A Review of The Triumph of Christianity. By Rodney Stark.
HarperOne, 2011.
This is another very important and helpful volume by the world-class historian and sociologist of religion. Stark has already penned a number of volumes on related themes, but here he offers a detailed look at the spread of Christianity over the last two millennia.
This is not a standard history of Christianity, but more of a thematic approach, with each meaty chapter covering important historical, sociological and ecclesiastical topics. Those already aware of his earlier works will find some familiar territory here, but there are a number of new issues covered as well.
He demolishes a number of widely held myths along the way, and backs up his impressive array of knowledge with prodigious amounts of research. He has done his homework quite carefully, and is fully abreast of contemporary scholarship and the relevant literature.
As to the early spread of the faith, Stark notes that this was not mere “pie in the sky” stuff, but a very this-worldly religion: “Christianity often puts the pie on the table! It makes life better here and now. Not merely in psychological ways, as faith in an attractive afterlife can do, but in terms of concrete, worldly benefits.”
Stark reminds us of the enormous growth of Christianity which took place as a result of all this. He estimates that in 40AD there may have been 1000 Christians in the Roman Empire, but 32 million (or 53% of the population) by 350. There may have been 700 in Rome in 100AD, but 300,000 (or 66%) by 300. That is some church growth. Of course figures today are almost the reverse for secular Europe.
But he has a chapter on secularisation in general, and Europe in particular, and reminds us that church attendance was never very high in Europe. Also, state churches of various stripes did not help matters much, resulting in “lazy churches,” indifferent believers, and the tendency to hinder or harass other churches.
His specific chapters on various other themes are excellent albeit brief exposes of often fuzzy and confused thinking. For example, his look at the Spanish Inquisition is a major demolition job of the accumulated nonsense which has been written about this. Says Stark, most of what has been written about it “is either an outright lie or a wild exaggeration”.
Consider the number of deaths. While reports of hundreds of thousands killed are common, this has nothing to do with reality. During the bloodiest period, there were at tops 30 people a year killed. After this, of 45,000 cases tried, just over 800 were executed. Thus over a two century period we have at most some 2,300 killed. That may be too many indeed, but it has nothing to do with the wild figures so readily thrown around.
What about the so-called Dark Ages? They “not only weren’t dim, but were one of the most inventive times in Western history”. Antireligious intellectuals like Gibbon and Voltaire tried to make this a dark, backward period, but the opposite was the case. Progress in areas like the arts, music, literature, education and science were quite significant.
Speaking of science, the notion that religion and science have always been at war is another myth which Stark handily dispenses of. Says Stark, “The truth is that not only did Christianity not impede the rise of science; it was essential to it, which is why science arose only in the Christian West! Moreover, there was no sudden ‘Scientific Revolution’; the great achievements of Copernicus, Newton, and the other stalwarts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the product of normal scientific progress stretching back for centuries.”
His chapters on Islam and the Crusades are also goldmines of information and myth-busting. Consider the issue of dhimmitude, or second-class citizenship of non-Muslims. As Stark rightly notes, a “great deal of nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance”.
Many of the supposed great scientific, literary and artistic achievements of Islam were in fact due to the dhimmies – conquered Jews and Christians – living amongst them. And most subject peoples were “free to choose” conversion – with the only other alternatives being death or enslavement.
As to the Crusades, those involved “were not greedy colonists, but marched east for religious motives and at great risk and personal expense. Many knowingly went bankrupt and few of them lived to return.” The Crusades were in fact a defensive response to the previous 450 years of Islamic imperialism.
Also, the crusaders made no attempt to impose Christianity on the Muslims, and the various Crusader “war crimes” have been wildly exaggerated. Sure, some massacres took place, but this in an age when such activities were commonplace. Indeed as Stark laments, why do most histories fail to mention the many horrific Muslim atrocities and massacres, such as the massacre of Antioch?
Of course even a great work such as this may have its weak spots. I found a few areas which folks may disagree with, but they do not detract from the overall strength and brilliance of this book. I was for example quite surprised that he took the usual line about Constantine, finding him to be, all in all, bad news for the church.
Stark does not even mention, let alone take into account, the very important 2010 volume Defending Constantine by Peter Leithart. Indeed, that book did as much myth busting on Constantine as the many books by Stark do on other topics. So why its complete exclusion from this discussion?
Also, Stark is not one with a very high view of Scripture. For example, he says the account of mass church growth in Acts 2 (“about three thousand souls”) must be “dismissed as hyperbole”. And he considers what he calls “literal inerrancy” and early earth creationism to be so much foolishness. Thus not all will be happy with everything found here.
But all up this is a terrific and much-needed volume. It continues the fine work he has been involved with now for some decades. This volume, like many of his other volumes, deserves a wide and careful reading.
[1006 words]
Thank you Bill for this review. What a pity those amongst us who have the dhimmitude approach – or is that just plain dim approach – accept the politically correct belief that the Crusades was about money and not about defending the Christian holy places and pilgrims from the ravages of the Saracens.
Wayne Pelling
Thanks Wayne
Yes it is an important issue – so much so that Stark has written a whole book on this, which I review here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/10/11/a-review-of-god%E2%80%99s-battalion-by-rodney-stark/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
There’s a nice post up on First Things on Antonio de Montesinos, a Dominican Friar who called the Spanish colonists to respect the humanity of the native Americans;
And what care do you take over who teaches them the faith, that they know their God and creator? Are baptized? Hear mass? Keep festival days and Sundays? These [Indians], are they not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obligated to love them as you love yourselves? Do you not understand this? Do you not feel this? How is it that you are in such a deep, lethargic sleep? You can be sure that in your state you are no more able to be saved than the Moors or Turks, who lack and don’t even want the faith of Jesus Christ.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/12/16/antonio-de-montesinos-500-years-later/
Many people forget the great work of the Spanish scholastics, like de Vitoria and Suarez, who pioneered much of today’s enlightened thinking on economics and human rights;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Salamanca
Damien Spillane
That was a good review Bill. I will actually be starting to read Stark’s book ‘The Triumph of Christianity’ today. I know when I read his earlier book ‘The Rise of Christianity’ in the middle of this year I remember how he was critical of Acts Ch 2 with 3000 believers at Pentecost. I could see no reason why this couldn’t have been true considering many there I thought were no residents of Jerusalem and would have returned to their homelands as new Christians. Who knows, maybe Rodney could have been right. We are allowed to speculate. It was interesting him using the Mormons as the example of how Christianity spread in the ancient world, initially through family and friends and other social networks and that early Christians weren’t initially the slaves and the poor but the middle class or whatever the equivalent was back then.
Carl Strehlow
“He estimates that in 40AD there may have been 1000 Christians in the Roman Empire”.
That can’t be right. There were 3,000 people came to Christ on the day of Pentecost. How many people heard Christ preach during his ministry? He fed 5,000 and then 4,000. The number of Christians in AD 40 one would think would have to be closer to 10,000, surely.
Tas Walker
Thanks Tas
Yes, as I wrote, he unfortunately rejects the figure found in Acts 2:41.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks for keeping balance and helping us to do the same. At school we studied “Roland” in French and absorbed some idea that the Christians were the aggressors.
Often what we absorb at school takes a long time to correct but its good to hear reasoned comment
Katherine Fishley