Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity

A thorough review of Rodney Stark's sociology-of-religion classic on how Christianity grew from ~1,000 believers (40 AD) to ~40 million (400 AD) - the scholarly companion to ACX-653 (the Stark book that essay drew on). Scott faithfully reconstructs Stark's explanations and then scrutinizes each: (1) it needs no miracles, just steady 40%/decade exponential growth (the same rate as the Mormons) - the framing Scott most admires; (2) conversion spreads through the social graph (the Moonie study; Mormon door-knocking converts 0.1% of strangers vs 50% of friends-of-members); (3) the Hellenized Diaspora Jews were an unstable semi-assimilated 'proto-Reform' population, and they plus their Gentile 'God-fearer' hangers-on were the first ~5M converts once Christianity dropped circumcision and the Law; (4) a Christian fertility advantage against an antinatalist Roman elite (infanticide, abortion, birth control, misogyny, a 130:100 sex ratio); (5) a female-skewed membership that converted pagan husbands; (6) the testimony of the martyrs; (7) surviving plagues by nursing the sick (cooperate) while pagans fled (defect), corroborated by Emperor Julian's complaints; (8) the novel idea that God loves individuals. His critical synthesis is the payoff: the women thesis looks false (Salzman's aristocratic database), fertility needs epicycles about cities, plague explains only ~4x of a 60,000x increase, the Jews only the first 5M - and Christianity spread just as thoroughly in places with none of these factors (Scandinavia, Germany, Korea), as does Mormonism. He lands on the genuinely mysterious observation that the early Christians were closer to morally perfect than any group he can name, hit the exact community-cohesion-vs-growth sweet spot through real love, and may represent 'love striking a population without antibodies.'

Quality 79 · Excellent. Excellent band. Substantive, rigorous, and intellectually honest (he flags memes he fell for, e.g. on abortion), with original critical analysis that genuinely clarifies the puzzle - the quantitative 'these explanations are small bites off the mystery' point and the cross-cultural counterexamples are sharp, and the closing virtue-as-novel-meme idea is memorable. Held just below its punchier companion ACX-653 because it is a long book review anchored to Stark and somewhat diffuse across eight sub-explanations. A=79.

Claude’s paradigm shift 56 · Moderate. Notable shift. The explanations are Stark's (1996); the freshness is Scott's critical synthesis, the cross-cultural counterexamples, and the evocative 'love without antibodies' framing, which build on rather than originate the scholarship. B=56.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A substantive, rigorous, intellectually honest review that genuinely clarifies the puzzle of early Christianity's growth (the quantitative 'small bites off the mystery' point; cross-cultural counterexamples). Conceptual influence within intellectual discourse, no material change — low RWI.