Religion scholar Candida Moss began thinking about Christian martyrs when she heard a sermon comparing the plight of today's believers to that of the early church. But when she started exploring what early Christians really endured, she learned that these stories of victimization had been exaggerated and even invented to inspire the faithful. Wednesday, Moss joins Doug to talk about what she calls the myth of persecution and how those stories continue to create the "us vs them" mindset of today.

Candida Moss is a Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Her book is called The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. [Amazon|Indiebound] It's due out in paperback May 13.