The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion – A Fresh Perspective on Pivotal Controversies

by Rodney Stark

Celebrated religious and social historian Rodney Stark traces the extraordinary rise of Christianity through its most pivotal and controversial moments to offer fresh perspective on the history of the world’s largest religion. In The Triumph of Christianity , the author of God’s Battalions and The Rise of Christianity gathers and refines decades of powerful research and discovery into one concentrated, concise, and highly readable volume that explores Christianity’s most crucial episodes. The unique format of Triumph of Christianity allows Stark to avoid dense chronologies and difficult back stories, bringing readers right to the heart of Christian history’s most vital controversies and enduring lessons.

Genres: History, Religion, Christianity, Christian, Church History, Nonfiction, Theology

512 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2011

About the author

Rodney Stark grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, and began his career as a newspaper reporter. Following a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, he received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. He left Berkeley to become Professor of Sociology and of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington. In 2004 he joined the faculty of Baylor University. He has published 30 books and more than 140 scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome. However, the greater part of his work has been on religion. He is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. He also has won a number of national and international awards for distinguished scholarship. Many of his books and articles have been translated and published in foreign languages, including Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Slovene, and Turkish.

Reviews

[Byron Fike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well researched and thoroughly documented survey of the growth of Christianity from a small band of Jesus followers to a religion that now makes up more than 40 % of the people on earth today and "growing more rapidly than that of any other major faith." Stark challenges many of the often repeated myths associated with the spread of Christianity. In particular he presents a much more positive understanding of the crusades, maintains that the "Dark Ages" were "one of the most inventive times in Western history", and persuasively argues against common assumptions concerning the Spanish Inquisition. Most interesting to me personally was his claim that "science arose in the West because efforts to formulate and discover laws of nature only made sense if one believed in a rational creator."

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't say that I'm a fan of this book, even though it has enjoyed some popularity. Two things have tended to put me off. First, the book tends to rely heavily on secondary sources and, even with that, its historical inaccuracies are reasonably common. This is not just complaining about a disputed interpretation or two, but facts that are simply not right. I've returned the book, so I don't have an example at hand, but I know that I winced through the ancient period with Stark. I'll also note that Stark has a tendency to use scholarship from the previous generation. He even makes rather a big deal, making sure he gives the dates and titles of the modern historians he uses. This isn't to say that we should disregard all scholarship from before the year 2000, say, but that he has not even addressed the findings of more recent scholarship which, as in the nature of most scholarship, is busy find holes in the previous generation. An over-reliance on any generation of scholarship will distort teh evidence and it does here.

Second, the overall scholarly bias bothers me. Now, I recognize all scholars have a point of view and that is to be expected. Stark can only be placed in the 'Western Civlization' school which tends to see all history from the lens of the West and tends to justify current Western attitudes. He does this throughout the book, especially when he tries to justify the Crusades based on Muslim intolerance (partly true, but not completely) and when he tries to argue that Christians in the ancient period had a demographic advantage over pagans because they had a concept of charity (not especially correct. Pagans tried to take care of their sick and their poor, but justified it through mechanisms such as patronage and philanthropia) or the 'science' of the scholastics (not really that different from ancient science) The overwhelming impression is that both Jesus and Christians acted like middle-class American evangelicals which is clearly anachronistic. Not to mention an interpretation which gets up my left-nostril. Western civilization has brought many good things into the world, but not all of it is a good. That is setting aside the historical imperative to try to see the cultures one studies on its own terms, not as a pale reflection of our own. If a society seems entirely alike ours or unlike ours, we have to assume that our cultural blinders are on. And, I fear, this is true of this book.

Yet, this book has its virtues. It does, rather successfully, challenge some of prevailing historical fads and that is is a good thing. All in all, Stark's book is a bit uneven. Readable, but don't take everything on face value.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

A myth-busting book, Stark challenges some of the main planks of what we "understand" about church history. I already had a taste of this when I read his challenge to the universal negative perspective on the Crusades, God's Battalions.

Some of the myths he seeks to debunk in The Triumph of Christianity:
--early Christianity appealed primarily to the poor and powerless;
--early Christianity was primarily a male affair (he argues precisely the opposite);
--Constantine made Christianity the state religion;
--the Crusades were an expression of imperialistic Christians who "brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam";
--Medieval times are properly called the Dark Ages because it was a time of low productivity and creativity;
--the Scientific Revolution came about despite Christianity;
--the Spanish Inquisition was a reign of terror that tortured and killed many;
--with the advance and science and modernization religion will wither and die.

Stark is well-read; the bibliography at the back is 42 pages long. Also, his writing style is very readable.

The one reservation I have is that it seems that he gives perhaps too much credit to sociological explanations which, by implication, lessens the influence of other explanations (such as spiritual ones).

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've noticed that whenever people discuss the merits and demerits of Christianity, the discussion almost inevitably returns back to some of the same themes: what about the Crusades? Or the Inquisition? Or the Church's insistence to suppress knowledge? And usually, the questioner has the sympathetic Christian trapped. Some of these themes, among others, are the "wild card" that trumps the merits of Christianity.

