This courses surveys the rise of Christianity from pagan and Jewish sources, the rise of Islam, the fragmentation of the two religious movements, and their confrontation over a millennium and a half. The course will focus on several questions and themes: Why and how did Christianity succeed in converting the Roman Empire? Why and how did Islam succeed in converting more than a billion people? How did doctrine and practice become transformed by institutionalization and circumstance? How and why did the two movements respectively fragment? How and why did secularization occur? What is "fundamentalism" and why does it endure? Ethical and doctrinal issues will also be considered, in some cases at length.
