The first scenario is what Holland described as “post-Christian Paddingtonism.” This view, inspired by the Paddington Bear books, presents Britain at its cuddly best: welcoming the immigrant bear from Peru and celebrating the triumph of kindness. Paddingtonism is a kind of Christian-inflected progressivism divorced from its distinctively Christian origins. Holland likens this kind of progressivism to a spacecraft that has become airborne through the booster rockets of Christianity: It’s like the head of the rocket has gone through the atmosphere. Everything else underneath it has been jettisoned and now it’s got the power to blast through the solar system. And all that . . . “nonsense” about the Bible and Jesus and the church . . . it’s gone. . . . We have now blasted out and we’re going forward. The secular principles—the liberal principles—are sufficiently self-evident and [they] will sustain the future evolution and development of our society for decades and centuries to come. Future 2: Postwoke Backlash The second scenario is a strong reaction against Paddingtonism. Holland explains, Another option which the history of the 20th century suggests is that the default assumption among humans is that strength and might is right. Power does have a glamor and this is what Nietzsche predicted. He said when Christianity goes there will be this great convulsion and . . . terrifying powers will emerge. And of course [Nietzsche] was right because they emerged in the form of fascism. And fascism and Nazism cast such a shadow over us that we’ve lived in their shadow. . . . One of the reasons I think for the decline of institutional Christianity is that Hitler has taken the place of the Devil. A modern liberal, now, rather than ask “What would Jesus do?” as his Victorian forebear would have done, says “What would Hitler do?” and does the opposite. And that’s kind of kept us on our liberal “straight and narrow,” but that is clearly fading as the [lived] experience of fascism in Europe dies out. Here, Holland is being influenced by Alec Ryrie, the second historian I listened to that week. He too plays the part of a futurist. In his recent book, The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It, Ryrie articulates the thesis: “A century ago the most potent moral figure in Western society was Jesus Christ. Now it is Adolf Hitler.” Where once we had a pro-Jesus vision, we’re now getting by on the fumes of an anti-Hitler sentiment. Such sentiment has propped up much of the humanism of the last 80 years. Ryrie calls the modern secular doctrine of human rights a “castle in the air” and a “defiant existential assertion of values . . . without any firm foundation.” Our ability to sustain such a secular vision depends on our shared remembrance of that “shadow.” And memories, like shadows, can prove insubstantial. The youngest veterans of the Second World War are now in their mid-90s. But living memory isn’t the only limit on the power of the antifascist mythos. There’s something intrinsically unsustainable about an anti-Hitler sentiment. The pro-Jesus vision it supplanted was positive in every sense. As “the greatest story ever told,” it could nourish its hearers and inspire true progress. But the postwar liberal order has been founded on a cautionary tale. This could only breed suspicion, insecurity, and an unearned sense of superiority for those “on the right side of history”—unearned because its true foundations were secured by the older, greater story. | 
