Helpful Contrarianism

I can't remember when I first came across Rodney Stark's name and work (probably a blog somewhere), but my enduring impression was of an irreverent and contrarian man.  And by irreverent and contrarian I mean in reference to academia.  Thus, contemporary intellectual dogma believes Theory A; Stark, therefore, will set out to prove that Theory A is a load of crock.

That's why I picked up his 1996 book The Rise of Christianity:  A Sociologist Reconsiders History.  And as the title suggests, Stark is in fact a sociologist (currently at Baylor University).  This time he's stepping into the realm of early Christian history.  Here are a few conclusions, many of which fly in the face of established academic wisdom, from this very readable and compelling book:

• The church grew at a rate at about 40% for the first several centuries.  This is roughly equivalent to modern growth rates in Mormonism and statistically doesn't require lots of mass conversions to eventually become a dominant religion.
• The early church was more middle class than lower class.
• Lots of Jews were converted to Christianity.
• Christians cared for the dying during the many devastating plagues whereas pagans abandoned to the hills.  This self-sacrificial care actually gave them higher survival rates, which increased their numbers in relation to the overall population in the Roman Empire.
• Women were valued in the church to a much greater extent than among pagans.  Pagans often killed their newborn girls because boys had such greater value in their eyes.  Christians never did this.  More women meant more marriages which meant more babies which meant more growth.
• Urban life in the Roman Empire was chaotic and unstable.  The church provided stability through neighborly love and thus increased its attractiveness to converts.
• There weren't that many martyrs in the early church, at least as compared to the overall number of Christians.  The martyrs, however, did give powerful testimony to the value of Christianity in the eyes of potential converts.
• Ultimately, though, the reason Christians cared for the dying; valued women, marriage, and children; loved their neighbors in the urban chaos; and were willing to die for their faith was because of what Christianity taught.  In other words, Stark says, the final cause for the remarkable growth of the church in the early centuries was Christian teaching.

I didn't agree with everything he said (e.g. he downplays the record of mass conversions in the book of Acts), but I found most of his arguments convincing.  Not only did he employ sophisticated sociological analysis (which at times gets a little too heavy for the uninitiated like myself) but plain common sense as well.  I enjoyed The Rise of Christianity very much and look forward to reading his other works.

Side note:  This book was also published by Harper Collins under a different subtitle.  The link above goes to the Harper Collins edition.

Theology of the Reformers

If anyone would feel like the greatness of sin he would not be able to go on living another moment; so great is the power of sin. (68)

If you believe, then you have it [justification]! (70)

Thus spake Martin Luther.  Such quotes and ideas (and fine, scholarly, accessible analysis of those quotes and ideas) abound in Timothy George's 1988 book Theology of the Reformers.  George devotes a chapter each to Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Menno Simmons.  Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin always make the list of the most important magisterial Reformers, so it's no surprise that they got their own chapters.  Menno is included because of the historical importance for Anabaptism and the Radical Reformation.

Truth be told, though, I would have been just as happy if the book was only on Calvin and Luther.  The other two are immensely important for historical reasons.  Theologically, on the other hand, Zwingli and Menno Simmons just can't measure up to Luther and Calvin (and that's in no way meant to be a shot against Zwingli and Simmons; hardly anybody in the history of the church can measure up to those two).

Perhaps my enjoyment of the book lies mostly in my fondness for Reformation theology.  For example, take this anecdote from a debate between Luther and Erasmus on the doctrine of predestination:

"Let God be good," cried Erasmus the moralist. "Let God be God," replied Luther the theologian. (77)

The doctrines of the Reformation (of which predestination is only a part) are perpetually urgent for the church and for the world.  That's why I'm thankful for books like this.  I'm sure there are more up-to-date books on the Reformation than this one.  But surely not many are better.

A Bewildering History of England

I should like G. K. Chesterton.  C. S. Lewis liked him.  He graces Wheaton College's wonderful Wade Center along with Lewis, Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and James MacDonald.  But despite his reputation as a brilliant writer and a great public intellectual (neither one of which I am actually challenging) I just don't think I care for his writing.

Or at least his writing in A Short History of England, the first book I read on my new Kindle Touch (thanks mom and dad!).  He does say some very good things.  For example:

We must put ourselves in the posture of men who thought that almost every good thing came from outside--like good news. . . . I do not, in my private capacity, believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb; nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul, and denying its dependence on God or other good things.  I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. (38)

In modern romances this is treated as a mere hypocrisy; but the man who treats every human inconsistency as a hypocrisy is himself a hypocrite about his own inconsistencies. (85)

Christianity is not a creed for good men, but for men. (85)

A dogma of equal duties implies that of equal rights. (121)

But as far as actually teaching me something about English history (a subject of some personal interest) it's not so helpful.  It's more of an idiosyncratic analysis of English history, a moral lesson of some sort.  But what annoys me the most is how nearly every sentence contains some paradox, some double meaning, some clever reference to something too obscure for me to know what in the name of Her Majesty Elizabeth II he's talking about.  This sentence is fairly typical:

And he remains the incarnation of a spirit in the English that is purely poetic; so poetic that it fancies itself a thousand things, and sometimes even fancies itself prosaic. (121)

The meaning of this sentence is beyond me, as was much of the book.  I may return to Chesterton in the future, but (if I can summon my inner Chesterton) we make of the future in the present only what we make of the present in the future.

I don't know what that sentence means either.

A test of endurance

Finally, after two years of sporadic reading, I have finished Augustine's The City of God.  I'm actually more satisfied at having completed the book than I am with any benefit from reading it.  Maybe that's why I shouldn't have kept reading it, as Alan Jacobs would say.

Still, it's a remarkable book, even if much of it isn't accessible as, say, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Augustine states his theme right away:

The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest son Marcellinus, suggested, and which is due to you by my promise.  I have undertaken its defense against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of this city -- a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until 'righteousness shall return unto judgment,' and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace.

There isn't much he doesn't cover.  One of the tricky things about Augustine is that there's so much good (the Protestant Reformers appealed to him again and again in their polemics against the Roman Catholics), yet there's still plenty that we can't quite go along with.  His theology of the sacraments comes to mind in this latter regard.

But if it wasn't for him people like Luther and Calvin would have had so much more work to do to reclaim the gospel.  We all stand on the shoulder of giants to see more clearly than they did.  Augustine was one such giant, maybe the most gigantic of all.