"What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us?"

The title of Jonathan Hill's new book might prod Christians to think about salvation from sin, the promise of eternal life and spiritual solace. But Hill, an Oxford-trained British historical writer, focuses on Christianity's role in world civilization. Thus its subtitle: "How It Shaped the Modern World."

Hill examines Christian contributions to balance embarrassments from bygone eras when churches exercised political control — the Crusades, sectarian wars, inquisitions, witch hunts and oppression of dissenters.

The theme is worth pondering when the European Union's proposed constitution doesn't even mention the religion's historical role. Noting that, and commending this book, Yale historian Lamin Sanneh (an African) says that without Christianity "Europe would be unrecognizable and undistinguished."

Many of Hill's positive points are aspects of Jewish biblical culture that Christians spread across the world. It would be hard to calculate the impact of Christianity's teachings about charity and the applications to which they have been put over the centuries.

Hill says Christianity's teachings on love and selflessness "fostered some of the most profound and appealing moral approaches that have ever been taught."

And think about language and literacy. Ninth-century missionaries who brought Christianity to eastern Europe first developed the system for writing local languages that exists today. Centuries before, a missionary invented the alphabet for Armenia. Egypt's Didymus the Blind created a predecessor of the Braille system so sightless people could read.

Martin Luther's Bible translation virtually created modern German, and the literary impact of Bible translations in English cannot be overstated.

Christianity is a religion of the Bible, of the written word. So, as Hill writes, throughout history Christians have gone to great lengths to secure books and education.

During the so-called Dark Ages, monasteries were the only centers of learning across much of Europe. As early as A.D. 797, the Christian empire ordered schools to be established in each town so children could study for free, with parents donating what they could afford. Cathedral schools to train clergy, ordered by the pope in 1079, eventually evolved into the earliest universities in places including Paris and Oxford, England.