No one makes that case, lol. That's the straw that apologists pitch when they don't want to discuss the case made. There was no singular reason for the decline of the western empire.
The case...by which we mean those historical details we take to be factual - is that christianity was one of many things which contributed to the decline. Christianity directly challenged, and eventually defeated the institution which it sought to replace, the imperial cult. This wasn't just the official religion of rome...it was also the apparatus of the civil government.
The empires problems were already as numerous and difficult as any person would imagine with territory spanning the majority of the then-known world, but it was the collapse of their civil services at home and the dissolution of their governing class into a bunch of bickering puppets that sealed the deal. By the time that the barbarians hit, they were literally just walking into rome unopposed. There was nothing left of the once formidable roman government.
The case...by which we mean those historical details we take to be factual - is that christianity was one of many things which contributed to the decline. Christianity directly challenged, and eventually defeated the institution which it sought to replace, the imperial cult. This wasn't just the official religion of rome...it was also the apparatus of the civil government.
The empires problems were already as numerous and difficult as any person would imagine with territory spanning the majority of the then-known world, but it was the collapse of their civil services at home and the dissolution of their governing class into a bunch of bickering puppets that sealed the deal. By the time that the barbarians hit, they were literally just walking into rome unopposed. There was nothing left of the once formidable roman government.
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