Author(s): Rodney Stark

Philosophy and Religion

How did an obscure Jewish sect - likely numbering no more than several hundred people when the provincial teacher at its heart was executed by the Romans - become the largest religion in the world?
Religious historian and sociologist Rodney Stark has spent his career engaging with that very question. Now, for the first time, he distils his research to just the most important and interesting episodes - the seminal moments in the story that, he now believes, demand new perspectives.
Stark gets right to the events of greatest interest, often turning them on their heads: He argues that Constantineâs conversion did the Church a great deal of harm, and that the majority of converts to early Christianity were women. And he asks the questions at the heart of the human story: What role did Jesusâs family play in the early Church? How was Christianityâs rise influenced by the misery of daily life in Greco-Roman cities? What role did vigorous competition play in the success, and failure, of churches in colonial America? Finally, having brought readers to the present day, Stark makes a compelling case that the popular notion that religion must disappear to make room for modernity is amply disproved by the sociological evidence.
For scholars and armchair historians alike, THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY is a thought-provoking journey through events we think we know - and need to reconsider.