Some ideas are so potent as to be world-changing. For Rodney Stark, Christianity encompasses just such a set of ideas. In his view, Christian beliefs and images of God shaped the course of Western ...

In my previous column, we discussed the common complaint that No. 841 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is wrong when it teaches that “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge ...

This volume completes an ambitious two-part study of monotheism in Western culture that began with One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton University Press, 2001). As with the ...

In a recent essay for The Atlantic, David Wolpe, a rabbi and visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, sizes up former president and insurrectionist Donald Trump as follows: “the lavishness of his ...

PROFESSOR ROBERTS' BOOK Domination – The Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity is cleverly titled, with the word "domination" deriving from the Latin "domine" meaning "Lord".

Long established as a leading sociologist of American religion, Stark has in recent years extended his methodology into increasingly speculative territory. Here he follows up his inquiry into the ...

Lately these pages have seen some comments about how worthless and unnecessary, or even harmful, religion is. I would have to agree with that statement when it comes to almost all religions prior to ...