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This 3 page paper discusses the meteoric rise of early Christianity. The text examined is Rodney Stark's The Rise of Christianity. Bibliographpy lists 1 source.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_MBstark.rtf
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of it. How did a marginal Jesus movement gain such widespread acceptance in a few centuries? Rodney Stark in his book, The Rise of Christianity analyzes the phenomenon rise of
the Christian faith through a sociological lens and comes to some startling conclusions. Part of Starks analysis is historical in fashion. For example, he analyzes the reign of Constantine as
being a pivotal reign because it was during Constantines reign that Christianity was recognized in Europe. However, Stark goes on to state that Constantines conversion and consequent support of the
Christian faith was politically motivated rather than spiritual in nature. Be that as it may be, Constantine was THE power in most of Europe and into other areas of the
world. With his troops and campaigns went the faith of the kingdom: Christianity.Stark talks about the exponential increase from 300 AD (which is before Constantine) to 350 AD as evidence
of the influence that Constantine had on moving Christianity throughout Europe and other lands. Another factor which led to the success of
the fledgling faith was the fact that it attracted many of the marginalized groups such as the Palestinian Jews, Hellenized Jews and members of the upper classes. One can perhaps
understand the draw to the marginalized groups such as the converted Jews, but to see the evidence which supported the recruit of upper level Roman families was most shocking. However,
Stark shows that it was the fact that Christianity spread into the upper echelon which helped it to survive long after Christs actual death.
One of the reasons that the upper classes began to embrace Christianity was through the women in these elite groups. Never before had any religion included them as
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