Lunchtime Debating: Christianity and the Western Mind

Dine, Discuss, and Debate in a friendly environment!

Join us for our popular Lunchtime Debating Club for an afternoon of friendly conversation whilst dining at a local restaurant.

This month we will be discussing Christianity and the Western Mind and asking to what extent is the way we in the West think about the world based on ideas developed by Christianity? Leaving aside belief in God, to what degree is Western culture Christian in origin?

In his book The WEIRDest People in the World, Harvard Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, Joseph Henrich, investigated why the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. He found that societies that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) have psychological features with origins in the changes to kinship and marriage introduced by the Catholic Church over the course of more than a thousand years.

Historian Tom Holland, in his book Dominion, proposed that Christianity created a unique culture in the West. He charts how ideas such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in their Christian origins. He believes that in creating these ideas Christianity transformed the modern world.

We'll be discussing these ideas, and to what extent even a godless West is bound by a psychology and outlook that was created by its Christian origins.

Come along and share your views on these questions and anything else related that's on your mind.

Please note that we're meeting on Tuesday this month. We will also be in a different location - The Old Bell in Grazeley Green - who are able to offer us a quieter spot.

About Debating Club

Our discussions can cover any socially relevant issue. Participants decide on the topics for discussion based on their interests. From evolution to anthropology, from economics to psychology, from the environment to . . . anything that catches your interest.

If you want to contribute, we’d ask you to prepare something that has fired up your imagination. Contributions might be sharing ideas from a book or article you’ve read, or simply an idea that you’ve researched. Individuals will submit a written summary of their idea before the meal.

On the day, the group will question, debate, and assess the implications. If you want to come along to listen and comment, that’s fine too. The aim is to engage a group of like-minded people who enjoy understanding and challenging each other’s ideas.