This is why I am thankful for Rodney Stark's recent work "The Triumph of Christianity". Stark is renown sociologist from Baylor University who has written about similar issues in the history of the church for years. I was largely unaware of Stark going into this book, save a quotation from an earlier work "The Rise of Christianity", but am glad that I read for a number of reasons.

There are so many strengths to this book that I'll only mention a few.

This book is a perfect example of history done right for masses, or, normal folk like us not living in Academia. In the introduction, he makes it very clear that he has "continued to write for the general reader, based on [his] belief that if [he] can't say it in plain English, it must be because [he] doesn't understand what [he] is writing about." Hear, hear! This is usually my central complaint about books targeted toward wide audiences but don't manage to shake the urge to speak 10 feet above everyone else's head.

Yet, Stark also shows that scholarly work and plain language don't have to be at ends with each other. The bibliography is extensive, the work is shown, and the historiography is premiere. It's at this point that I want to speak a little bit more.

Historiogaphy is the "study of history" and is the role of the writer who wishes to be taken seriously. For instance, if someone is going to go against the grain of a classically accepted opinion, they must show who held it, and then show why it is wrong. In order to know why something is wrong, you have to know what it is first.

Not only does Stark do this with each major objection, but he does it with flare as well saying things like "it would be hard to discover a more glaring instance of historical bias and ignorance," (p. 255) and "Unfortunately, nearly every word of White's account is a lie--as are so many of the other stories he wrote about conflicts between religion and science in his now discredited, but long-esteemed, work." Spicy!

There are, inevitably, some weaknesses. Some other readers found some historical mistakes in attributing wrong names to wrong people, and he criticizes inerrancy at one point. But the issues are easily overlooked as they do not affect the overall arch of his argument.

I don't want to make this review too long but some of the topics he hits are such things as surveying the history of the early church, looking at the ramifications of Constantine's conversion and how it changed the world, examining the "lies" of the Dark Ages, and many many more. Simply put, I don't want to share too many because there are so many fun insights in here that I'd rather you discover them for yourself.

To conclude, this book scratches every itch that I feel when I come to a book on history. It is readable but not condescending. It is argued well, but entertaining. Finally, it takes an incredibly fascinating story of the most powerful, and famous institution in the world, turns some ideas on their heads and helps seek clarification in others. This book will have been one of the best books I have read in 2012.

[Rick Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book borrowed a great deal of material from Stark's other books: "The Rise of Christianity", "God's Battalions", and "The Victory of Reason". So in that sense it felt like a Stark compendium rather than a new book. There were times when I was frustrated by his misconstruing of the Bible through the lens of secular sociology. However, like with all of Stark's books, there was a lot of food for thought as well. The last section about the expansion of Christianity in the modern world and the statistics he compiles in support of his ideas are fascinating.

[Michael Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely read this if you have been sold a bill of goods by Voltaire and Gibbon in their interpretation of history. This book is a huge myth buster!

[Tiago Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

What were the odds? Christianity went from a weird sect to a defining feature of Western moral thought in the span of a few centuries. If you ask Rodney Stark, the odds were better than they looked.

The first half of this book somehow scratches a similar itch as Seeing Like a State. It is similarly dopamine-releasing, anyway. In SLaS you feel like the proverbial fish learning about water; if you grew up in a Christian environment, TToC is like the proverbial fish learning about the history of the oceans.

There were good reasons to bet on the Jesus movement: demography, social status, gender norms, a compelling reward for faith in heaven. The other side of this trade would point to persecution, a burdensome moral code, and a bunch of obligations to the church and its members. Stark convincingly argues that martyrdom seemed to look pretty noble to observers, strict morals make religious commitment stronger, and obligations are par for the course if you can go to heaven in the end.

The last quarter of the book is almost as good. The actual-historical-records-driven numbers on the Inquisition contributed to a refreshingly contrarian take on the extent of Catholic persecution in Spain and beyond. The last salvo is against the secularization thesis, and it's delightful. The world has indeed probably not moved much in the direction of secularization for a while. Particularly interesting was the artifact of Western Europe being surprisingly unchurched due to state involvement in official denominations and blocking church-building. Perhaps the "decline of religion" was just Western Europe making it harder for people to attend mass the way they'd like.

The 3rd quarter of the book doesn't hold up as well. A description of "scholastic science" and a defense of European progress during the Middle Ages fail to cover the rise of Christianity and rather try to explain why the Dark Ages weren't all that dark. That argument is better made elsewhere and could have been shortened. Likewise, the account of the Crusades is a bit weak. Stark wants to defend the Church, however justified he might be, and deviates from his most interesting ideas.

I am now more interested in histories of religion than expected - blame this book.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

How did a frightened rabble of Jews in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire produce a religion that endured Imperial persecution while slowly transforming the Empire from within before going on to produce the world’s largest – and still fastest growing – religion? In this fascinating book, Rodney Stark eschews the normal theological and historical answers to this question and sets out to answer the question through sociological analysis. For instance, the vastly higher status afforded Christian women meant that they both embraced the religion and, since the religion set its face sternly against the infanticide or abortion that affected infant girls far more than boys, ensured that more girls were actually born to Christian families, who then went on to have children themselves. Christian care of the sick ensured that those cared for by Christian families and communities survived illnesses at significantly higher rates than pagans.

