The shockwaves caused by the Brexit referendum have led to some soul-searching - for religious and non-religious people alike. Clarifying what we stand for, as a society, involves thinking about some core values - nationhood, democracy, dignity, rule of law, welfare, capitalism, science, human rights, ethics - and we need to start by understanding where they come from. As Nick Spencer shows in his new book, The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped our Values, the deepest values of contemporary, liberal secular society have their roots in Christianity. For the last decade New Atheists have argued that the values that many of us hold dear developed despite religion. These arose once we threw off Christianity’s malign influence, they claim: the story of Western thought is one of slow but steady secular emancipation. But our values were not simply born in the Enlightenment; Christianity has had a key role in the development in all of them.