How Jesus Conquered the Roman Empire – Rodney Stark
Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, 325 AD. He did this because of his own personal conversion to Christianity. Many historians believe he had no choice but to at least accommodate Christians because they had grown to the place where they were not less than 1/2 of the entire population.
Rodney Stark (Sociology professor at the U of Washington), wrote a book in 1996, The Rise of Christianity: He studies how Christianity went from being a small band of persecuted to the dominant world-view of the Roman Empire.
Stark estimates that in order for Christians to become the dominant portion of the population as they did by the third century, they would have grown at a rate of 40% every decade, or 3.42% a year (Stark, 6). That’s amazing sustained growth.
How did the Christian population grow? An obvious answer is they shared their faith in Jesus Christ with others.
But, what made the Roman citizens open to hearing the message and receiving Christ?
Stark suggests several reasons. One that cannot be ignored is their charity, (Koinonia) especially in the face of massive epidemics. Epidemics did what no army was able to do – it stopped the march of the Roman Empire dead in its tracks.
In 165, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a devastating epidemic swept through the Roman Empire. The actual disease is not known, some suspect small pox, but it was lethal. It lasted fifteen years and killed about 30% of the population, including Marcus Aurelius. Can you imagine that? That would mean in the Greater Portland area, where the population is about 1 million, 300,000 people died.
251 another equally devastating epidemic hit the Roman Empire, this time hitting rural areas as well as cities. These epidemics had a severe depopulating effect on the empire but also greatly affected its sense of community and religion.
As devastating as these epidemics were, Rodney Stark says they benefited the rise of Christianity. Three ways:
1. In times like these, people ask the question, “why?” What answer did religion provide? The religion of the Roman Empire didn’t have an answer. The gods don’t really care, they said. The gods do what is best for them and too bad for you. Christians, on the other hand, spoke of a God who cares, who loves his creation. They were optimistic about the future, with messages such as: sorrow lasts for a night, but joy comes in the morning. They knew that even in death, they were gloriously united with the Lord who loved them. This was compelling to an empire in crisis.
2. “Christian values of love and charity had, from the beginning, been translated into norms of social service and community solidarity.” (Stark, 74) What he means is “they devoted themselves to the fellowship/Koinonia.” They cared about each other and they cared for each other. During epidemics, massive hysteria broke out across the land. If a family member became sick with the plague, the rest of the family would abandon them out of fear of catching the disease themselves. Thus the diseased, who might have otherwise recovered, died of malnutrition or dehydration, if not from the disease. Christians, on the other hand, stayed together and cared for their family members who were sick – they risked catching the disease themselves, but they also gave themselves better opportunity to weather the crisis together. So, while the epidemic claimed about 3 out of every 10 citizens in the Roman Empire, it claimed only about 1 out of 10 Christians. So, Christianity advanced by simple survival.
But it is known that the Christians didn’t just care for their own. They took in diseased people outside their families who had been abandoned by their own families – Christian community at its best. This had a life-saving effect on many people. So, those left standing when the epidemic has finally passed, are much more tolerant of the Christ-followers than the Roman Empire had been before and many had become Christ-followers themselves.
3. “When an epidemic destroys a substantial portion of a population, it leaves large numbers of people without the interpersonal attachments that had previously bound them to the conventional moral order.” (Stark, 75). So, many people lost moms, dads, brothers and sisters – their need-fulfilling relationships. But the social networks of Christians was left more intact – because of better survival skills, but also because of the Christian community, which provided love and care when the family community could not. The Christian community, being an open community, very likely brought in many new believers who had lost their close relationships and were attracted to their way of life.
Christian community! The fellowship. It’s not just coffee and donuts. The community of Christ is what is left standing when everything else has fallen.
Psalm 133
Brothers and sisters of the church…
How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
…It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.