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.