Sociological Theory of Growth

IV. Christian Context

Overview

A. Introduction: Stark's "The Rise of Christianity"

How did an obscure Jewish sect grow to become the state religion of the Roman Empire? In his book "The Rise of Christianity," social scientist, Rodney Stark, addressed the question that has teased the imagination for generations. Stark initially set aside the traditional reasons of mass conversion, a highly moral and counter-cultural lifestyle, or a courageous stance in the face of persecution. Instead, he approached it from a theoretical framework based upon sociology.

B. Estimate of Growth and its Theoretical Reasons

Stark began with a mathematically analysis. He asked: "What formula could one use to project a population growth from a small population to a large population over three centuries?"

Stark made several assumptions. He began with one thousand believers in 40 CE and ended with 33,900,000 adherents in 350 CE. Then, he assumed a growth rate of forty percent per decade; this number closely matched the growth of the Mormons faith (43%) since its founding in the late 1820's. The formula is quite simple:

P = Ppre + (Ppre x Rc)

P is the population of believers. Ppre is the population of believers from the previous decade. R is the rate of change per decade. To demonstrate this formula, let's plug in the numbers for Stark's beginning point (Ppre = 1000 believers; Rc = 40%) to estimate the population in 50 CE.

P = 1000 + (1000 x .4)

P = 1000 + 400

P = 1400

To find out the population in 60 CE, we would take the population of 1400 as the Ppre and plug it into the formula. The answer is 1960. Continue this progression over three centuries and we arrive at a figure of believers close to forty million. I used a spreadsheet to recreate a table in his book. The highlights are below.

The "Percentage of Population" assumed a constant population of sixty million in the Empire.

Note the analysis above was based upon assumptions. But, were they reasonable? Stark defended his analysis in two ways. First, he compared his findings with those of other scholars. One of the most interesting findings came from Graydon F. Snyder who noted archaeologists could not find examples of church architecture before 180 CE (see "Ante Pacem, Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine"). Stark estimated 111,120 believers in the Empire on that year, thus implying the six figure number was a tipping point that shifted the faithful from private "house churches" to dedicated public gathering buildings.

Second, Stark employed a theory he developed when he did research on religious sects in the 1960's. He asked: why did these groups grow when their efforts in outreach generally failed? He found that people didn't convert out of any sense of defiance to general society but because of influence based upon their social networks. They converted because their family and friends converted. But, there was one caveat to this process; the uncommitted converted to being committed. Outsiders joined because they saw the behavioral differences neophyte members of their networks exhibited; the insiders exhibited a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Outsider family and friends wanted to be like these people. Stark applied his findings to the question of Church growth. He maintained most conversions were one-on-one affairs, not through polemics, apologetics, or street corner preaching. He also held these conversions could bolster his numeric analysis.

C. Defense of Theory

Stark extended his theory to address who might be the members of these social networks.

1. The faith appealed to upper classes.

Christianity appealed to members of all social classes, not just the poor and outcast. This fact was especially true in the cities since the faith shifted from a rural to an urban movement in the first decades after the death of Jesus. Stark theorized the well educated, middle to upper class were more attracted to new religious movements more than the poor. We should note that Christianity did continue the literary tradition of Judaism, created its own Scripture, and engaged in philosophic debate in the second and third centuries. Such endeavors implied well healed support for Christian authors and scribes.

2. The faith had success converting Diaspora Jews.

This assertion maybe Stark's most controversial. After all, Paul fought against both non-Christian, traditional Jews (Acts 21:27-36) and conservative Jewish Christians ("Judaizers"; Gal 2:11-21, Gal 5:2-4; Gal 5:12-16). John's gospel mentioned the excommunication of Jewish Christians from the synagogues (Jn 9:22, Jn 16:2). So, the Christian Scriptures indicated a rift existed between believers and non-believers early in the Church's history.

Stark, however, argued for success based upon theoretical grounds. Diaspora Jews represented eight to ten percent of the Empire's population. These "children of Abraham" were urban and relatively educated; a large portion of them were well-to-do. Hence, they were an economic force in the Roman world. However, with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE by Roman troops, they faced a crisis of faith. This presented them with a series of questions.

• What was the future of Judaism without their worship center?

• How would Roman policy and social attitudes change in the aftermath of the Jewish War (66-70 CE)?

