Week Five: Outline
I. Stark, chapter 5: "The Role of Women in Christian Growth".... so first, what's the big picture here. What was the role and status of women, and how did that in turn facilitate a rapid growth the the Christian church in the Roman empire? What kinds of evidence does Stark present? In many ways, this chapter is the very model of Stark's overall approach to understanding the rise of Christianity.
II. Stark, chapter 7. "Urban Chaos and Crisis: the Case of Antioch" Notes dearth of sources, except for Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City," and then reconstructs "essential feaures of the cities within which Christianity arose--the extraordinary levels of urban disorder, social dislocation, filth, disease, misery, fear, and cultural chaos..."
Again, what did Stark discover, and what is the basis for his conclusions, including its limits?
For his sources and methods, see pp. 148-149
See his summary portrait of Antioch, pp. 160-161
See his conclusion, p. 161, about what Christianity offered in communities like Antioch.
III. Stark, chapter 8: "Opportunity and Organization"
A. Religious economy: all the religious activity going on in a particular society ... "a market of current and potential customers, a set of religious firms seeking to serve that market, and the religious 'product lines" offered by various firms....
1. Key question: Is there a state-mandated monopoly? Not in the first and second centuries BCE in the Roman Empire
2. Competition for Christianity in Roman Empire: ten or fifteen major gods with temples nearly everywhere and a variety of minor gods... lots of competition from "paganism," in fact "excessive pluralism," as Stark puts it, quoting E.R. Dodds: "a bewildering mass of alternatives."
3. Stark trying to develop a formal explanation of why Christianity eventually triumphed... in his view, a key distinction between religions requiring exclusive commitment and engage in a collective production of religion, and religions that are nonexclusive and specialize in privately produced religious goods.
Only the first type demands exclusivity("conversion")...
4. "...history suggests that when nonexclusive faiths are challenged by exclusive competitors, in a relatively unregulated market, the exclusive firms win. They win because they are a better bargain, despite their higher costs." (p. 206) (Instructor: Do we have enough cases to reach a conclusion about this? What about situations like the Hindus(a multiplicy of relatively tolerant gods) and the Moslems (one jealous god)in India?
a. See quote from E.R. Dodd, p. 207
b. Comments about funding "small donations rapidly added up" and there was therefore less dependence on the wealthy (and less harm if the authorities seized only the Christian elites)
c. Concluding comment, p. 208: "It grew because...."
Musings: Vineyard Christian Fellowship vs. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Mount Olivet in Minneapolis)
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