European conversions from paganism to Christianity were, except in the earliest days of the religion, largely elite-driven affairs. Peasants, unable to read the Bible and unconcerned about getting along with foreign Princes, often resisted it, and it would take several generations before the remnants of paganism were stamped out. I’m sure the rulers of those societies could have noticed around the time that was happening that suddenly the peasants were being more rebellious, questioning their teachings when they had previously accepted them without complaint.
It’s been claimed that the public, today, is revolting, supposedly due to technology. A simpler explanation is that elites adopted a form of radical egalitarianism that the people have not yet embraced. If people were becoming more rebellious as a rule, you’d expect to see it in areas other than voting behavior, such as in the workplace. But you don’t.
Alexander Turok 