Tom Holland appointed Canon Historian at Salisbury Cathedral

Broadcaster and creator Tom Holland has been installed into Salisbury Cathedral’s College of Canons. He might be the cathedral’s first Canon Historian.

Holland is legendary for books equivalent to Dominion, which examines Christianity’s lasting legacy within the Western world and for his podcast, The Rest is History.

Despite an atheist father, Holland was brought up as an Anglican by his mother, once telling  the New Humanist, “I’ve all the time associated Anglicanism with goodness and decency and generosity of spirit and compassion, so I never had that visceral association of Christianity or institutional religion with repression or dogma or illiberalism.”

However, as an adult, Holland became an atheist, struggling to search out proof for the existence of God.

This began to alter, it seems, as Holland considered the crucifixion, specifically its significance in forming the morals of the West.

In 2016, he told the New Statesman, “Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was … [Christianity] is the principal reason why, by and huge, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take as a right that it’s nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering.

“It is why we generally assume that each human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I even have learned to just accept that I’m not Greek or Roman in any respect, but thoroughly and proudly Christian.”

Holland was welcomed into his recent position at Salisbury Cathedral, by the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Rev Nicholas Papadopulos.

“Tom Holland’s erudition, wit, and dazzlingly big selection of interests have won him an enormous audience; he writes with intelligence and insight on the overwhelming impact that Christian faith has had on our world; he’s a son of Wiltshire and long-time supporter of Salisbury: we’re delighted to welcome him as our first Canon Historian,” he said.