The Rise of Christianity: How to obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force .... (Taschenbuch)

He argues, for example, that new religious movements are alway "based on the more privileged classes." He also argues we do not "need" miracles or mass conversions to explain the growth of the church. Finding a growth rate over three centuries close to the 43% that Mormonism has maintained for the last century, he is encouraged to think he has discovered a scientific principle, which negates the need for "exceptional explanations."

But the fact that an explanation for a given event credible to one's apriori theories of life can be found, or imagined, in no way renders incredible reports which assert (with great force of eyewitness evidence) that in fact something else happened! Those who do not with to believe in miracles may find comfort in Stark's theories. But they should not be confused for a serious argument against the events related in the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

I just returned from a small town in China which, before the revolution, had about 20 Christians, but now has over a thousand. This is a 110% growth rate per decade, without the advantages of higher birth and survival rates of the Roman Christians, or of birth rates and obligatory 2-year preaching apprenticeships of the Mormons. In fact, for most of that time, preaching was extremely dangerous, and martyrs were seldom allowed to be treated as public heros as Stark described them. Yet this growth rate has been typical in many parts of China. In Anhui province, the church has grown about a hundred times (not percent) in just two decades! However they may confuse sociological theory, in practice miracles, mass conversions, and the supernatural preparation of Chinese culture for the Gospel (as Paul and Augustine found in Greco-Roman culture) seem to playing a tremendous role in these events. I have met people involved in mass conversions and miracles myself. Furthermore, while intellectuals are also converting, peasants are probably the strongest conduit for Christian faith in China today. And China is not alone in this respect.

When I first took a social science course at the University of Washington where Stark teaches 20 years ago, my immediate reaction was, "What this man is teaching, when translated into ordinary English, seems to reduce to either to common sense or to nonsense." Give Stark credit. His ideas do not need translating, his style is lively and his thoughts clear. Better yet, his "discoveries" lean strongly towards the first category as opposed to the second. But most of them are not really surprising, on careful reading of the Bible. And some are simply mistaken. Read the book with an open mind and pinch of salt.

(d.marshall@sun.ac.jp)

Author, True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture