On Day Two of the Uncommon Knowledge interview with Bruce Thornton, author of Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow-Motion Suicide, I note that there are fundamentally two narratives about Europe and Christianity.

The first: the narrative to which Thornton himself subscribes. As he puts it, “[T]he Christian tradition…helped to create all the ideals Europe professes to respect—human rights, equality, tolerance, separation of church and state, respect for individuals.”

The second narrative, which Voltaire developed about two-and-a-half centuries ago and which Christopher Hitchens now propounds, is just the opposite of the first: Namely, that Europe won its beliefs in human rights, equality, tolerance, and the rest not by embracing the tenets of Christianity but by struggling against the oppression and superstition of the Church.

Just how, I ask Dr. Thornton, would he refute Voltaire and Hitch? Take a look.