The book is perhaps at its strongest in this initial analysis, but the rest of its sociological tour through two milliennia of Christian history is always interesting and frequently eye-opening, from Stark’s robust defence of the Crusades to the weakness inherent in the Church-state partnerships so prevalent in Europe, which Stark points to as the main cause for the relative weakness of present-day Christianity there as opposed to the rest of the world, where robust religious competition ensures freshness of ideas and congregations.

Always stimulating and highly recommended.

[Jeff Shelnutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rodney Stark is a name I kept hearing being tossed around, both in print and in speech. Out of his many books, I settled on The Triumph of Christianity as an introduction to understanding his impact. Sociologist by profession, Stark seems to mainly focus on historical misperceptions and obfuscations regarding the influence of Christianity on the development of Western civilization.

“History” is a funny thing. It is one’s perspective based on documentation (if it exists), evidence, human nature, and interpretation. There’s a lot of wriggle room there. Historical facts are fixed; getting to those facts is the trick. All historians view history through the lense on their own experience with a little (or a lot) of bias thrown in. Neutrality is difficult, if not impossible. Stark is no exception.

Still, it is refreshing when an author can offer credible analysis for his theories and is willing to question long held assumptions. I’ll mention a few from this book. Mentioning one does not mean I fully agree or endorse it. But I have brought them into consideration.

“Christianity was not a religion based on the slaves and lowest classes of Romans, but was particularly attractive to the privileged.”

The Christian message certainly appealed to Roman slaves and to the underprivileged. It brought all classes into fellowship--even friendship--with one another. This was an unheard of phenomenon. The New Testament contains numerous references to this reality.

Stark contends a primary sociological reason that Christianity spread so rapidly was because members of the privileged classes embraced it. This was not only true for the first and second century church, but observed in the 16th-century Reformation movements as well.

“Paganism was not quickly stamped out by a triumphant and intolerant Christianity, but disappeared very slowly and lingers still in various New Age and esoteric circles.”

The mainline view is that Constantine adopted Christianity as Rome’s state religion in 313 AD. Persecution against Christians decreased dramatically. With its new government sanctioned status, the church turned fiercely upon its pagan neighbors.

Yes and no, says Stark. What Constantine actually did was to include Christianity in the list of acceptable religions. He made it “respectable.” As a result, the ranks of the clergy swelled. Lack of persecution and an easy-living created a lax and lazy leadership.

The emperor then turned his attention toward supporting heresy hunts. “Heresy” was broadly defined and included pretty much any viewpoint that didn’t garner official church approval. So instead of persecuting pagans, the church spent time and energy going after sects. If anything, Constantine’s legacy was that he took a robust and steadfast minority faith, endorsed it, and let it loose upon itself.

“The Crusaders were not greedy colonialists, but marched east for religious motives and at great risk and personal expense. Many knowingly went bankrupt and few of them lived to return.”

This is one of Stark’s more controversial assertions. It has become accepted in academic circles and parroted by pundits that modern radical Islamic terrorism is, in part, a response to the crusading Europeans of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Voltaire, Hume and Diderot all helped to shape this narrative. Edward Gibbon probably originated it.

Stark writes, “...a group of distinguished contemporary historians...propose that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations, by many centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and by sudden attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places.”

Self-preservation and the Pope’s promise of absolution seem to have been the actual motives for the Crusaders. The European knights were a bloodthirsty folk, yes. But so were their Islamic foes. It was, quite simply, a bloody age.

“The so-called Dark Ages not only weren’t dim, but were one of the most inventive times in Western history.”

Again, according to Stark, the “myth” of the dark ages was propounded by Enlightenment thinkers. After the fall of Rome, there were no longer large cities with hundreds of thousands of residents. Instead, Europe separated into hundreds of independent “statelets.”

There was not yet the renewed interest in Greek and Latin. But literary interests aside, without Rome’s tax burdens, “human effort and ingenuity turned to better ways to farm, to sail, to transport goods, to conduct business, to build churches, to make war, to educate, and even to play music.” In fact, the primary revolution, claims Stark, was not literary, but scientific.

Modern science stands on the shoulders of discoveries made in the “dark ages.” It was also led by deeply religious men. So that...

“Science arose only in the West because efforts to formulate and discover laws of nature only made sense if one believed in a rational creator.”

The foundation of modern science is the scientific method. The expectation for consistent results when testing a hypothesis is based on observable laws. Hence, the grand assumption of science as we know it today is that there is a natural law Giver.

“The claim that religion must soon disappear as the world becomes more modern is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of academic atheists.”

Actually, the statistics show the opposite. Stark closes with the evidence of this. (See also The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins) He demonstrates that though Christianity might be on the decline in Western Europe, it is on the rise in many other parts of the world (like Africa and Latin America).

Whether you agree or disagree with Stark’s conclusions, his views are certainly worth considering. As a Christian, I ultimately credit the “triumph of Christianity” to God’s work in history. But underlying spiritual reality is commonly displayed through the “natural” progression of events. Here in is the value of Stark’s contribution: he applies social analysis to historical trends.

