Christianity and the Religions

A review of a new history of modernity in the TLS raises a number of intriguing questions. The author of the volume claims that the age of nations is over, and that history writing has to catch up. History writing is still too much stuck in the rapidly vanishing world of nations. But what can be the unifying subject of such a universal history? That’s a good question, and suggests a life-project for some young Christian historian: Show that how the history of modernity can be told as a history of the church, the church as the sole universal subject of history.

The same review suggests that it was Christianity that encouraged other religions to become “religions.” Prior to the 19th century or so, the other “world religions” were ethnically and geographically restricted, and were not considered world religions at all. They were inspired to seek world status by the example of Christianity. Thus, Buddhists created a Buddhist form of the YMCA, and Muslims created the Red Crescent as an alternative to the Red Cross. It appears that Christianity has inspired mimetic rivalry in its opponents, and that even the non-Christian world is profoundly Christianized.

The book reviewed is C.A. Bayly , The Birth of the Modern World .