Why did Christianity become so popular?

biqu · September 5, 2003, 11:49am

In this classic column from August 1995, Cecil writes

In answer to the last question, I believe David Hume fits that description. In the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Martin Bell tells us of a visit paid to Hume on his deathbed by James Boswell.

As for the skeptics’ claim that Christianity has run out of gas, Cecil dismisses it as improbable due to the dearth of alternatives. While the number of alternative well-established religious traditions is indeed small, there does appear to be a sharp decline in church attendance and overall level of faith in industrialized western nations, as described in this article by T. R. Reid. Moreover, biblical illiteracy is on the rise, as described in this article by Michael Vlach. Meanwhile, Christianity is gaining popularity in Africa and Latin America, to the extent that the next pope might be the first one from Africa since Gelagius I in the fifth century. Search for “Cardinal Arinze” for details.

Chronos · September 5, 2003, 4:04pm

Another noted deathbed atheist is Isaac Asimov. As he put it, after a long and good life, what could be better than a sleep?

Whack-a-Mole · September 5, 2003, 4:18pm

I’m having trouble deciphering the title of this thread from the OP’s content.

Are you asking why Christianity became popular at its outset or why Christianity is gaining popularity today in places like Africa?

I think originally Christianity offered an appealing alternative to the religions of the day. Remember Jesus was upset at the corruption he felt was present in the Jewish religion (overly concerned with money, not really accessible to the general populace, etc.). Christianity offered the notion that God was for everyone, accessible by everyone wherever they might be. Further, Christianity started the New Testament which espoused a kind and loving God who would accept ALL into heaven regardless if they were a peasant or a king…everyone had the same shot. What’s more it offered salvation to anyone regardless of their past sins as long as they accepted their sins and were repentant for those sins. This was far different than the vengeful god of the Old Testament and a ‘church’ that catered to the wealthy far more than the poor. All-in-all a fairly attractive prospect to the masses given what else was on offer. Of course, Christianity had its bouts with catering to the wealthy too (buying prayer cards to ease your path to heaven comes to mind) but on the whole even the poorest person could take solace that they had a fair shot at heaven.

As to Africa and South America increasing religion while western countries are decreasing is probably due to overall education and the current state of the society. A complete eduaction allows people to start asking difficult questions of religion that are not always easily answered in a satisfactory manner and often devolve to faith. Faith is fine and plenty of highly educated people embrace religion but it becomes an uphill battle for the religion to overcome. Do you find it easier to accept Adam & Eve or the fossil record straing you in the face as an explanation for evolution (just one example)? Further, I think it is normal for societies under stress to turn to religion for solace. Science is cold comfort when facing the death of your children and your farm just being plundered because your counrty is in civil war or facing famine. I wouldn’t be surprised if you find an upswing in religion western societies when they are at war (even if the homeland is mostly secure from attack such as the US in WWII).

Just my $0.02.

biqu · September 5, 2003, 9:39pm

Maybe I should have titled the thread Re: Why did Christianity become so popular?. The thread’s current title is the same as the title of Cecil’s column. Since this forum is meant for commenting on Cecil’s columns, I figured I would just use the title of Cecil’s column as the title of my OP.

biqu · September 5, 2003, 9:41pm

ckondek · September 9, 2003, 3:01pm

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy!

Yeah, cuz, you know, those people down in Africa and dem places don’t even have shoes, much less books!

I’m just messing with ya. It seems to be true aethism/agnosticism is on the rise in the U.S. but I wonder if it was ever really accurately recorded in the first place.

rklewis2 · September 10, 2003, 12:11pm

Some interesting replies…

I don’t see how the fossil record proves anything regarding evolution (I’m certainly open to specifics).

Further, after hearing/reading examples, such as the peppered moth, I don’t see much credence as to the case for evolution, either. In regards to this example, a simple change in “the air,” so to speak, was the cause. Both moths existed already, so what’s amazing about the example?

In any event, I’m not out to down evolution, in spite of the above comment.

