July 1

The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World (2018)
By Bart D Ehrman

New Testament historian Ehrman posts that "the ancient triumph of Christianity proved to be the single greatest cultural transformation our world has ever seen".  The Roman world had been characterized by dominance: rulers over subjects, master over slaves, etc.  But once Christianity became dominant, it advocated an ideology of love and service.  The idea "that society should serve the poor, the sick and the marginalized became a distinctly Christian concern".

In Roman times, the leaders worshipped many gods and saw them as making their empire great.  Ehrman really makes the case for the prevalence of paganism as a way of life, something alluded to in the book of Acts (e.g., Artemis of the Ephesians) but a concept I had previously likened more to 21st century lack of interest in religion.  The pagans were often very religious and faithful to their gods.  (The early Christians' admonition to not eat food sacrificed to idols was not an "idle" mandate.) Thus, the Christian refusal to worship the pantheon of gods was seen as interfering with the well-being of the empire, thus the resulting persecutions, especially as the Christian movement gained momentum.  While Constantine's (first Christian emperor) Edict of Milan (312) did not force subjects to "become Christians", it instead gave freedom of religion to all subjects, ending the persecution of Christians.  Ehrman explains that most converts came not from Judaism but from pagan backgrounds.  As pagans, they'd be used to worshipping many gods: some related to abstract traits like hope and love, others to specific functions (childbirth, crops), some to specific towns or locations.  There was rarely loyalty to a specific god; people just assimilated as they wished.  Thus, the idea of worshipping only one god (to the exclusion of all others) was a very novel concept.  There was no such thing as "conversion" in the Roman pantheon.

Ehrman sees Paul as the most crucial person to the spread of Christianity, as he goes beyond Jerusalem - and the Jews - to preach to gentiles.  He refers to the great historian of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, who attributes Christianity's success to its spiritual superiority and God's oversight and cites:

• the Christians' zeal
• immortality
• miracles
• morality
• strong organization

as crucial.  Ehrman also notes that the concept of one God was also common to Jews, and to some extent to Henotheists (who may revered many gods but served one above all the others)

In an afterword, Ehman recalls a trip to Athens, marveling at the glory that was Greece and focusing on the Areopagus where Paul delivered his famous sermon addressing an altar to an unknown god.  While his message probably resulted in only a few conversions, eventually Christianity took over western civilization. This paved the way for aristocrats to embrace the faith and eventually the church acquired enormous wealth, and its bishops great power, at one point giving the people the authority of an emperor.  But it also resulted in a loss of religious diversity - not just outside the Christian faith but also within in terms of strict adherence to Nicene doctrine.  But it also opened the door to policies serving the poor, weak, sick and underserved, as well as inspired art, music, literature, philosophy and government.  Truly "the most monumental cultural transformation our world has ever seen."

A helpful appendix explains the likely rate of growth - and basically how few converts  (e.g., 5% growth per year) - were needed for the faith to become the largest in the world.  Ehrman's systematic explanation suggests to me that he attributes the triumph of Christianity not to God's intervention but to a more scientific and cultural process.