The Evolution of the West

Nick Spencer (Author) Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos, the Christian think tank. He is the author of a number of books and reports, including Magisteria (Oneworld, 2023), The Evolution of the West (SPCK, 2016), Atheists: The Origin of the Species (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Darwin and God (SPCK, 2009). Outside of Theos, Nick is Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. Sarah Smith (In-House Designer) Sarah Smith is the CEO of acet UK, a Christian charity delivering relationships and sex education in secondary schools and providing training to youth workers, teachers and parents. She lives in London, and is awell known speaker throughout the United Kingdon. She is the author ofA Guide to Growing Up: Honest Conversations About Puberty, Sex and God.

Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
1 Why the West is different 10
2 A Christian nation 25
3 Trouble with the law: Magna Carta and
the limits of the law 38
4 Christianity and democracy: friend and foe 51
5 Saving humanism from the humanists 64
6 Christianity and atheism: a family affair 79
7 The accidental midwife: the emergence of a
scientific culture 94
8 'No doubts as to how one ought to act':
Darwin's doubts and his faith 110
9 The religion of Christianity and the religion
of human rights 125
10 The secular self 138
11 'Always with you': Capital, inequality and
the 'absence of war' 152
12 Christianity and the welfare state 167
Books consulted 185
Index 187