Essay
Plon, October 2007
Presentation
Why were democracy and human rights born in the West rather than in India, China, or the Ottoman Empire? Because the West was Christian, and Christianity is not just a religion. Certainly, the message of the Gospels is rooted in faith in God, but Christ also teaches an ethic of universal scope: equal dignity for all, justice and sharing, non-violence, emancipation of the individual from the group and of women from men, freedom of choice, separation of politics and religion, human fraternity. When, in the 4th century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the wisdom of Christ was largely obscured by the institution of the Church. It was reborn a thousand years later, when the thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment drew on the "philosophy of Christ," as Erasmus called it, to emancipate European societies from the grip of religious powers and found modern humanism. Frédéric Lenoir recounts here the paradoxical destiny of Christianity—from the testimony of the apostles to the birth of the modern world, including the Inquisition—and makes us reread the Gospels with a radically new eye.
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