Review of “Triumph of Christianity” by Bart Ehrman
This is the fourth Bart Ehrman book I’ve written about. And inevitably, someone will message me:
“So, did you secretly get baptized? You’ve been a bit obsessed with Christianity lately…”
Calm down, I haven’t converted. And yes, I’m still reading about religion.
Not because I’m searching for God. Religion, in its institutional form, begins when someone claims they’ve already found Him-and then opens a franchise. It’s not about transcendence; it’s about infrastructure. Systems. Power. Behavioral codes. The mechanics of meaning at scale.
That’s what interests me. Because we’re still living inside those mechanics, whether we notice or not.
This particular piece is about religion, yes—but also belief, structure, and the lingering architecture of ancient systems in our very modern lives. And, eventually, about our work and our careers.
To begin with, it’s worth separating the layers.
There’s the initial impulse—that subtle tug, the longing, the hunger.
There’s faith—what happens when that impulse is shaped into story, reflection, conviction.
Then embodiment—rituals, symbols, practices.
And finally, there’s religion: built structures, hierarchies, donations, HR policies, bylaws, and sanctions.
Faiths, in their essence, point toward the same questions. Religions, on the other hand, offer radically different answers.
Which is why Ehrman’s The Triumph of Christianity isn’t a book about God. It’s a book about system-building. About how a myth, when sufficiently well-timed and strategically framed, can evolve into a self-replicating machine.
If you’re looking for a case study in ideological start-up culture with international expansion and state buy-in-look no further. This is the blueprint.
But this time let’s look beyond theology and marketing. Let’s think about what happens when someone tries to bring something real from inside themselves and release it into the world. And what happens next, when the world starts building around it.
So: what actually happens in the book? What made me sit down and read 400 pages?
Let’s begin with numbers.
At the time of Jesus’s ascension, his following numbered around 120. That’s 10x fewer than most suburban moms have on Facebook. After Peter’s speech the next day, that number jumped to 3,000. A solid bump—but nothing explosive. No sudden mass conversion, no overnight wave. In fact, most Jews—the target audience—didn’t convert at all. So the focus shifted. They turned to the Gentiles.
This shift is where the story turns. In the pagan world, belief wasn’t about inner transformation. It was ritual-based, transactional. You lit the candle, made the offering, said the right words—not because you felt a deep, personal connection to Jupiter, but because it kept things orderly. You could dedicate yourself to one god without dismissing the rest. The pantheon was flexible, expandable. A new god could always be added, as long as he didn’t cause problems.
Christianity entered this world and introduced something entirely new: exclusivity. You couldn’t combine Christ with Aphrodite. You couldn’t pray to Artemis for harvest and then take communion. Their God was one, and all others were false. It was jarring. But it was also strangely effective.
By 200 CE, Christians made up around 0.25% of the Roman Empire—roughly 150,000 people. A small, stubborn, marginal group. But by 300 CE, that number had reached 3 million. Catacombs filled with Christian burials, churches began appearing, and names shifted in official documents. This was before Constantine.
Constantine didn’t invent Christian dominance; he simply recognized its momentum. He saw not a cult, but a coordinated, mission-driven organism. Backing it wasn’t conversion—it was strategy. Ehrman captures this ambiguity well. Constantine’s embrace of Christianity was less about spiritual revelation than about seeing a structure he could wield.
From there, the institutionalization accelerated:
Sunday became a state-sanctioned day of rest.
Churches were funded from the imperial budget.
St. Peter’s Basilica rose in Rome; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Clergy received tax breaks, budgets, official titles.
By 380 CE, Christianity wasn’t just legal - it was the official religion of the Roman Empire. From fringe sect to governing ideology in less than three centuries. No tech unicorn has ever moved that fast.
And then came the purge.
Historian Edward Gibbon called it a complete eradication of paganism. Not just suppression, but systematic deletion. Gods removed, temples emptied, rituals erased. The goddess of fertility? No longer compliant. Apollo? No longer needed. The only sanctioned figures remaining were martyrs, saints, and crosses.
This, more than anything, is what Ehrman documents with calm, almost forensic clarity. Not good. Not bad. Simply: this is how it unfolded. A belief becomes a discipline. A discipline becomes an institution. An institution becomes a gatekeeper of reality.
And what began as an act—burning incense, pouring wine—becomes a mindset. Christianity replaced ritual with ideology. And in doing so, it introduced guilt as a default emotional state. Paganism was transactional. Christianity became internalized. You didn’t just sin. You felt it.
Even if we now live in a post-religious world - at least in theory - the internal logic of this system remains embedded. Just look at the amount of “should,” “must,” “not allowed,” and “not right” most of us carry in our daily thoughts. The internalized surveillance, the need to be appropriate, the fear of stepping out of line - that’s the residue.
The fires of execution have died, but the code is still running.
So why did this idea, of all possible ideas, take hold?
Not because it was the most profound. Not because it was the kindest, or the most beautiful.
Because it was the most repeatable.
The easiest to retell. The least likely to fall apart when simplified.
It spread like a meme - one with just enough story, just enough emotion, just enough promise. A central figure. Suffering. Sacrifice. Redemption. Every beat, perfectly placed. And, crucially, endlessly adaptable.
For the poor, it offered comfort.
For the elite, control.
For rulers, power.
For the rest, a story that made sense of suffering.
Not because it was true in some universal sense but because it replicated efficiently. It didn’t demand proof. It demanded propagation.
That’s where Ehrman’s history becomes more than historical. It’s a meditation on what survives, and why. It’s also (whether he intended it or not) a quiet eulogy for everything that didn’t.
Reading about the decline of paganism, you begin to feel the weight of Christian cancel culture. Entire systems of meaning vanished. Deities forgotten. Rituals lost. Knowledge discarded. Songs, plants, cycles, female wisdom, embodiment—all gone.
We lost a way of seeing the world as relational, plural, seasonal, and decentralized. A world where spirit could live in puddles and moss, not just in approved texts. That wasn’t just religious loss - it was a cognitive one. The way we thought collapsed into a single channel. A straight line. One meaning. One path.
And now, even in our supposed secular age, we still think this way. One truth. One acceptable framework. Everything else? Heresy.
So this isn’t a story of how the Church triumphed. It’s a story about what was burned away inside of us. The quiet death of inner multiplicity. The moment something vital went silent.
You do everything right: education, career, success, a polished LinkedIn profile - and still, something feels missing. You can’t even name it. But the hollowness persists.
Because from an early age, we were taught to adjust. To phrase things the right way. To be useful. Efficient. Professional. In the process, we quietly archived something personal and real.
Not because we’re weak. But because it was safer. Faster. More profitable.
And then adulthood arrives, and we struggle to make decisions, to feel clear, to move forward without second-guessing. We’re tired, not from work, but from working in the wrong language. The language of compliance. Of pre-approved meaning.
The original voice, the one that was ours - was overwritten.
But here’s the good news: it can be retrieved.
The bad news: it won’t happen without some demolition.
If you’ve made it this far and you recognize the feeling - that life is functioning, but somehow off-track, - then you’re already in motion.
At Unidelics, this is the work we do: rebuilding meaning, clarity, and direction from the inside out. If you want to talk about this book, share your reflections, or just be around others who are asking the same kinds of questions - our community is open.
Our WhatsApp chats have people who think like you. People who can read, think and understand.