[Sherif Gerges · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a strange book, and I have to confess that it started on a really high note - particularly in Stark’s analysis of the demographics and early development of Christianity. While the extant data is sparse, making robust statistical modeling a bit of a challenge, and I don't know if his regression models impute or are accepted by fellow academics - the insights he derives are nevertheless striking. One of the most intriguing explanations Stark offers for Christianity’s ascendancy over paganism in Ancient Rome pertains to the demographic consequences of women, child marriage and infanticide.

In Roman society, it was common for families to marry off their daughters at a very young age—sometimes as early as seven—and to practice infanticide, especially of female infants. In contrast, Christians largely eschewed these customs. Stark points out that Christian communities maintained a strong pro-life stance, strongly forbidding infanticide and almost eradicating child marriages. Furthermore, Christianity fostered a comparatively egalitarian religious framework for women, devoid of rigid marital prescriptions. Many female Christian saints, for instance, chose to remain unmarried and celibate, dedicating themselves to religious life. Furthermore, Christianity enforced strict monogamy while paganism allowed for men (but not women) to take on multiple partners. While these general trends align with the prevailing historiographical consensus, Stark’s quantitative exposition adds an empirical dimension and to my eyes reinforces the argument that Christianity’s ethical and social structures played a pivotal role in its expansion and eventual dominance in the Roman empire (coupled of course with conversions, proselytizing etc…).

Then, I am not sure. Stark’s tone veers into that of an apologist for Christianity, a shift that is both perplexing and disappointing. Some of the points he raises is quite intriguing (for example the irreligious nature of purported “Christian” societies); but it needs a strong background in historiography to assess correctly. It is unclear why he chooses to append revisionist history and polemical assertions to what begins as a rigorous demographic analysis. The most egregious of these is his argument regarding the emergence of science, wherein he asserts that science flourished within the Christian world—rather than the Muslim world—due to Christianity’s belief in a rational designer.

This is utter nonsense: Muslims had contributed more to science than Christians did up until the 15th century. As far as I am concerned this entire chapter of the book is stupid.

Altogether, this is probably worth the read for the demographic analysis alone, it is excellent and educational. One cannot help but marvel at the extent to which we, as a society, frequently overlook the profound influence of Christianity in bestowing upon humanity the foundational principles of egalitarianism. However some of the book is just an apology tour and be judiciously set aside.

[Santeri Marjokorpi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaikuttavin kirja, jonka olen vähään aikaan lukenut. Maailmankuvani muuttui tätä lukiessa. Stark käy läpi koko kirkkohistorian Jeesuksen ajasta nykypäivään ja käyttäen sosiologian keinoja hahmottelee sitä, miten pienestä juutalaisesta lahkosta tuli maailman suurin uskonto, joka yhä kasvaa. Samalla hän kumoaa massiivisen määrän harhaluuloja, myyttejä ja propagandaa, jota kristinkunnan historiasta on esitetty. Esimerkiksi Starkin mukaan varhainen kristinusko ei ollut pelkästään köyhien uskonto vaan levisi erityisesti rikkaiden ja hyväosaisten parissa, ristiretkissä ei ole mitään anteeksipyydeltävää, keskiaika ei ollut pimeä, kapitalismi keksittiin kristinuskon vaikutuksesta keskiajalla, tiede kehittyi kristillisen teologian uskosta rationaaliseen suunnittelijaan, inkvisitio oli aikansa humaanein oikeusistuin, reformaation omaksuivat ne hallitsijat ja alueet, jotka olivat eniten katolisen kirkon vaikutuksen alla, Eurooppa ei ole koskaan ollut kovin kristillinen maanosa ja maallistumista ei oikeastaan tapahdu, vaan maailmanhistoria on ollut koko ajan kristinuskon yhä enenevää voittokulkua, joka tosin paikallisesti on aina ottanut siellä ja täällä takapakkia. Kaikkiin näihin ja moniin muihin yhtä mullistaviin väitteisiin löytyy kattavat perustelut kirjasta. Oikeastaan joka luvussa oli mielenkiintoista uutta näkökulmaa asioihin, vaikka ihan kaikesta en ollutkaan samaa mieltä. Joka tapauksessa tämä pitäisi ehdottomasti saada suomeksi. Sivistyin.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This expansion of Stark's classic "Rise of Christianity" adds plenty of new sections and brings his argument to the 21st century.
Based on plenty of evidence, he corrects many popular false notions and makes several surprising claims:

- that early Christianity spread through Jewish social networks, a high birth rate, and social justice efforts, appealing more to urban and upper class people than some think
- that a steady 3% annual growth rate would've been sufficient for it to dominate the Roman Empire within a few centuries
- that the church offered a higher quality of life - not just an afterlife
- That he dark ages were a time of technological and educational progress, when Europe moved beyond imperial stagnancy to competitive advancement
- that the notion of Columbus proving that earth was round was fictional, from later centuries
- that he Spanish Inquisition's brutality is largely anti-Spanish/Catholic propaganda, and that numbers of victims are inflated
- that diversity and pluralism within Christianity has been associated with growth and tolerance (i.e. the Americas)
- that having a unified, national state church had led to greater oppression and decline of Christianity
- that much of Europe's conversion after Constantine was superficial, and still is

A great read for anyone wanting to build on their basic knowledge!

