A British historian: Humanism, a Christian heresy

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A British historian said humanism is a Christian heresy.

Tom Holland, as “Religion Media Center” reported, added the humanist belief in the worth, dignity, fundamental rights and autonomy of the individual are “so widely accepted in contemporary Britain that many of us barely recognise them as doctrines at all”.

In a lecture delivered for the Theos think tank, he said the origins of humanist concepts lie not in science, but in medieval theology which shaped law.

Tom Holland said He said humanism is essentially Western and today, our values are not as universal as most of us had assumed them to be.

“To live in a Western country is to live in a society that for centuries — and in many cases millennia — has been utterly transformed by Christian concepts and assumptions” said Tom Holland

He added so profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilization that it has come to be hidden from view”.

This is while humanism elevates reason and the application of scientific inquiry to ethics and human rights.