• How could they adapt to their cultural and economic surroundings and keep their faith?

With these questions in mind, Stark contends Christianity gave Hellenized Jews a lifeline of continuity.

• They could honor the faith of their fathers and fully partake in the socioeconomic life of the Empire. Since many of them lived as middle to upper class citizens, they were influenced by Christians in their social networks.

• They encountered "God fearing" Gentiles within their social circles. These non-Jews were attracted to the faith based upon its monotheism and high moral standards (see Acts 8:27-28, Acts 10:1-2). Diaspora Jews would have come into contact with potential converts to Judaism. In turn, these Gentiles could acted as a bridge to the nascent Jesus movement.

• Living distant from their homeland, they were accustomed to receiving traveling teachers not unlike the Christian missionaries like Paul and Apollos. These travelers could have preached in Diaspora synagogues (see Acts 13:14-43, Acts 17:17) before they were ejected.

• As the use of Hebrew among Diaspora Jews declined, Greek replaced the mother tongue even in religious settings; so, a standard Greek translation (Septuagint) arose for use by Hellenized Jews. The early Church also adopted it. This shared Scripture was a point of continuity.

Stark has a strong argument for initial success of conversion among Hellenized Jews in the margins. But, he faced two factors. First, there was the question of numbers. There was no way to determine the size of the poor that consisted of uncommitted Diaspora Jews. Second, Christian Scriptures painted an atmosphere of animosity between followers of Christ and the Pharisees. The themes of Galatians, other sections of Paul's letters, and the implicit rift between believers and "the Jews" in John's gospel argue against his thesis of ongoing conversions in the second and third centuries.

3. The faith encouraged care for the ill.

Stark speculated pagans and Christians had different responses to contagious pandemics like the one that ravaged the Empire under Marcus Aurelius (r 161-180 CE). Such presented an existential crisis to the pagan population. The response among the elite was to flee the cities. The culture built on philosophy did not provide answers. The general population that remained to die despaired.

Christians responded with a commitment of care and a message of hope. First, believers stayed behind and tended to those who suffered. Initially, death rates rose to the same level no matter the beliefs of the sick. But, believers who survived developed immunity to the disease. If they existed in large enough numbers, they created "islands of protection" for others in the population until the pandemic abated. In addition, the infected who received care died in few numbers than those who did not. Food, drink, bathing and human contact gave encouragement while isolation increased despair. In the mind of the pagan, Christians survivors enjoyed the favor of the divine not only for their resilience but for their charity. As a result, those who remained in the cities shifted from a pagan social network to a Christian.

Second, believers proclaimed the Good News which promised an afterlife. Death was not a dark end but a transition. This message dovetailed with an outreach to the poor and disenfranchised. The status of the believer in the next life depended upon their ethics in this life. The words and deeds of believers were coherent which made the faith attractive to those affected by a pandemic.

4. Fertility rates among Christians increased compared with the general population.

Stark noted three factors to support his assertion. First, pagan culture preferred male children and produced limited family sizes due to high morality rates among the young. Female infanticide and abortion were not uncommon in secular society. Since the Christian subculture forbade these practices, believers had larger families with a surplus of women while the pagans had far more males than females.

Second, females had a higher status in the Church than in secular society. Eph 5:22-23 portrayed men living within a male dominated, gender segregated society. But, as the following verses indicated, the ideal husband treated his wife as a near-equal (Eph 5:25-30) while pagan men considered their wives as property. Some women did have a place of prominence in the early Church; Rom 16:1-15 contained an eclectic array of both men and women that Paul appreciated in equal measure.

Third, facing a dearth of women to marry, pagan men turned to Christian women. Intermarriage brought these men into the Christian social network and, thus, provided an increased pool of possible converts.

5. Christian charitable outreach increased their social network.

Stark addressed two chapters to the disarray found in the typical urban centers of the first centuries CE. Inequality in services, ethnic strife, and the constant threat of disease created depressing, even dire, conditions for the typical citizen. Christians were one of the few institutions that made an effort to address the needs of the people, especially the poor. They provided as sense of community to the needy and a message of equality among people of different ethnic backgrounds and classes (see Gal 3:28). In the face of natural disasters, they responded with effective nursing services.