[Thomas Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

If “Dominion” by Tom Holland is trying to paint how profoundly christainity has shaped western nations, then “The Triumph of Chrisitnity” by Rodney Stark is trying to unpick the many misunderstandings of christianity’s history. Both these two authors are not christian but they articulate very thought provoking views. I found it more enjoyable than “Bullies & Saints” because the author had no qualms challenging the mainstream views because he isn’t a christian trying to ‘defend’ christianity. I definitely learnt a lot of new information.

The second half of the book is the most eye opening - showing how Europe was never actually christian on the ground (most churches were empty), much of the church leadership was filled people who only joined for power (some cathedrals were known to be effectively brothels; many priests attended mass drunk, if at all; one guy went from ‘unbaptised’ to ‘pope’ in 8 days), and how the “dark ages” were anything but dark (the fall of rome was the best thing that happened to innovation & development). The book is very easy to read. The only challenge is that you really need to read each chapter in one sitting, not in parts. Highly recommend.

5/5 stars

[Jeanne Boudreau · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was fascinated when I first started reading this book. It didn’t take me long to realize that the “so called” facts that were presented were skewed. The author disputed nearly all historical research that didn’t agree with his opinion. When you see exclamation points throughout each chapter in a publication that is supposedly based on facts, it makes you suspect all that is written is not fact, but merely an opinion. A great deal of research went into this book but it’s unfortunate that the author only believes his own research, dismissing well documented historical facts that didn’t fit into his premise.

[Kenneth Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stark's chapter on the impact of Christianity on ancient Greco-Roman women is worth the price of the book, many times over. He makes his argument with such clarity and force that the reader can't help but believe that any woman living in the ancient Roman world would crawl over glass to find the grace, hope and (both body and soul) safety of Christianity. In that particular culture, Christianity certainly changed and renewed marriage, and parenting, with an astounding effect of healing and strength in the culture of that day. No wonder it spread like a wildfire!

[Jordan Treece · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tries to explain from a historical and sociological standpoint how Christianity became the biggest world religion. I don't know if the author considers himself a Christian; if he does he's not the same kind of Christian as myself. At mimimum he clearly has a great respect for Christianity, and believes any parts of the Bible that he can back up from the social sciences. It is a very interesting book with a lot of good history that I didn't know before.

[Daniel Ligon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sociological history of Christianity, not a theological history. 5 stars, not because I agree with all of Stark’s positions (for example, his distaste for biblical inerrancy), but because of how interesting and thought provoking the book is. Though not a conservative evangelical, Stark is nonetheless very favorable toward Christianity (in the broadest terms) and draws some fascinating conclusions as he looks at the sociological factors affecting the explosive growth of Christianity over the centuries.

[Clayton Keenon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because he is deliberately pushing back on popular and scholarly misconceptions, I think he may overstate some of his conclusions, but his overall points are well made and well defended. Lots to think about here.

[Joe Torbay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye opening, historical perspective of the spread of Christianity. Beautifully researched with clear perspectives.
Challenges many old held beliefs and stories we accept as facts.. I enjoyed reading this book.

[JR Snow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Containing a lot of recycled material; this is the Stark way–If you've read "The Rise of the West" then you've read this book. It is an expansion of his earlier book "The Rise of Christianity" which I have not read.

Still, a fun romp through sociological and historiographical debunking.

[Leandro Dutra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging re-evaluation of historical myþs.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stimulating, provocative, and helpful. Challenged some of my assumptions and filled in a few gaps.

[Max Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, but not as much as I thought I was going to. It might be that there wasn't as much new information in it as I thought there would be. However, that being said there were many parts of this book that I did very much like.

Dr. Stark says that this book is an expansion of an earlier book called the "Rise of Christianity" he wrote in the 90's. He said that he felt more qualified to write this book now than he did then. In the first section he starts talking about who Christ was as gives some great ideas. However, I read once in a book about studies about the historical Christ it's like people look down a 2000 year well and the see their own reflection back at them. That me be somewhat what Dr. Stark does here. For example he pretty much shows that new religious movements usually start in the upper classes, and then he shows how there is evidence that Jesus' family may not have been as impoverished as is usually believed. However, he didn't talk about the fact that Jesus' family sacrificed the turtle doves at his birth that was a poor persons sacrifice. However, some of the other things that he says make a lot of sense like the fact that it says the family went to Jerusalem every years which showed they probably had money, or were very devout, if poor. He also, says that Jesus is never called a carpenter, but a carpenter's son, which in the regular scheme of things he would have followed his fathers profession. Dr. Stark makes the argument however, that there is a good chance he went to a rabbi for training. I don't know if I believe all this, but one of the funny things I found was that Dr. Stark quoted a lot more scripture in this section than I've read in a lot of other Christian books talking about Jesus.

His arguments about the how closely the Jewish and Christian communities remained in contact and the importance of the closeness and the length of the closeness well into the 6th century.

I also like how he explained how the progression of science worked. He explained how Copernicus was not some hick priest who came up with a revolutionary idea, but a highly educated priest who took the next step. He also points out that the idea that there is an Intelligent God who designed everything in a coherent way was a main hypothesis of Christianity and that that turned out to be true. He quotes Einstein's famous quote about how there must be a God because of the level of organization that exists. He also points out that far from Christianity not being attractive to those who are educated that many hard scientists and engineers are believers but that soft scientists, such as himself, and the idiot Richard Dawkins, are non believers. Although Dr. Stark doesn't say it, it's obvious that it takes great intelligence to be a believer.

