RSA Fellow Paul Monk responds to Greg Sheridan, The Australian's Foreign Editor, a publicly strident Catholic. Sheridan asked Jordan Peterson, "Do you yourself believe that Christianity is true .. that Christ is the son of God?" In his inimical way, Peterson answered, "I’m certain that it’s true. I wouldn’t claim to be able to
explain what that means because I don’t know what it means."
Sheridan apparently went on to claim that "Five centuries of ascendant reductionist Enlightenment rationality have revealed that this starkly objective world lacks all intrinsic meaning..." To which Paul responds, "Truly?
Five centuries ago takes us back to 1524. Martin Luther had just nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg cathedral and ignited the Protestant Reformation. Over the following century and a half, Europe (or ‘Christendom’ as believers called it and still call it) would be torn apart by religious wars and persecutions, by the Inquisition and hunts for witches by both Protestants and Catholics, by the burning at the stake of heretics and schismatics .. is that
the Golden Age to which Peterson or Sheridan would have us revert?"
If only Emperor Constantine had not in the fourth century made Christianity the Roman Empire's state religion. If only he had instead adopted and promoted ... well, let's say Stoicism. How the history of
Western civilisation might have been different.
