Humanism as Heresy: Testing the thesis of Tom Holland

The secular historian, Tom Holland, has made the case that
atheistic humanism is, at heart, an off-shoot of Christianity. In
this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake
and Mark Vernon ask how that can be so. After all, contemporary
humanists are inclined to blame Christianity for all ills, not
thank Christianity for seeding values they share. Rupert and Mark
agree that there is much in what Holland argues. For example, the
tendency to evangelise for western values, as well as fall into
dispute over what they might be, mirrors Protestant Christianity.
But Mark is also wary of Holland’s theory, both as history and
also because it risks presenting Christianity is a moral creed,
not a revelation of the relationship between the human and
divine. (A recent speech that Holland gave outlining his ideas
can be found at Unherd.com and the website of the think tank,
Theos.)