Table of Contents

1. Sins of Anti- Semitism2. The Suppressed Gospels3. Persecuting the Tolerant Pagans4. Imposing the Dark Ages5. Crusading for Land, Loot, and Converts6. Monsters of the Inquisition7. Scientific Heresies8. Blessed Be Slavery9. Holy Authoritarianism10. Protestant Modernity

Promotional Information

An entertaining and highly enlightening expose of ten popular misconceptions about the oppressive role of the Catholic Church in history

About the Author

Rodney Stark is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, Texas. He is Founding Editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, Honorary Professor of Sociology at Peking University in Beijing, China, and past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. His bestselling book The Rise of Christianity was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and three of his other books have received Distinguished Book Awards.Raised as a Lutheran, he has identified himself as an agnostic but now calls himself an 'independent Christian'.

Reviews

If one does not accurately understand the Church, one will not understand Western, or indeed much of world culture. Stark’s chapter on religion and science is alone worth the book, since the Church has done so much to foster real scientific advancement. . . Stark writes as an historian, not an apologist; but the truth is not only good history but also the best defence of the Church.
*National Catholic Register*

Rodney Stark takes aim at one "myth" after another about Catholicism. . . He is like a man carefully setting up skittles before firing down bowling balls of fact and argument to send them scattering. . . Bearing False Witness is stirring, compelling, often convincing stuff.
*Catholic Herald*

Even if you are not Catholic, to understand today s culture wars, you must understand Catholic history. This book has my highest endorsement for everyone from Catholics to atheists who appreciate brave truth-telling on important topics.
*FrontPage Magazine*

Rodney Stark mounts an exhilarating display of clay-pigeon shooting at an Olympic level. He fires at a succession of false myths – the Crusades as brutal European colonialism, or the suppression of enlightened rival Christian gospels – and shatters them completely.
*Christopher Howse, The Daily Telegraph*

Welcom[ing], but also enlightening [and] wholly convincing.
*Standpoint, May issue*

‘A convincing and enjoyable to read'
*The Tablet*