When Jesus of Nazareth was brutally and humiliatingly executed by the Romans, no oddsmaker would have thought this might launch the largest religion ever. So, how did this happen?
Four factors stand out. First, Christianity had two what we might call spiritual technologies that played pivotal roles. These then combined with two other factors to create a religion that has proved enormously successful at spreading across the globe.
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1. Spiritual Technology I: The Jealous God
The first spiritual technology comes from Judaism. In the Ten Commandments, YHWH declares he is a “jealous god” (Exodus 20:5, 34:14) and, hence, worshipping him is not enough. Rather, Jews must not worship other gods.
It took decades of immersion in other traditions before I realized how transformative this concept is. In India, people worship many deities and Sikhs and Hindus will even attend each other’s services. In China, Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism mingle effortlessly. In Japan, Shinto figures are in Buddhist temples and vice-versa. First Nations folks were open to worshipping the Europeans’ god Jesus – but were baffled when Europeans insisted they must stop honouring their own divine spirits.
In marketing terms, this creates a competitive edge as it made Jews resistant to being absorbed by other traditions. If you worship several beings, maybe your children will be more drawn to A or B than C. But the Jewish God demands loyalty that erases rival options. Over time, that fosters a resiliency. Even when Jews were militarily crushed and their deity seemed overpowered, they interpreted defeat as God’s punishment for their disloyalty.
However, this technology’s real potential would be unlocked by pairing it with a second spiritual technology.
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2. Spiritual Technology II: Turbocharged Proselytizing
So why didn’t Judaism become the world’s largest religion instead of Christianity? In short, the former did not try whereas the latter made it the most urgent necessity.
The Christian movement, shortly after Jesus’ death, believed the whole world should (indeed must!) become Christians. Matthew’s gospel ends with Jesus rising into the clouds and saying “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (28:29), a line that I believe has no precedence in human history. Having a god tell you to go convert the whole world was a revolution. Neither Zeus nor Isis nor Thor did such things.
Of course, other people did spread their traditions and Buddhists certainly proselytized. But Christianity turbo-charged these efforts by:
- Saying people’s salvation rested solely on believing in Jesus and, without this, they would burn forever;
- Having God command you to proselytize; and,
- By incorporating the first technology, the unconverted are not making innocent errors but are offending God. Rival religions can easily be seen as evil or the devil’s work lending an urgency (sometimes a militancy) to proselytization.
If religion A works desperately to convert people (God commands it and they need to be rescued from Satan’s grasp) but the other religions are not doing likewise, you can guess where this leads in the long run. No Confucian or Daoist missionary force has come West trying to convert society to those Chinese traditions. But perhaps 30,000 Western Christian missionaries went to China. For centuries, they made little headway but, in recent decades, they have finally found some success. Even if you fail and fail again, one successful period is all you need. Korea is now 20% Christian. Where will Christianity in East Asia be in another century?
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3. A Compelling Message?
It is hard to prove this but the Jesus message may have also been quite compelling. There are a million gods who, if you pray to them, will bless you and bring good fortune. But a god who suffers for you, who understands your pain, and loves you dearly provides (forgive the marketing terminology) product differentiation. And it can pull on the heart. The Greek gods did not care for you. They might reward you for praise but you were not important to them. Ditto the Roman gods or the Hindu Vedic deity Indra.
In addition, Jesus reversed hierarchies saying seemingly crazy things like the “last will be first” and “blessed are the poor.” No one thought the poor were blessed. If you’re poor, what an uplifting thing to hear. Greek gods communicated with powerful humans but the Christian god seemed to value lowly me or you.
Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor. Photo Credit: Canva.com
4. Political Power Matters
To become a globally powerful religion, you need political power. Zoroastrianism spread rapidly when the Persian Empire emerged but then waned when the empire declined. Buddhism surged when Ashoka, India’s conqueror, converted. Islam’s big spread came with military victories in the century after Muhammad.
Christianity, uniquely, received two boosts.
First was Constantine. The religion’s strengths had put it on the map but Constantine’s conversion transformed Christianity from a notable minority tradition to dominating the empire. This led to the Christian conquest of Europe which served as the Christian heartland for centuries.
Second was European conquest. To be the largest religion today, you wanted to be the largest religion in Europe a few centuries ago. In 1500, Christianity was likely not earth’s largest but European technologies would reshape the world. Today the planet speaks English, Spanish and French, our economies are based on European capitalism, and political systems often have democratic norms that emerged from European political thought. Unsurprisingly, Europe’s religion would also dominate as indigenous populations were eliminated or converted.
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A Note on Islam
One other religion has the spiritual technologies mentioned above in points 1 and 2. Namely, Islam. Islam inherited both concepts from its parent religions (Judaism and Christianity) and thus has the idea of a jealous God (though not the word “jealous”) and sees proselytizing as divinely commanded.
And the result: Islam is our second largest religion and may become the largest this century.
Indigenous religions, which are not proselytory, have been declining rapidly in Africa and in many other nations where local populations dwindled due to colonization. Hinduism is an exception as it has maintained its hold in India. Size might account for this success.
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Conclusion
Many people today think religions naturally emphasize that i) their path is the only way and ii) they should energetically convince others to their group. But those perspectives are outliers in human history and not at all the norm. That we think it is the norm for religions reveals just how successful that model has been in shaping the world we live in.
