OT: Ehrman's New 'Triumph of Christianity'
Most won't wonder ... bad boy Bart. And it won't merit a rebuttal to support publish or die requirements.
I prepub'd it but thought it'd be a yawner. Here's some areas, if you value:
- Primarily looks at growth rate in quite a bit of depth. I suspected growth was indeed a person-by-person equation.
- Key features to convince converts. Very interesting. It seems to match today's success locations/cultures in Africa and South America. Not sure Asia.
- Persecution impacts, both against and by Christians.
- Christianity mainly as western-defined; much quoting from the fathers up tp 400 CE. Augustine was surprising.
I suspect many pastors may get frustrated absent amazing growth. But, probabably, the day in, day out of a small local church was the path to success in total.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.