Essay
Plon, October 2007
Presentation
Why did democracy and human rights originate in the West rather than in India, China, or the Ottoman Empire? Because the West was Christian, and Christianity is not merely a religion. Certainly, the message of the Gospels is rooted in faith in God, but Christ also teaches an ethic with universal scope: the equal dignity of all, justice and sharing, non-violence, the emancipation of the individual from the group and of women from men, freedom of choice, the separation of politics and religion, and human fraternity. When, in the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the wisdom of Christ was largely obscured by the Church. It was reborn a thousand years later, when Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers drew upon the "philosophy of Christ," as Erasmus called it, to emancipate European societies from the grip of religious powers and establish modern humanism. Frédéric Lenoir recounts here the paradoxical destiny of Christianity—from the testimony of the apostles to the birth of the modern world, by way of the Inquisition—and invites us to reread the Gospels with radically new eyes.
Translations
Korea: YEONAMSEOGA Publishing Co.
Spain: EDITORIAL ARIEL
Greece: EDITIONS POLIS
Italy: GARZANTI LIBRI Srl
Japan: NIGENSHA
Japan: TRANS VIEW
Netherlands: UITGEVERIJ TEN HAVE
Portugal: CALEIDOSCOPIO