Rumours of Christianity's demise greatly exaggerated

In an age of historical amnesia, it is easy to fall for glib catchphrases like 'religion poisons everything'.

But with the passing of Christopher Hitchens, who coined this phrase in the title of one of his books, a new history of Christianity provides historical context and nuance.

It undermines Hitchens' and other assumptions of the 'new atheists' about the contribution of the most influential religion of the past two millennia.

Following his Short History of the World and Short History of the 20^th Century, Australia's greatest living historian, Geoffrey Blainey, tackles the Jesus sect in A Short History of Christianity (Penguin Books, 2011).

Like the previous works, this is accessible history to the layperson (no pun intended).

Blainey writes with perspective and deep understanding that doesn't shoe-horn people and events into the narrow prism within which we make moral judgements today.

For instance intolerance was not confined to the church in an age when precious truths were often defended with brutality.

Having just completed a century where atheist government killing and torture made the crusades and the inquisition look tame in comparison, balance and perspective is necessary before judgement is passed about whether or not Christianity is a moral evil, as the new atheists imply.

Rather than poisoning everything, even a casual glance at history shows it is more accurate to say that Christianity has been the great civilising influence in the face of barbarism, indifference to the sick and poor and in opposition to tyrants in the institutional church, nobility and state.

This is no whitewash of Christianity's blemishes but the conclusion Blainey makes is that its success has been its ability to constantly reinvent itself.

Indeed this is a theme that runs through the book as the 'centuries glide by'. Whether it was the monastic movement which preserved both theological and classical learning, Franciscan Friars with their vow of poverty challenging the opulence of the institutional church, or Luther, Wesley and other non-conformists calling Christians back to the basics of the faith there is a an ebb and flow which explains why Christianity maintains its place in the hearts of millions.

With today's focus on fault-finding, Blainey reminds us of many of the culture-defining contributions of Christianity.

The faith multiplied in its early years because it helped the sick, poor and the dying, when others were not interested.

When the unthinkable happened and Rome imploded, Christianity hunkered down for the long-haul with a new civilisation called Christendom emerging in Europe.

Rather than being anti-intellectual, Christianity uniquely fostered higher learning in the so called Dark Ages with the creation of the university.

With an historian's eye for irony, Blainey wryly notes that no other institution in the past century has done more to foster an alternative secular worldview.

The foundations of the modern west owe a huge debt to Christianity. The rise of democracy would not have happened without the Reformation challenging the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the counter-reformation that followed.

As Blainey notes, this new freedom to challenge authority has also allowed atheism its place.

Re-invention, whether through Jesuit intellectualism and evangelism, or revivals to moribund Protestantism, has meant that Christianity has been massively influential globally.

Nonconformist Christians and their democratic ideals were seminal in the founding of America and gave rise to modern notions of tolerance and religious freedom which are now under question by aggressive secularists.

Australia's founding was also touched. John Newton, the former slave ship captain who upon his conversion to Christ wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, teamed up with the great Christian anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce to ensure that our first chaplain, Richard Johnson, was someone with a vibrant living faith, not just a cultural Christian.

Whether it was making slavery in the west and widow burning in India unthinkable, Christians were at the forefront of challenging accepted practices which were an affront to the idea that all human life had value and should be protected.

In recent centuries as enlightened secularism has tried to create a world where man, as Blainey puts it, "can live by bread alone", the utopian hopes of man's technological and material achievement have been dashed.

Two bloody world wars and the unprecedented systematic genocide of atheistic fascism and communism have seen to this.

Blainey is not willing to write Christianity off. "While science's achievements have been remarkable, they have not been revolutionary in probing human nature."

Rather than fading away as many militant atheists hope, Christianity remains relevant to 30 percent of the world's population making it still by far the largest religion.

Despite the faults of institutional religion, Blainey is able to conclude that Christianity has helped far more people than it has harmed.

At a time when it is fashionable to only speak of Christianity's past in terms of the crusades and the inquisition – even by the designers of our new national curriculum – a short look at Christianity's history shows it is far removed from Hitchen's poison.