Inexplicable: How Christianity Spread to the Ends of the Earth

The name of Jesus and his teachings captured people’s hearts and minds throughout much of the world long before Christianity was legal. Long before armies and governments protected or supported it, and then long after Emperor Constantine’s reign as many leaders misused it for their own gains or religious views. Christianity also survived brutal persecutions during many centuries, including the present. Its growth seems inexplicable.

While there are innumerable possible explanations for this, in the final analysis, there are relatively few viable answers. One leading contender is that there really is something to the mystical power of the Holy Spirit, and the life-changing message of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. Another is, at the least billions of people have held passionate beliefs in Jesus’s miraculous powers over life and death, and his eternal promises. The Pew Research Center’s recent work supports the claim that "Christianity is the only religion in the world with a major presence on every continent."

Inexplicable traces this remarkable spread of Jesus’s followers, including many of the heroic actions from those believing in his deity, and those horrific actions of those misusing his teachings. The Gospel’s journey is ongoing, and its story remains an engaging one. From Coptic monasteries and the Roman Coliseum to a small church in Franklin, Tennessee or mega-churches in Laos or Seoul, it’s a rich narrative. Whether standing in the Sistine Chapel, looking at a Nestorian stone in China, or a Christian school in Kigali, this narrative continues and here we provide its historic context.