shoebox.
0:09.0	My name is Desireenana.
0:11.0	Receiving the shoebox at eight years old was a really blessing for me.
0:15.0	It was just full of goodies.
0:17.0	God has being so faithful to me.
0:20.0	An Operation Christmas Child's shoebox gift isn't just toys.
0:23.7	It shows a child that God loves them.
0:26.0	Take yours to a drop-off point between November 10th and 17th.
0:29.7	So thank you so much for packing shoebox.
0:32.4	Operation Christmas Child from SamaritansPers, UK.
0:35.9	Search Samaritanspurse.org.uk slash premiere.
0:40.2	Welcome to today's edition of The Big Conversation here on Unbelievable. The Big Conversation
0:45.1	is a series of shows exploring faith, science, philosophy and what it means to be human in association
0:50.6	with the Templeton Religion Trust. Today we're debating history.
0:54.4	Did Christianity give us our human values?
0:59.6	The big conversation partners I'm sitting down with today are Tom Holland and A.C. Grayling.
1:04.8	Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster,
1:08.3	the author of several popular books on classical history, such as Rubicon
1:11.9	and in the Shadow of the Sword. His latest book, Dominion, tells the story of how Christianity,
1:16.9	and most specifically, its central story of the crucified son of God, came to shape the values
1:22.3	of human dignity and equality in the modern Western world, in ways that modern secularists
	...

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