Dr. Stark explains how northern Europe was never really evangelized, which I've heard of before but never heard it explained the way he does. Also, he explains how Christianity was an urban phenomenon and the rural areas were never really converted much except that they added Christianity to their belief system. He shows that Europe was never really very religious and that Christianity was vitalized by coming to America. He also talks about how Adam Smith explained how religion responds to the forces of competition. He says he didn't even know that Adam Smith had talked about religion and that it was hard to find an edition that actually had the comments about religion. Adam Smith was truly a visionary, and the people who control the sources like to take religion out of the picture. Like Newton the saint of secularism, it's rarely mentioned that most of the writing that he did was about religion, and that he was probably a heretic.

Another interesting thing about the book was his information about the Spanish Inquisition. This tied into an interesting article that I'd read about 15 years ago that talked about how there was an propaganda war against Spain by the English (Protestants) in Europe. That article said that the protestants created a propaganda war against Spain which was the world super power of the time. The thing that that article pointed out that was that the Spanish actually treated the natives better than the English did. There is after all a race of Mexicans, or mixed race peoples in Central and South America, but there are none in North America. I think it's pretty much clear that while torturing some people and treating some badly wiping out the whole population is also a very bad thing. I don't see any mixed races in Northeast USA. He brings a lot of facts that show that the inquisition is not as bad as everyone continues to say.

If you haven't read a lot of Rodney Stark's other books, and you have no knowledge of the reformation this book will be revelatory.

[Alecia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must-read for every modern Christian!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rodney Stark loves being a contrarian. And The Triumph of Christianity is no exception to that rule. While the book summarizes much of what he's written elsewhere, it's still a fun, breezy exercise in myth busting. Here are a few spots where Stark's juices get flowing:

"The major result triumph of many unrelenting scholarly attacks on the historical reliability of the New Testament has been to frustrate the attackers because again and again scripture has stood up to their challenges." (p. 55)

"Although Paul is famous for his missionary journeys, he was, in fact, quite sedentary." (p. 66)

"As with all the other attacks on the early Christians by German academics in this era, this [idea that the early Christians were ill-educated and of the lower classes] was mostly arrogant nonsense." (p. 97)

"Hardly any attention has been paid to . . . an extraordinary slaughter of the Christians in Persia [in the fourth century]. . . . The number who died in these massacres probably greatly exceeded the number who died in all the persecutions by the Romans put together." (p. 180)

"The church did not exploit its official standing [in the fourth and fifth centuries] to quickly stamp out paganism. . . Instead, paganism survived relatively unmolested for centuries." (p. 198).

"A great deal of nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance--that, in contrast with Christian brutality against Jews and heretics, Islam showed remarkable tolerance for conquered people." (p. 207)

"The most beneficial factor in the rise of Western civilization was the fall of Rome! . . . For example, at the fall of Rome there was very extensive slavery everywhere in Europe; by the time of the 'Renaissance' it was long gone." (pp. 239, 241)

"Despite the nearly universal belief to the contrary, the earliest, most vigorous and most effective opposition to the witch hunts came from the Spanish Inquisition." (p. 272)

"Medieval times were not the 'Age of Faith.' For the vast majority of medieval Europeans, their 'religious' beliefs were a hodge-podge of pagan, Christian, and superstitious fragments; they seldom went to church." (p. 272)

"Just as there were no 'Dark Ages,' there was no 'Scientific Revolution.' " (p. 277)

The Triumph of Christianity does not pretend to offer even coverage of geography, time or people groups. Rather, Stark focuses on where the conventional wisdom about history (both among scholars and among the populace generally) has got things massively wrong. It's obvious that in busting these myths he's having a good ol' time. As a result, so do his readers.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of Rodney Stark, starting with his influential book The Rise of Christianity. This book covers similar ground, but expands to travel through all of church history. It is perhaps a sort of magnum opus, since readers familiar to Stark will see things he covered in other of his books too. But basic church history this is not, instead you could call it church history through a sociologist's eyes.

Or perhaps, everything you think you know about how Christianity grew is wrong!

Stark takes pleasure in bursting a lot of false ideas we have about christian history and religion. Just a few he covers here:

*Do you think Christianity grew among the poor in its earliest days? Wrong! Like most new religious movements, Christianity caught on with upper classes. This is because upper classes have the free time to explore new religions while lower classes tend to not have such time and thus stick with the traditions.

*Did Christianity grow through mass revivals and conversions? Nope. If you take the number of Christians in Constantine's day (325 CE) and the number reported in the book of Acts all you need is about 3% growth per year to get there. Christianity grew slowly but steadily. Along with that, the things Stark writes about why people convert, social networks and religious capital, is fascinating.

*Was the fall of the Roman Empire the beginning of a dark age? No, and most historians now do not call it that, despite what you hear on the popular level. Technology continued to advance in this era on many fronts, from agriculture to warfare to politics. The whole "dark age" mythology arose because elites during the enlightenment did not see the sort of cultural advances elites tend to be drawn to, such as literature. Though, ironically, the languages the elites in the Enlightenment wrote in all flowered during the so-called Dark Ages.

