Rise of Christianity
Christianity’s rise is often associated with powerful spiritual forces such as influential preaching of the gospel and mass conversions. In his book the Rise of Christianity-chapter one, Rodney Stark attempts to find out how Christianity rose to become the most dominating faith of Western civilization. His objective is to end common and untruthful myths about Christianity’s rapid growth. He concludes that they was a steady individual conversion of 40 percent per decade instead of mass conversions. He attributes religious growth to social networks between family and friends, arguing that conversion is more likely in social networks among people with strong attachments. Additionally, converts are likely previously inactive in religion or discontented in their current faith. Converts refer to their new faith as the end of their search for faith even though most of them had no previous interest in religion. While Stark cites various factors that contributed to the fast rise of Christianity, he leans a lot in the socio-scientific theories and does not account for the role the Christian message played in facilitating the rapid rise.
According to Stark, the rise of Christianity can be directly related to the conversion process. Stark failed to account for the role the message played in the spread of religion. Stark and his colleague Lofland in the early 1960s researched to establish what was involved in the conversion process. They investigated a small group of people they could surveil adequately and watched them go through the conversion process. They studied the conversion to the unification church, referred to as moonies, led by Miss Kim. Their fast finding was that all the church members had close ties to Miss Kim, with the fast three members being her neighbor and subsequent converts were husbands and several colleagues. At the beginning of the research, the movement had not managed to attract any stranger (Stark 16). Similarly, in Christianity, Jesus fast converted his social circle of his brothers and mother.
To further support his claim, he quotes records kept by the Mormon mission president. According to the records, knocking on strangers’ doors and making cold calls lead to conversion once out of thousands of calls. However, after establishing fast convert, there was a 50 percent chance of a conversion. The study also found that most people who spent time with the moonies but never joined the religion had stronger ties outside the church who likely disapproved of the church. As the conversion to Moonie’s church was considered an act of defiance, so was conversion to Christianity by early Christians. Stark and Lofland concluded that conversion entailed aligning one’s religion with friends and family members to maintain a good relationship. The Christian message gave hope to people and promised spiritual gifts such as freedom from sickness, disease, and poverty in future life. The message was easily accepted by the people making the conversion process easier. At the time of early Christian conversion, other religions were arguably more dominant than Christianity. However, its message and doctrines set it apart, making it more dominant over others. Stark’s bias against the Christian message affects how he presents his arguments.
Stark argues that the rise of Christianity did not require miraculous conversion rates by people in crowds; instead, he uses arithmetic of growth and arrives at a growth rate of 40 percent per decade. Acts 1:14-15 approximates the number of Christians to be 120, several months after the crucifixion. By the sixth decade, there were thousands of Jews according to Acts 21:20 (Stark 5). . There were 1000 Christians in the year 40, and in the middle of the 3rd century, there were “just a few” Christians in the population. Six decades later, Christians were so many leading scholars to believe that something must have happened in the third half of the century. It is estimated that in Constantine’s time, Christians represented 10 percent of the 60 million population, meaning the number of Christians then was 6 million. In the year 300, the number of Christians was between 5-7.5 million. In 260 years, the number of Christians grew at a rate of 40 percent per decade. The 40% growth rate could not have been achieved throughout the fourth century due to many already converted Christians. While the arithmetic of growth was logically deduced, Stark uses it to further his argument of the individual conversion process and does not gather evidence of how the message influenced the arithmetic of growth.
The doctrine and consistency of the Christian message were an enormous factor in the Christian religion’s success. Christianity was a new message that was refreshing to the people. The idea that the son of God had come to earth in human form was crucified, dead, descended into hell, then rose again on the third day seemed rather improbable. On the other hand, it appealed to ordinary people that if God was willing to offer his only son on their behalf, he must be a kind God who loved them; hence they formed a Christian community. Unlike the world they lived in, the community was not characterized by inequality in wealth distribution, disease, or social injustice such as slavery. Everyone was equal, and love held them together. Jesus had already demonstrated the true love God had for his people. Despite his powerful position in God’s kingdom, he died in the most humiliating way, humiliation. His act became a model of what love is and had a powerful emotional appeal to people. Stronger churches sent help to the smaller churches, and church members were guaranteed social support. Stark failed to look at religion as highly personal and instead views it as a social institution with an integrated set of beliefs. He failed to account for the role the Christian message played in elevating the religion since it appealed to individuals on a personal level. While his conversion theory held some truth, the conversion process alone was not enough to propel the religion to become the dominating religion in the Western world. Although Jesus had died, his message had not. It continued to spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.
Socio science theories such as the conversion theory are among the factors that led to Christianity’s growth. However, the Christian message played a key role in the growth process. Sociologists such as Stark aimed to find out how the unlikely movement succeeded so powerfully. According to Stark, the individual conversion process was responsible for the spread of Christianity. A Christian was likely to convert members of their social circle who would repeat the process. Stark argued that most religious movements fail because they shut down prematurely and do not give the conversion process enough time. For a religious movement to be successful, it has to establish a direct and interpersonal attachment. The interpersonal relationships are representative of the line in which the conversion process will follow. Failing to form and sustain outsider attachment means the movement loses the ability to grow. His argument was biased; he used theories to explain the rapid growth of the religion but failed to account for the religion’s message. The new message attracted people to Christianity, and most importantly, it kept them there. Religion, no matter how well it has achieved interpersonal attachments, is as strong as its message. People prefer a religion with a message they can relate to and has the ability to change their lives. The Christian message did that and more, thereby attracting more people. Since the crucifixion of Jesus, his message continues to be preached, centuries later. Christianity has become a durable universal religion that is still of value to people of all ages and in different historical times.