6. The demands of faith reinforced Christian commitment.

Stark argued that the Church became a cultural force before it grew in numbers. Its presence not only depended upon its counter-cultural values (charitable outreach) but to the high standards of the Christian lifestyle, both in its monotheism and its morality. Those who aspired to the life of faith joined a community that also lived at that level. Living among others created a cycle of expectation and fulfillment; a local church demanded certain behaviors from its members and it rewarded those who demonstrated those behaviors.

This self-reinforcing cycle reached its apex with martyrdom. Those who suffered and died for the faith were not irrational. In fact, they acted not only with the promise of eternal life, they received the overwhelming support of the faith community. In other words, their reward was in the afterlife and in the present. They acted within the internal logic of the community.

The cultural gulf between pagans and Christians was enough to attract some to consider the faith seriously, especially if they were evangelized with believing family members or friends.

7. The demands of faith resulted in a strong organization.

Adherents to the Jesus movement not only committed themselves to a list of doctrines and charitable activities. They constituted a community with a leadership structure. Commitment meant allegiance to that leadership. The stronger believers practiced their faith, the tighter the bonds of the community both with Christian neighbors and with church leaders.

The strength of the institutional community stood in stark contrast with pagan groups. Hellenistic society was polytheistic and practiced tolerance. As a result, citizens could pick and choose the gods they worshiped. They also had license in matters of morality. However, this cultural diversity could not withstand the buffering of crises. But the monolithic structure of the local church could respond with a message of hope and outreach services. A strong community attracted outsiders who encountered its members and their activities. Potential converts may have seen the local church as a safe haven in an uncertain world.

8. Virtues demanded by the faith transcended ethnic divides.

The Roman Empire was a multilingual, multi-ethnic hodgepodge. Granted, it adopted Hellenism, the dominant culture of the time, and Koine Greek as its "franca lingua." But these adaptations could not gloss over the tensions between imperial rule and local discontent. Many times, this uneasy relationship fractured into riots and revolutions. A member within the Empire could neither identify with it nor with another member in a distant imperial province.

Christianity provided a bridge across ethnic divides. "Neither Jew nor Greek..." (Gal 3:28, Col 3:11) When the Empire finally adopted Christianity as the state religion, it extended that trans-ethnic identity to itself. In theory, being a Christian and a Roman citizen trumped any loyalty to one's racial allegiance. Indeed, the expectations of Christian charity to one's neighbor did not depend upon clan, tribe or nation.

Stark argued this factor helped to revitalize the Empire. But, the question remained: was it too little, too late in the Latin West? Or did it help the transition to the Christendom of the Middle Ages?

D. Conclusion

Let's conclude this review with a few questions. First, does Stark's analysis ring true? I find his theory of growth via social networks convincing. The majority of people become "churched" through the influence of close family and friends.

Do Stark's reasons to support his theory hold up? I question some of his thinking. First, the literary nature of early Christianity with its authors and scribal network indicated an interest of the upper classes in the faith. But it doesn't preclude large numbers of the lower classes from converting. Second, "unchurched" Diaspora Jews may have found Christianity an attractive alternative especially in the late first century CE but we don't know the size of that group; the polemical tone of the New Testament argued against a successful outreach.

I find his other reasons on more solid ground. Third and fifth, Christians built much of their ethics on charitable outreach to the needy; this would become apparent in times of disaster or pandemic. The Church was one of the first institutions to provide a public social safety network. Fourth, the church extended its ethics to the treatment of women. It idealized the place of the wife as a near equal to the husband; it forbade infanticide and abortion as a means of family planning. Sixth and seventh, the demands of commitment strengthened the resolve of individual members even to the point of martyrdom. It also solidified loyalty to the community and its leadership. Finally, the values of the Church created an identity that transcended ethnic boundaries. In total, the Church presented a face and program that ran counter to the culture of the Empire. Not only that, it addressed some of the deficiencies of that culture.

However, dear reader, why consider Stark's theory at all, especially since his book was published several decades ago? His book casts the problem of exegesis into clear relief. A large part of biblical interpretation takes textual details, matches it with historical knowledge, and weaves it into a believable narrative. The last step of narrative is based upon assumptions. The question the interpreter needs to answer is simple: were they reasonable? Stark wants the reader to ponder and answer it one way or another.

Sources

Rodney, Stark. The Rise of Christianity. New York NY: HarperOne, 1996. Print.