The Spread of Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism

"Large conversion only took place when powerful political, social, or economic incentives encouraged it and even then it led universally to syncretism rather than outright adoption of foreign cultural tradition."
-Jerry Bently

In many ways, this statement is correct, because many people converted to a new religion because it was expedient to do so to make political persecution end, or the social stigma of being different, or even because the monetary cost of following a certain religion was too prohibitive for people to continue. Yet there are too many examples of people converting to a new religion in the face of social, political and economic stigma, and this, according to Jerry Bently never should happen. Many people wanted just to have their souls in good stead, and therefore converted to Christianity from a pagan religion, even though there was pressure not to from the rest of the communtiy, from the leader of the community, and even from the person's family. This occured often in Buddhism as well, where many people would convert because of Buddhism's message of populism as opposed to any incentive whatsoever, since most Buddhists had no money, were social outcasts, and Buddhists were persecuted. This is contrary to what Jerry Bently says, because it is so irrational. Mr. Bently is correct in that many people convert because it is in fact expedient to do so, but many others convert because they see that their decision was the right thing to do. Constantine was a pagan all of his life until his deathbed, where he finally converted to Christianity; yet his influence on Christianity is so powerful even today because the books chosen to be in the Christians' Holy Bible were chosen by him, a pagan, as opposed to a true Christian. Many Jews have been persecuted, since the Assyrians and the Romans up until the Holocaust in the 20th century. It has been very problematic to be Jewish, most of the time there are many people who would not sell goods to Jews, nor would they accept them as a true part of their society. All of these examples of faith surviving persecution shows that the original thesis has holes, if it is not completely incorrect.