I wanted to comment on the shroud of turin (which is how I came to register here), so I guess I’ll do it here and now:

While I will say that he certainly went a long way in his explaination, I don’t feel that a few paragraphs could possibly sum up this particular artifact. Further, I’d like to point out that, among all of the scientists that studied the shroud, I’m not surprised that he gave the comment(s) of only one, McCrone. The reason for THAT is simple…He, among all of that team of scientists, was the only one to come to the conclusion that it was a painting. One of the scientists in that group (whose name I can’t remember), who studied the supposed blood on the cloth came to the conclusion that yes, indeed, that is blood on the shroud. This scientist wrote a book on the study, and I found his comments on that study much more enlightening than Mr. McCrone.

McCrone studied all of the samples taken from the shroud first. He took an incredibly long time on them. He also tampered with the samples to make them (or attempt to make them) useles for study by the rest of the scientists. This was the opinion of the scientist who studied the blood. He had written a book on the entire study (I don’t recall the title, but you may find it at your local library).

His conclusion:

Not even one of the rest of the scientists studying the shroud agreed with McCone. This is notable, because they were all out to prove the cloth as being a mock up. Further, they all agreed that he was attempting to make sure that no one else could do a thorough study of the examples. Considering the age of the shroud, and the fact that not much more studying will ever be done on it, he did try to ruin the study.

Yes indeed, they knew what the image on the shroud was composed of, but they had no idea how it got on the cloth.

IMHO, I don’t think he gave a complete answer on that subject, but, then again, how complete can you be in a few paragraphs?

WizardX · September 13, 2003, 4:38pm

For those interested, I refer you to <A HREF=“http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/key_findings.htm”>this study</A> conducted by the City of New York University.

It compares religious attitudes in people in 2001 versus 1990, and has a number of very interesting findings. Christianity is declining, based on that interval (nearly a 10% drop in a decade). Interestingly, Agnosticism actually went down, and sadly, they don’t have numbers for Athiests in 1990. What I find more interesting, though, are some of the less mainstream faiths. Buddhism, while still only .5% of the population, went from 400k adherents to over a million. And Wicca saw a leap from a few thousand to 130,000. (granted, this is likely skewed as Wicca became chic for goth teens in the mid-90s, but it’s interesting that so many retained it as a faith even into adulthood) Overall, virtually all of the non-Judeo-Christian faiths showed a jump, even Islam. (and this poll, obviously, was pre-9/11 and the resulting anti-Muslim backlash) The obvious conclusion that can be argued is that people are “jumping ship” from Christianity.

(I disagree with their seemingly inherent assumption that anyone who didn’t answer or said “no religion” is automatically areligious. It seems to me there is a very large gap between saying you aren’t religious, in the sense you don’t attend services somewhere, and saying you don’t believe in God (athiest).)

I suspect this trend will continue for a bit, with Buddhism, Taoism, and the neo-Pagan faiths seeing the greatest increase in numbers. But Christianity is resilliant, and someone is going to figure out what’s going on and start making changes to church ideology to try to bring people back. If I were to wager, I’d put money on the Catholic church. Certain branches of Protestantism have become nearly as bad as Catholicism was in the bad old days, so I’m halfway expecting a reverse-Reformation to take place. The Holy Mother Church becomes the open, progressive, flexible place for Christian worship, with the Fundamentalist sects increasingly seen as outdated and backwards.

Just some thoughts.

hyjyljyj · September 14, 2003, 4:53pm

[qb]

Michael A. Corey, writing in The Scientific Case for Deistic Evolution

Having never read the foregoing, on my first day at a Jesuit Catholic high shool I was given an impromptu assignment to write a very brief essay, on the spot, about my thoughts on evolution. I jotted down that maybe God had programmed into the system of living things the process of changing body forms and behaviors so as to thrive in changing environments–that maybe God wasn’t so simple-minded that He had to create everything outright, in its present-day form. I thought I was making it up, and didn’t care what the priest thought since he had said there were no wrong answers for the quiz. To his credit, he did give me an A (probably to boost morale at the outset of high school).

Perhaps when enough people realize that evolution and supernatural creation have been fully reconciled and are fully consistent with each other, with reason and with observable reality, religions and cults based on so-called revelation, holy books, “creationism” and other mythologies will decline in popularity.