Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Work
Review: Stark does us a service by pealing back the sacred cows of Christianity and the absurd one-demensional perspective forced on us by many secular historians. He backs up his arguments reasonably well and brings to light many things about our ancient world, and the people living in it, that we might not often consider. This is a good book to read, just be prepared to read it with an open mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and convincing
Review: Stark's masterly study of the early centuries of Chistianity shows the complexities and historical accidents or acts of God (depending on how you wish to view it), which established Christianity as the dominant religion of the West. Stark also shows how Christianity remained a MAJORITY JEWISH movement for the the first four centuries of the Common Era, asserting Jesus' Jewishness which is so often ignored or just a recipient of lip service. A Messianic movement would only have made sense at first to a Jewish audience, and familiarity with Torah is taken for granted throughout Christian texts. A sociological masterpiece, well recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Commonest of Sense - Jesus as Messiah
Review: The blasphemy (or what is taken as it) is the logical consequence of considering the Gospels as little more than a political movement about religion that worked, over time. The fact that few had options sufficient to argue in light of miracles performed by Jesus as they were reported in the Bible suggests that His religion was the ideal and one and only true religion. However, without the effect of His apostles after his death to cultivate the religion, it might have died with Jesus, according to common sense. The fact that they were chosen as followers and did fulfill their mission in earnest may be the reason we have Christianity today, and certainly in the form it is. If the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit at the time, the assumption is that they would be capable of performing their own miracles rather than simply having to remind people of those by Jesus. The Christian doctrine is not minimized by recognizing the growth and development as a central focus of humanitarianism and brotherly love, but is strengthed by the fact that in order to achieve fruition, it must be practiced daily by each Christian, rather than preferring to "hear the good news," from the sidelines, for how can one be an "observer" thousands of years hence, without resolving to become a part of the ongoing solution, rather than a part of the problem, the reason religion exists and was created to begin with? As a political movement to provide hope and faith in mankind, Christianity is the greatest social movement, political or religious, that mankind has ever experienced due to its enormous popularity and impact, still with us in 2004, and broken into so many different styles for freedom of religious expression, if not doctrines incorporated along the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Good sociology, questionable history
Review: The chief difficulty Stark has in providing convincing evidence that pagans did, in fact, abandon their stricken and dying, is that there is so little confirmatory pagan evidence. Most of it is from Christians.To escape this conundrum, he quotes extensively from Thucydides on the well-known plague in Athens that killed Pericles--quite a reach backward from the time of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The place is approximately II.50-56 in the Peloponnesian War. Where Thuc. does say that "sufferers died in their solitude, so that many houses were empty. . . ." the putative cause is the mortality, not the fear. A little further on, the part that Stark leaves out of account, we find that, "more often the sick. . .were tended by the pitying care of those who had recovered. . . .For no one was attacked a second time or not with fatal result." In their joy, these people falsely supposed that," they could not die from any other sickness." If all pagans abandoned their ill, how is it that some Athenians actually (if Thucydides is believed)fell privy to a piece of modern medicine so long ago? On the other hand, I have no doubt that the faith was primarily spread in exactly the manner he suggests: by association among people, not by mass conversions.
Rating:
Summary: A Sociology of Virtue
Review: The conclusion of this book is what puts it all into focus: Rodney Stark writes that the Christians were considerably more virtuous than the pagans, which is what gave them the advantage in society that they had and set Christianity up to become the dominant religious, intellectual and cultural force in the West. It is an unusual argument in that it ascribes far more to the lives of "regular" Christians than it does to theological elites such as Justin Martyr or Origen or to political powers such as Constantine. How were Christians more virtuous than the pagans of later Roman times? Well Christian social outreach did a lot for the marginalized; in fact, the Roman welfare system paled in comparison to that offered by Christians. This greater outreach meant that Christians were able to spread their faith more; the faith in action made a compelling argument for its validity. The place of the marginalized is important here. Applying his work among the Moonies and other new religious movements, Stark argues that Christians won converts by being out among the marginalized folk and forming relationships with them. He backs this up historically, however, by quoting Church Fathers such as Tertullian, who notes that Christians were doing just that. Borrowing from choice theory, Stark writes that one of the reasons for converting to Christianity was because not converting cost a whole lot more than converting; that is, if the pagans don't like you, why not become a Christian when the Christians do like you? It makes total sense. One caveat, though, is the lack of discussion about theory and method. I wonder how accurate it is to use contemporary sociological theory to describe the events and societal developments of the past; I wonder (openly - it is something I would like to discuss) about how the method of applying current discoveries to the past may work for good and/or for ill. Hence, my rating of 4 rather than 5 stars: a more in-depth discussion of theory and method would have been appreciated. Of course, no historical or sociological study ever stands alone. Stark has written a fascinating study of early Christianity and how it may have won over the Roman empire that is really quite compelling and well worth reading. Virtue may still have a place in the larger society.
Rating: 
Summary: gee wiz, Mr. Science
Review: This book contains interesting speculations about the early history of Christianity, but I was put off by its pendantic use of a positivistic brand of sociological theory. Too often, the book uses generalizations from research among Mormons and other modern religious movements to arrive at conclusions about early Christianity, with inadequate regard to the cultural particularities of the ancient world. The author seems to think there are law-like regularities governing the behavior of religious movements that cut across time and cultures; if a proposition holds true in 20th Century America, then it must apply equally well to the societies of the Roman Empire. I find this approach unconvincing, at best. If I were an ancient historian, I'd be offended by the author's insinuation that he is bringing the insights of enlightened social "science" to a stodgy and unprogressive field of scholarship.
