Britta Stumpp's 3 favorite reads in 2025

He shall have dominion also from sea to sea…

My husband, Adrian, has long defended Christianity, even during times when I was deeply opposed to it. Raised within the LDS tradition, he eventually reached a breaking point—a moment of clarity in which he recognized that the structure he had grown up in no longer aligned with his values. He felt overwhelmed by its pressures, contradictions, and judgments, and ultimately chose to walk away. Yet, throughout our life together, he consistently returned to the foundational messages of Christianity, revisiting them with me even when I refused to listen. I, who grew up with my own unique spiritual trauma, was deeply committed to being anti-Christian and perfectly comfortable dabbling in a variety of Eastern philosophies.

However, two family members started going to a non-denominational church and invited me. Realizing I was being the bigot this time, I decided to try it out and what I found was a deeply committed community of love, acceptance and service that opened my eyes to a wider picture.

When I finally admitted to my husband that I was very impressed by who these people are and was growing curious—not about what religious institutions claimed about Christ, but about who He truly was—Adrian recommended I read Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland. That book changed my life. Like me, Holland had been a student of history and had accepted the popular view that Christianity was largely a repressive force. He immersed himself in the study of ancient civilizations—Celtic, Greek, Roman—and though he appreciated many of their philosophical contributions, he was increasingly disturbed by the moral brutality that defined those cultures. Practices such as slavery, rape, misogyny, and even pedophilia were not only normalized but, in many cases, celebrated. Entire peoples could be destroyed without remorse or ethical concern. There was no cultural framework for compassion, human dignity, or individual rights. Holland’s critical question then emerged: Where did our modern sense of moral responsibility originate? Who first insisted that every person mattered?

After years of rigorous historical study, Holland concluded that many of the moral ideals we now take for granted—such as the inherent value of every human being—can be traced directly to Christ. In Dominion, he argues that Western civilization continues to live in the echo of Jesus’ life and crucifixion. Crucifixion, in Roman times, was considered the most degrading punishment imaginable, typically reserved for slaves and those deemed subhuman. That a crucified man would not only be remembered, but worshipped as God, was—then and now—utterly astonishing.

Jesus was, in every sense, a radical figure. In a world where Roman patriarchs wielded total control over every life in their household and where human worth was measured by power, Jesus proclaimed the intrinsic value of the marginalized: slaves, women, lepers, the impoverished, sinners, and foreigners. At a time when military conquest and dominance were glorified, Jesus reversed the narrative by declaring that the least among us would be the greatest. He defied both political authority and religious orthodoxy. For millennia, obedience to the letter of the law had defined moral life. Jesus offered a radical alternative: “Love one another.” That core message—so deceptively simple—redefined ethics and became a revolutionary conviction.

Dominion explores how this conviction rippled through history. Today, the Western world remains deeply infused with Christian assumptions—so deeply, in fact, that we often fail to recognize their origin. The modern ideals of individual rights, secular governance, liberal democracy, scientific inquiry, and gender equality are not universal human values but the outgrowth of a specific civilizational legacy from Jesus Christ. From the ancient empires of Babylon to contemporary movements like #MeToo, from saints to pop culture, the influence of Christianity on Western thought is both profound and pervasive. As I read about the early Christians, I was deeply moved by the men and women whose lives helped shape this powerful moral framework rooted in the sanctity of human worth.

Another prevailing misconception I carried for years was the belief that Christianity was inherently misogynistic—an oppressive institution bent on subjugating women. While it is true that, like all human institutions, Christianity has been marred at times by abuses and grievous injustices, this narrative overlooks a deeper, more complex reality. Throughout Christian history, women have not only participated in but also led and shaped the faith in profound ways. From the earliest followers of Jesus—such as Mary Magdalene, often called the "apostle to the apostles"—to female mystics, reformers, educators, and missionaries, countless women have played critical roles in the development of Christian thought and service.

When one examines the treatment of women across major world religions, it becomes evident that Christianity, particularly through the teachings of Christ himself, offered a remarkably countercultural affirmation of women’s dignity and worth. Jesus’s interactions with women were consistently marked by compassion, respect, and elevation of their voices—something profoundly uncommon in the ancient world. His ministry included and uplifted women in ways that disrupted social norms, making space for their leadership and discipleship. In this light, the claim that Christianity is inherently anti-woman collapses under the weight of historical evidence and theological nuance. Christ’s actions spoke clearly: women mattered deeply to him.

I was particularly moved by the story of Macrina the Younger, a 4th-century Christian who helped establish some of the earliest orphanages, rescuing infants who had been discarded on trash heaps—an all-too-common practice in antiquity. Historians can often pinpoint the arrival of Christianity in a region by the abrupt cessation of such infanticide, a testament to the profound ethical shift the movement inspired. I wept reading about Perpetua and Felicity, a Roman noblewoman and an enslaved woman, who were martyred in the 3rd century for their Christian faith. Facing execution in the Roman amphitheater, they held hands and proclaimed to the crowd, “Love one another!”—a final act of defiance and compassion.

Their stories were among many that revealed to me the diverse expressions of early Christianity. I learned about the formation of the Nicene Creed, the near-extinction of the early church, and its eventual rise as a force capable of uniting disparate tribes and nations. Christianity fostered intellectual inquiry, supported literacy, laid the groundwork for the first universities, and embedded the concept of human dignity into the very fabric of Western thought. One passage, cited by Tom Holland, struck me with particular resonance and has become a personal favorite:

Galatians 3:28 (NIV)
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Dominion also exposed the flaws, messiness, and upheavals in the Christian tradition — Holland didn’t shy away from the conflicts or contradictions. He acknowledged the many ideas and philosophies woven into Christianity over time by thinkers like Origen and Augustine of Hippo. Thomas Aquinas and Peter Abelard. Rather than offering a simplistic defense or critique, Holland sought to tell a fuller, richer, more honest story — one that refuses to either sanitize or vilify the faith. Unlike so many books I’ve read that either glorify Christianity or blame it for all the world’s evils, Dominion presents the tradition as a complex inheritance. Holland writes, “It’s like trying to distinguish gin from the tonic in a gin and tonic. It’s so woven into our being, you can’t distinguish one from the other.”

I could write an entire manifesto about Dominion alone, but its most profound impact on me was this: shock. I realized, almost breathlessly, that so much of what I’ve long accepted as truth — basic human dignity, universal rights, compassion for the weak — all stemmed from one person: Jesus Christ. For days, I moved through the world stunned. How had I missed this for so long?

This book changed my mind (the true definition of repentance) about Christ and who his followers have been and are. I didn't set out to have my entire worldview paradigm shift when I started this book, but by the time I finished, it did.

Sometime circa 2005ish, a friend of mine told me I should read "America, the Beautiful," by Moon Zappa & I couldn't put it down. Granted, I had no idea who Moon Unit Zappa even was & only vaguely had an understanding of who Frank Zappa was, but at a purely literary aesthetic level, I LOVED this book & Moon's talent for herself. It was a hilarious take on the Gen X struggle to find, meaning, purpose & love, replete with cultural references that hit so hard, I found imagery from her book bouncing around in my head for days and quoting it incessantly. Now, Moon's finally put out a new book, a memoir, and given the content of "America," I can guess at some things that might surface in "Earth to Moon." I'm really excited to read it and I think Moon deserves way more notice and reads as a very talented writer on her own ☺️