An in-depth look at core values ​​rooted in the modern world!
How were the values ​​of freedom, compassion, human rights, and equality formed?

Many people in Western society today diagnose that the church is dying.
Christianity is seen as outdated, narrow-minded, and responsible for many of society's problems.
Because of this situation, some people leave the church, and those outside view Christianity with skepticism.
But what if the Christian message is the very source of the values ​​modern society prides itself on and holds dear? In this book, Glenn Scrivener calmly unpacks, within historical context, how Jesus' teachings fundamentally transformed the ancient world, how they advanced our understanding of life, value, and meaning, and how Christianity is misunderstood by modern society.
He argues that the unique values ​​of Christianity have permeated our culture as naturally as the air we breathe.

In this chapter we try to see things from the Roman perspective.
In particular, we want to see the cross the way they saw it.
Our strange values ​​make it nearly impossible to do so.
When we hear words like rape and violence, inequality and cruelty, slavery and death by torture, our modern sensibilities begin to be triggered.
We have a hard time accepting these things as a 'given reality'.
Moreover, it is clearly difficult to regard these things as 'what should be done'.
But the Romans took all this for granted.
And when they stood at the foot of the cross, they looked down from the level of the cesspool upon the whole structure of the terrible reality that towered above.
The cross came from a violent power on high to crush the contemptible and maintain the 'righteous' order of the empire, and indeed of the universe.
To look upon a person sacrificed on the cross meant to see the lowest of the low.
--- From "Chapter 1: The Night Before Christmas"

Of course, Christians only complicate matters by claiming that the divine Son of God, described in the New Testament as “the Word” who created the world, became human (John 1:1-14).
Celsus remarks with horror that the Christian God “has abandoned the whole universe and the heavenly realm to dwell only with us.”
If it is arrogant to think that God specially blesses humans, how preposterous must it be to think that He became human? To Celsus, it was absurd.
But for Christians, this is the truth that makes everything understandable.
If (in the universal sense of the word) 'humans' were established to 'rule', then the true king would naturally appear as a human being.
He naturally enters history, into the center of the stage, in this way.
It is precisely the place that He prepared for Himself “in the beginning.”
To become human is precisely what this God would do.
And He did so to govern His own world and lead His creatures home.
--- From "Chapter 2 Equality"

In the ancient world, sexual relations between boys and girls were not merely tolerated.
It was praised by writers such as Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Straton, Lucian, and Philostratus.
The word they used was 'boy love', that is, love for children.
Christians abhorred this practice and called it by another name, 'child destruction.'
What the classical world called love, Christians called abuse, “and by this they understood all sexual contact with children as a depraved act.” During the reign of the Christian emperor Justinian, juvenile love was outlawed and abuse could be prosecuted long after it had occurred.
The church, which proclaims the sermon, and the state, which governs by law, work together to play a decisive role in preventing the sexual objectification of children.
--- From "Chapter 4 Agreement"

Whether your cherished views are about Christianity, freedom, democracy, a workers' paradise, or an Islamic caliphate, it is wrong to impose your views on others.
But the reason this is wrong is because we have a sense of what is right.
We believe that there is a fundamental difference between words and violence.
We believe that the way to expand influence is through persuasion, not force.
Where did we get this idea? It was Jesus who taught us to "put your sword back in its place" (Matthew 26:52), and it was Paul who exhorted Christians to use "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17).
The Inquisition, wickedly, used harsh means to coerce.
But if we believe that we must use gentle means, the best argument for this is the unique foundation of Christianity.
--- From "Chapter 5 Enlightenment"

The abolition of slavery was not a movement of the Enlightenment.
Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said:
“If we had left the abolition of slavery to the enlightened secularists of the eighteenth century, we would still be waiting for the solution.” But this Christian movement has been so completely successful that we share its vision as if it were a given.
Now we are all born free.
The fact that we have won hard-won victories in political and legal battles and military conflicts like the American Civil War means that we have come to take freedom for granted as our birthright.
Yesterday's victory has become today's common sense.
And now we look back on earlier times, puzzled by the fact that life might have been different.
--- From "Chapter 7 Freedom"

Heinrich Himmler clearly stated that we are “only a part of this world.”
Joseph Goebbels clearly acknowledged that Jews were also human beings, but added that fleas were also animals.
If the strong prey on the weak in the wild, why shouldn't they do the same in society? And why shouldn't the domination of a master race over a slave race be seen as a norm, even a virtue? If virtue is equated with "sacrifice that benefits one's own group in competition with other groups," then "fascism is the ultimate ideology of virtue, and devotion to human rights is the ultimate form of selfishness."
--- From "Chapter 8 Progress"

Christ presents himself not as a moral policeman but as a spiritual healer.
He came not to accuse, but to declare innocence.
We just have to admit that we need it.
This is the core of the Christian faith.
That is, acknowledging our sins and knowing Christ's forgiveness.
This is surprising news to those who know themselves to be like Edward Colston, a being of little good and much evil, and so depraved that he deserves to be condemned.
The doctor will see us.
He will forgive us, and after forgiving us, He will teach us how to forgive others.

--- From "Chapter 9: The Kingdom Without a King"