*Were witch-burnings a trait of close-minded religious medievals? No. Actually witch burning happened most frequently after the Renaissance due to the political and other cultural structures being shaken. In places where there was political unrest and turmoil, witches were burned as structure broke down. In places, such as Spain, surprisingly, few witches were burned as ordered investigations often exonerated the accused or gave room for them to repent.

And so on. If you enjoy history, want to learn about the growth of Christianity, or want to learn the other side of some common accusations against Christians throughout history, check this out.

[Radoslav Vician · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seldom have I read such a complex research on Christianity. Amazing book.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've said in an earlier review that every Rodney Stark book is a collaboration between two authors

- one is a hard-minded social-scientist/historian, skeptical of received wisdom just because it's what people have always believed, always looking for new ways to test hypotheses and quantify claims

- the other is a Christian (and specifically Catholic) apologist, who will not lie, and will admit to issues when those issues are glaring, but who *will* always find a way to put the best possible gloss on a confrontation between Catholicism and the rest of the world.

To these two, we now have added a "Libertarian" collaborator, who's explanation for most social phenomena is rooted in classical liberalism and the ideas of incentives, choices, monopoly and such like.

The result is books that are usually interesting, with many provocative theses and interesting explanations, but also with some glaring holes where the skeptical Stark was apparently uninterested is pushing some obvious contradictions or consequences of his various claims.

On the specific side a few of these that I found noteworthy include
- does the claim about low religiosity in monopoly religion countries hold for Islamic countries? Islam seems a good proving ground for his various claims, but this (IMHO obvious) tactic was never pursued, not even at a rough approximate level, let alone at the statistical level we've seen in his some of his works (like Cities of God).
- there seems to be something of a contradiction between his dual claims that religiosity in the Middle Ages was superficial and rare, and that the Crusades were motivated by genuine religiosity of all involved.

Ultimately, I think, the reason he's having trouble with these contradictions is that he never makes clear quite what a religion (let alone Christianity) means for him; rather he uses a variety of proxies that he considers relevant but which others might not.

One can consider a religion to be a *specific* set of beliefs (in which case many of the Christians he counts around the world as being part of the Christian Triumph) would not be considered Christians by the orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed or suchlike. Strangely, he fully understands this point in the context of Medieval Europe, but fails to see that the exact same point holds for current Christianity, whether in its "spiritual but not religious" forms, in many of its North American Jesus-based forms, or in many of its African forms.

One can consider a religion to be a vague sort of woo about the world, a belief in various sorts of superstitions and magic. By that light, I suspect the Secularization of Modernity predictors were, in fact, correct. It may be hard to believe that the US and Europe are in fact ration societies, but you need to compare them with societies that are still steeped in the past, many in Africa, some in Asia. People in the US will talk all sorts of woo, but they will not (most of them, anyway) actually kill animals, cast spells, leave curses in various locations, and so on. People in Africa or, eg, Myanmar, *do* do that, with some sort of real expectation of results; Europe was doing the same at around, say, 1600, much less so in 1800, very little by 2000.

Or one can consider religion to be a set of cultural practices, the way we do things like births, marriages, deaths. Stark, for example, puts great score on how often people pray as a measure of their Christianity; I'd be much more convinced if we had any sort of metric as to how much people actually expect such prayers to have efficacy, as opposed to simply being "the way people in my group cope with, and work through, difficult situations". Yes, people may pray for their marriage – but most of them also see a marriage counsellor, and expect more from the latter than the former. What I do not see in the US is the *behavior* associated with honestly believing in what's claimed for Christianity as was the case in earlier Europe, or is the case in some more "primitive" (or if you prefer "authentically religious") societies today. For example I don't see the sort of acceptance of random misfortune that used to be ascribed to God's Will in the past; even the supposedly most devout seem happy to blame doctors and the medical system when their 90+ yr old parents die in hospital, and there's precious little acceptance in popular culture of the idea that we all have to die, might as well accept it as an eventual reality.

All this matters because, ultimately, I don't find Starks ultimate claim convincing. Yes, he may be correct that the number of people calling themselves Christians is large and growing larger. That's a good number to trumpet if you want to score rhetorical points, not if you want to understand.
Scott Alexander has an essay called _How the West was Won_ in which he points out that most of the people complaining about "the West" in various ways start by being confused between "Western" or "European" Culture and Modernity; and their complaints become incoherent because they do not understand this distinction. It feels like Stark is making the same mistake, calling various sets of superstitious practices a religion, and specifically Christianity, when the two are only marginally connected.
This matters because one of Stark's theses is that it was Christianity that gave us the particular rationalistic, law-based outlook that resulted in Science, Liberal Democracy and the rest of the Modern Package. That argument doesn't work, or at least becomes incoherent, when you continually elide the distinction between one particular Christianity (call it something like Traditional Upper Class Catholicism) and every manner of woo and superstition that calls itself Christianity today.

I think there's scope for an author with Stark's best characteristics to cover this same material (historical and modern) but to do so without the Catholic Apologist in the background; better would be someone who appreciates the history of Christianity but also of other religions, is skeptical to all of them, and who is willing to differentiate between, and track the differing saliencies of, concepts like particular specific beliefs (Nicene Creed etc), general degree of woo, actual belief in this woo (as opposed to mere cultural behavior), tribal affiliation, identifying with "Christianity" more as a statement about particular ethical or even socio-cultural beliefs (gay marriage, abortion, ..., general "conservative and against modernity") than as about religious beliefs, etc.

