To paraphrase the opening of a popular ESPN show, these four things everyone knows are true: Before Columbus’s first voyage, people thought the world was flat. When Copernicus wrote that the Earth revolved around the Sun, his conclusions came out of nowhere. The “scientific revolution” of the seventeenth century invented science as we know it. And the false beliefs and impediments to science are Christianity’s fault. There’s just one problem: All four statements are false. As Rodney Stark writes in his new book, For the Glory of God, “every educated person” of Columbus’s time, especially Christian clergy, “knew the earth...