QUESTION:

What I have been wondering lately is “why” did Christianity win out. There seemed to be much competition in the ancient world between the pagan polytheisms and monotheistic religions. Competition not only between the Jewish religion and Christian religion but within Christianity.

I would be interested in why you think the current version of Christianity won out. Was it purely a matter of cultural evolution and this form of Christianity seemed to benefit people the most, easiest to adhere to, most flexible.

RESPONSE:

In my previous post I tried to deal (briefly!) with the first part of this question: why did Christianity succeed in the first place, so that it eventually became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.  In this post I will deal (briefly again!) with the second question: why did a certain form of Christianity – widely labeled “orthodox” – end up triumphing within Christianity, when there were so many other forms of Christianity that were competing for dominance?

This too is not at all an easy question, and I have dealt with it at greater length in one of my earlier books, Lost Christianities.  Among other things, in that book I talk about the problems we have with terms and their definitions.   When we talk about “orthodoxy” and “heresy” – what do we mean?

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