Rodney Stark: 'Cities of God'. Another excellent book

Rodney Stark: 'Cities of God'

Rodney Stark: 'Cities of God'. Another excellent book

Mr. Stark is a sociology professor at Baylor, and a Baptist. He is also an able social historian and commentator. Any one of his numerous books are worth the read. He is an expert on medieval Christianity, general theology, and the various aspects which differentiate a religion from a cult. Of critical importance are his writings on how the modern method, rationality and reason developed from medieval Christian Europe a theme much at odds with what is taught, or what one finds in the mainstream culture and media.

"Early Christianity was primarily an urban movement. The original meaning of the word pagan (paganus) was 'rural person'....after Christianity had triumphed in the cities, most of the rural people remained unconverted. "

Of course since Stark is a Christian he is immediately set upon by detractors and those who hate the modern world, named as an immoderate and 'extremist' in his support of Christianity. For many of the modern sophisticates Christianity is a country hick philosophy prima inter pares. In reality the historical development of the faith makes this assertion patently false. It was the Roman elite, the educated female, and the ranging trader who first accepted and than proselytized the new and simplified form on mono-deity worship.

As Stark overwhelmingly proves, the main attraction of Christianity in the post-Christ era, was its simplification of complicated and quite arcane Jewish ritualization. The 'path' or way of Christ demanded no temples. No corrupt and overbearing church structure. No cumbrous rituals. Private prayer. An individualist approach to your own conception of God:

"What Christianity offered the world was monotheism stripped of ethnic encumbrances."

Stark maintains with good reason and many sources that single-god worship is the only method to establish a vibrant, outwardly focused movement of evangelical proselytism. Pagan pantheistic cults do not inspire the same energy and devotion to 'spread the word'. This is undoubtedly true:

"Only monotheism can generate the level of commitment to a particular faith sufficient to mobilize the rank and file and to engage in missionizing activities."

One reason why monotheistic Judaism did not 'conquer' Rome, was that it was ethnically based; full of rituals including circumcision [even of adult males who converted to Judaism]; and it separated men from women. Christianity dispensed with all of this and 'streamlined' the process of single-God worship. Along with this more rational approach to spiritual development the Christian church demanded stricter forms of behavior and social interaction, replacing the wild immorality of Greek and Roman pantheism, with a moral code that appealed to many who wanted to right the wrongs of life and develop a higher purpose:

"Worse the Roman gods set bad examples of individual morality: they lied, stole, raped, committed adultery, betrayed, and tortured....The same applied to Greek religion...In contrast the 'oriental' religions stressed individual morality and offered various means of atonement...required acts of self-denial and privation, sometimes even physical suffering..."

The moral code and that of social peace was thus much improved by Christianity. It was also the only philosophy in man's history to develop rationality. Christianity demands reason through faith especially in its earliest forms. One reason why the Greek and Roman elite could embrace Christianity was that it was entirely compatible with both Greek and Roman forms of thought and reason:

"Christianity was explicitly compatible with Greek philosophy with its form, with its celebration of reason, and with much of its content."

Along with this appeal to reason the Christ-church also demanded a more emotional and fully spiritual life. This must have appealed to people living in a world such as the Roman empire, so beset by iniquity, injustice and inequality of both opportunity and legal protection.

This is partially to do with the intense emotions rendered unto the believer, by the monotheistic program. It demanded participation, some level of conformity and energy. As Stark says, the 'oriental' or Eastern Mediterranean theologies were of 'high intensity'. Graeco-Romano cults were decidedly of the fickle and low-intensity variety: "Traditional Roman religions mainly involved tepid civic ceremonies....In contrast the new 'oriental' faiths stressed celebration, joy, ecstasy and passion."

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