The Christian Conspiracy  In the mood for a conspiracy theory?
The menu is vast: Obama’s birth certificate, Putin’s
election, the landing on the moon, Area 51,  Michael Jackson’s
mysterious death. But I have a biggie: the rise of Christianity.
The growth of the world’s largest faith seems obvious now, with
the benefit of hindsight and churches dotting every other corner
(almost literally, here in Rome at least.) But if you look
closer, the historic rise of the Christian faith seems more
enigmatic than Swiss bank accounts: how could such a faith grow
after the death of its leader? How do you explain Christian
success after Christ’s failure?  If you look at it
realistically, Jesus was a very unattractive messiah to believe
in. He was a peasant who lived in an obscure corner of the Roman
Empire. He offered eternal life but died tragically, executed
like the worst criminals, like someone on an electric chair
today. So why didn’t Christianity die with the death of its
leader? What relaunched the Christian movement