christianity

Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices
$17.99
I really think some of the observations in this book are great...for someone who's been living in an isolated cave for several decades and has no awareness of the technological changes that have occurred in the world. First, the book was EXCEEDINGLY repetitive. Every point Friedman said needed to be restated, rephrased and re-explained about 20 times in unnecessarily lengthy sentences. Furthermore, the book is filled with name-dropping and ranting.

Aside from its redundancy and soap-box-like agenda, the book also seems to give the impression that India and China are on the fast track to replacing the US and the west in all respects. He virtually ignores the fact that the vast majority of the populations of both countries live in extreme poverty with little chance of escape for either them or their children.

I think the book would have been better summarized into a 2-page magazine article, or even better, a short newspaper column.

The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ....
$14.99
The period from the death of Christ until the end of the first century was the most fruitful in the history of the church. During these few decades, Christianity spread clear across the Roman Empire and beyond in to the Parthian empire, India, and North Africa. The best estimates put the number of Christians at the end of the first century at around 1 million (according to historical authorities like Kenneth Latourette and Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia). That's an increase of 2000 times the number of Christians before Pentecost (perhaps 500). At this rate of growth, the entire world would have been converted within the next hundred years!

What is the significance of this phenomenal growth? Just this: Those who believe the early church is the best pattern for church life (like me) point to these results as an important part of their backing.

That's why I'm not happy with Rodney Stark's book, The Rise of Christianity. Stark admits right at the beginning, "I am not a New Testament scholar and shall never be. Nor am I a historian..." (p. xii). His lack of expertise in these fields really shows in this book. (He's a sociologist).

He lays out an entirely implausible estimate of only 7530 Christians by the end of the first century (p.7). This estimate is at variance with most scholarship and flatly rejects the testimony not only of the book of Acts, but also secular historical references to the Christian movement.

I agree with the earlier scholars. Stark is wrong.
In the first place, we can account for 8000 Christians within the first few chapters of Acts, unless these narratives are completely discounted. Stark frankly dismisses Acts on page 5, speaking of the "many thousands" claimed by James in Acts 21 and the 5000 males mentioned in Acts 4. He says, "These are not statistics...figures in antiquity...were part of rhetorical exercises." (citing Robert Grant). His basis for rejecting Luke's numbers is the out-dated estimate by J. C. Russell that Jerusalem only had 10,000 inhabitants. Historians at the time had much higher numbers. Josephus says that at the siege of Jerusalem the population was 3,000,000, a figure nobody believes. Tacitus' statement that it was 600,000 is nearer the truth, but still too high. Most historians today believe it was 35,000 to 50,000 people, mostly based on the extensive water supply systems excavated in recent decades. This figure could easily include thousands of Christians.

Stark absolutely rejects the historicity of Acts. He says, "I shall assume there were 1000 Christians in the year 40." (p. 5) He bases his estimate on a straight mathematical formula assuming 40% growth per decade for 300 years, ending in six million Christians by the time of Constantine. But this is not how Christianity grew. The growth was far better during the early years and slowed thereafter.

Stark distorts his sources. For instance, in an interview he says of Pliny's famous letter to Emperor Trajan, "...he [Pliny] says he knows nothing about how they [Christians] are to be punished or even charged (10.96.1-2). This is proof positive that Christians must have been extremely scarce--to the point of social invisibility." This is amazingly distorted!
Here is what Pliny actually says:

"The case seemed to me to be a proper one for consultation, particularly because of the number of those who were accused [of being Christians]. For many of every age, every class, and of both sexes are being accused and will continue to be accused. Nor has this contagious superstition spread through the cities only, but also through the villages and the countryside. But I think it can be checked and put right. At any rate the temples, which had been well-nigh abandoned, are beginning to be frequented again; and the customary services, which had been neglected for a long time, are beginning to be resumed; fodder for the sacrificial animals, too, is beginning to find a sale again, for hitherto it was difficult to find anyone to buy it. From all this it is easy to judge what a multitude of people can be reclaimed, if an opportunity is granted them to renounce Christianity."

So we see that, contrary to Stark, the Christians were actually so numerous in his province that temples were empty, and they couldn't sell sacrificial animals or fodder. The temples were being abandoned! This letter is referring to Bithynia, which got a late start with Christianity.

Christians in Rome were way more numerous. Notice how Tacitus (an anti-Christian Roman historian) refers to the "huge multitude" of Christians captured during Nero's persecution (Tacitus, Anal. XV. 44). And yet we're supposed to believe that only 8000 were won to Christianity in the first century?

The lesson here is twofold. First, I've been surprised to hear evangelical leaders quoting Stark's conclusions without apparently realizing that he dismisses the historicity of Acts. Christian leaders should check out their sources more carefully and critically.

Second, the first century really was the best century, no matter how you want to measure it. This shifts the focus from the post-apostolic church with its formalism to the New Testament church as the most successful pattern. It suggests we should take another look at simplicity in church life, at personal discipleship as the best way to develop leadership, at mobilization of the whole body for ministry, and other New Testament practices. We should also reject modern entertainment theories and market-driven theories for attracting growth. Trusting to the power of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit might still cause us to see the kind of power they did.

Dennis McCallum, author Satan and His Kingdom: What the Bible Says and How It Matters to You and Organic Disciplemaking: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity And Leadership

Jesus Before Christianity
$15.00
Albert Nolan presents an image of Jesus before Christianity who is full of compassion and an exemplary willingness to suffer in order to conquer suffering in the world. This theme seems to run throughout the book. This, in itself is very commendable. But Nolan's Jesus has been practically stripped of his divine nature using assumptions that are reminiscent of the Jesus Seminar's questionable scholarship. The miracle stories are matter-of-factly dismissed as embellishments added later by the Church along with many other statements attributed to Jesus in the Gospels that don't fit their (desired?) image of Jesus. The reasoning supporting this reductionism isn't explained in the book, but its conclusions are taken to be well founded.

It was disappointing to me that, after 25 years since the book's first publication, Nolan still considered this view of Jesus to be entirely relevant, even more so in 2001 than in 1976 (p. ix), in no need of revision in light of the scholarly debate that has taken place in that time. Other views that one might want to consider are The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is by N. T. Wright, The Real Jesus : The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels by Luke Timothy Johnson and The Many Faces of Christ: The Christologies of the New Testament and Beyond by Ben Witherington, III. It's easy to find others who present seriously considerable challenges to Nolan's picture of Jesus and the scholarship that supports it. (For an in-depth treatment of the Gospels as eyewitness testimony see Richard Bauckham's more recent book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony.)

In his work, N. T. Wright puts forth a challenge to Christians to do the difficult work of rethinking their image of Jesus in light of new historical and biblical understanding. In my opinion, studying a picture of Jesus that was in vogue 33 years ago will not serve readers well today in meeting that challenge.

What's So Great about Christianity
$14.99
This book is a well reasoned anlysis of the arguments that Athiests posit against Christianity. I like that the author takes the hard road and actually takes the argument to athiests in a very logical and reasoned out manner. Every Christian should read this book to see that the faith they hold is not so outrageous. Every non-Christian should read it to really think about the arguments and consider what these hard questions mean.