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Summary: Necessary read!
Review: This book was phenomenal!
Combining sociology with the study of religion, renowned sociologist of religion Rodney Stark traces the rise of Christianity looking at the demographics of the movement as well as possible reasons for its success, while studying the trends of new religious movements, as well as the movement's ability to finally reach the top of the Roman Empire. Not only is Christianity decipherable through Stark's account, but the study of new religious movements will gain much through reading this book. Early Roman culture, contemporary trends in religion, reasons people join movements, the uniqueness of Christianity, all and much more is contained in this book.
Stark has a writing style that makes content that could be difficult, easy and enjoyable to read.
Rating:
Summary: How God Works
Review: This book, written by Sociologist Rodney Stark, is an easy, yet thourogh investigation on the rise of Christianity in the first few centuries. The text avoids sensationalism and sticks to investigative research and theories. While he does at times rely too much on analogous data (which can be fallacious), he neverless, does an outstanding job in building a case on why he thinks Christianity grew and ultimatley, became the dominant religion in Western Europe. Further, this book can serve as a warning to Christians as well (though not the author's intention). Stark gives a persuasive case that Christainity rose out of several factors. Many of them down right Biblical. Though martyrs were actually few, their strength in their beliefs inspired many on-lookers. Their promotion of the status of women, care for the unborn and infants, and promotion of family aided this young sect to becoming a world religion. Also, they aided the sick when pagans would flee from the plagues. The idea of public service and a strongly developed doctrine further strengthened this new religion. This is how God works, through people, and the early church is an example of that. The modern decline of Christianity in Western Europe is because those same principles have been discarded. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent brief work for anyone with a brain.
Review: This is a wonderful work. Whether you are a believer or not, this book opens up the reality of the early church which is too often shrouded in myth and leaps of faith (sorry) and puts flesh and blood on it. You can't help but come away with an even greater respect for the faith of this young church, even as Dr. Stark attempts to show that much of its growth can be explained by mathematics, social circumstances and opportunity. As a writer, my one criticism of Dr. Stark is that he is enamored with the idea of sociology as a science. It's a presonal bias of mine - I don't think that human behavior can be regarded as a science, as if we are molecules of H2O passing down a river and our collective behavior can be quantified. It's just the individualist in me: the sad truth is that we probably CAN be quantified, but I hold on to my naive notion. anyhow, not only is the paperback reasonably priced, it's a relatively quick read and will open your mind up to all sorts of possibilities and explanations that haven't been part of this society's discussions. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Revelatory. Really. Read This.
Review: This is the mystery of two millennia, right? How does an obscure sect led by an executed convict go from less than 100 adherents to an estimated 6 million on the eve on Constantine's "conversion" in the early fourth century? Social scientist Rodney Stark did more than puzzle: he created a set of testable hypotheses and tried, via secondary literature (he reads no ancient language and disclaims any expertise in the traditional scholarship of early church history), to probe the key issues. Along the way, he uses contemporary social science findings from demography, the sociology of small groups, the psychology of conversion, medical statistics, and every other conceptual lever he could divine to create a compelling mosaic of findings, arrayed in discrete topical chapters (each of which had a former life as a scholarly article). Others have pointed out, as does Stark himself, that his work is a strictly scientific enterprise: his own religious views are for himself. he is a sociologist of religion. He gives respectful attention to the historical record of the early church, which consists almost exclusively of the well-known testaments from the early church -New Testament accounts, non-canonic letters and gospels, and works by Eusebius, Tertullian, and their peers. But in the end, the "miracle" of the expansion of the early church seems explicable by a number of readily understandable facts and processes. For example, the forty percent growth rate per decade from 30 CE to 300 CE, which arithmetically gets one from 40 converts to 6 million, seems virtually miraculous - until Stark compares this rate to the growth achieved by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - the Mormons - which in the past century has averaged just over 40 percent per decade. In separate chapters, Stark also sheds fresh light on the geographic spread of Christianity, the success - rather than the long presumed failure - of "mission to the Hebrews," the role of plagues and natural disasters as facilitators of the Christian mission, Christian conversion as an urban phenomenon, the comparative socioeconomic advantages of Christianity versus "paganism" in the "religious marketplace" of antiquity, and the "rationality" of martyrdom, the last of which contains more than a few startlingly relevant observations in the current context of terrorist martyrdom. Throughout, the emphasis returns again and again to social networks - friends converting friends, wives converting husbands, former Jewish co-religionists converting other Jews as Christian churches establish themselves in the "Jewish Quarters" of Roman towns and cities, mercy-bound Christians staying to care for plague victims while pagans flee the pandemic. Some chapters, needless to say, are less compelling than others. Stark's fascinating discussion the allure of Christianity to the wholly disenfranchised women of the Roman empire, and of the advantages conferred to women in the early church, stands at odds with persuasive accounts - say, those of Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Gospels or Bart Ehrman in Lost Christianities - of the steady hostility toward the role of women in the church and in the canonic New Testament accounts. This is a minor quibble. Stark has given us a necessary book - for believers, skeptics, pastors, and laypeople - that, in conception alone, is the stuff of genius. And - whipped cream on top - the author has serious journalistic chops, honed in a former life as a newspaperman, that make him that rare social scientist who can actually communicate his findings crystal-clearly to an intelligent reader. What results is a provocative, beautifully wrought book that sets a standard for contemporary exploration of a distant, thinly documented historical occurrence.
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