[Steve Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thick book, full of careful research presented in a clear and simple way. The chapters begin with a ‘traditional’ view of one aspect of the history of Christianity and then Mr Stark explains that this is an erroneous understanding of the factors at play. He uses the rest of each chapter to set out his view and to explain the basis for this view. It is a compelling way to present the information and the text is enlivened by Mr Stark’s opinions on why history teachers have adopted and held fast to so many false ideas about the past. I understand Mr Stark has described himself, at various times, as a Christian and an agnostic. The presentation of the information suggests an impassioned social historian whose determination to follow where the facts lead is his paramount priority.
The book starts by considering how a new faith, at odds with the surrounding pagan world could survive and thrive. It was not, it seems, a religion of slaves, but was primarily attractive to those in privileged classes and to women. It then traces the factors within the Roman world at that time, two millennia ago, that are likely to have been important in the growth of this strange religion up to the point where it could, and did, become the dominant faith of the Empire. From a sociological perspective none of this growth was impossible or even improbable and the rate of growth of Christian communities is firmly in line with other available population statistics. The place of women in society was revolutionary and by valuing girl-children and objecting to abortions Christian communities stood out from their pagan neighbours and female mortality was substantially reduced.
Mr Stark then asks the question whether this was a good thing, as the adoption of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine significantly changed the character of the Christian congregations and their leaders quite quickly, leading to very significant impacts for history, for individuals and for whole societies.
The development of vibrant Christianity around the Mediterranean Sea thrived for centuries after Christ before whole civilisations were wiped out by the expansion of Islam. Mr Stark defends the Crusades as being more than a siphoning-off of excess testosterone in Frankish knights and he puts forward the view that it was a genuine, expensive attempt to protect Christians and Cristian heritage from disappearing also. The claims that Islam was a benign rule over its people is disputed and he explains that Islamic objection to the Crusades is quite a recent phenomenon.
It was fascinating to read of a different assessment on the progress achieved by the nascent nation states after the fall of Rome. I grew up with the term ‘The Dark Ages’ being firmly associated with the period between the Roman Empire and the middle ages. To Mr Stark this period included the middle ages and up to the Renaissance, but that was never part of my own (amateur) conception of the era. However, it was stimulating to learn about how innovation was released after Rome fell and that this was a factor in the establishment of European universities in the middle ages which then became the seedbed of scientific progress before, during and since the Renaissance. The polarisation of scientist and cleric in the early 16th Century does not seem to be borne out by the available evidence. Mr Stark suggests that scientists and clerics debated issues and that progress was made without the need for a small cadre of heroic atheists challenging Church tradition. Rather, most were building on a shared worldview.
Mr Stark’s debunking of myths such as the depth of Christianity in Europe during these early times, the piety of the mass of populations during the Protestant Reformation and the sadism of the Spanish Inquisition were salutary. I have to admit that my knowledge of that institution was highly influenced by Monty Python. Nobody, certainly not me, expected the Spanish Inquisition to be presented as an enlightened and pastorally responsible part of the Roman Catholic Church. At a time when many parts of Europe were being swept up in witch-hunting fever, the Inquisition, it seems, stood for justice, reason and restraint.
I enjoyed reading all of this revised history. It was fascinating to read that there is so much research being done into these questions and for this to be set out as part of Mr Stark’s explanations was very helpful. I did get the impression that he was a lightweight boxer, fighting for high quality research and a commitment to truth, up against a heavyweight champion, representing tradition and generations of superficial and biased historical analysis. In such a context some overenthusiastic punching is needed to tip the balance and knock the champ over. The book made me want to read other interpretations of history to compare them with Mr Stark’s.
I would have liked more information about European Christianity after the Reformation. The perspective swings over to an American-centric view, but I can understand that Mr Stark is addressing some of the issues that have faced his country’s attitude to, and within, Christianity over the last two hundred years.
He sets out his view of our current world as one that is in no way about to relinquish religion as being part of life and he backs this up with statistics. And Christianity is presented as still being a vibrant force as we head further towards a globalised society.
The book is an enjoyable read – as an antidote to anti-Christian propaganda by 18th Century humanists such as Voltaire and Gibbon (and more recent atheist polemicists), and as a refreshing angle on how we got where we are and why that would not have been possible without Christianity. It is also refreshing to think that Christianity isn’t here only because of supernatural factors that had no basis in human interactions and political decisions.

[Eric Masters · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some very interesting concepts, perfect for discussion among a group- though ultimately I think the author missed the mark. When discussing what was supposed to be the central topic (how Christianity spread and came to power over the last 2000 years) the book was interesting and well-written; however, much of the book is given over to pseudo-historical conjecture presented as history. Stark excoriates other academics for the use of the phrase "must have been" but relies heavily on "would have" and "would have been feasible/reasonable."
All in all, Stark is a much better sociologist than he is a historian. If you go in understanding that, there are some very thoughtful concepts worth interacting with. You might even only throw the book down once or twice, given the right attitude.