The growth of Christianity in the first centuries is quite staggering when looking at the numbers. Robert Wilken in his book, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity, writes:
At the end of the first century there were fewer than ten thousand Christians in the Roman Empire. The population at the time numbered some sixty million, which meant that Christians made up 0.0017 percent.
By the year 200, the number may have increased to a little more than two-hundred thousand, under one percent (0.36).
By the year 250, however, the number had risen to more than a million, almost two percent of the population.
The most striking figure, however, comes two generations later. By the year 300 Christians made up 10 percent of the population, approximately six million.
Sociologist Rodney Stark looks a bit more closely at these numbers in his book The Rise of Christianity and wonders if such growth is possible.
He concludes that if Christianity grew at a rate of 40 percent per decade, “there would have been 7,530 Christians in the year 100, followed by 217,795 Christians in the year 200 and by 6,299,832 Christians n the year 300.”
This is an encouraging find for Stark as it is close to the growth rate of the 43 percent per decade that the Mormon church has maintained for the past 100 years.
Therefore, “the numerical goals Christianity needed to achieve are entirely in keeping with modern experience…and history allows time for the normal processes of conversion, as understood by contemporary social science, to take place.”
Now just because Stark writes that such growth “is possible” in keeping with our experience and historical understanding does not negate the miraculousness of God in growing His church. What it shows is how God works through His people in bringing about His Kingdom. And that in itself is quite miraculous!
In considering the growth of Christianity in the beginning centuries, we need to remember that the Roman Empire was very religious and had many gods. And though they were always open to new gods, they were not open to any religion that would worship only one God.
Therefore, though Jews were found throughout the Empire, the Romans did not think much of them. Why? Because they only worshipped one God and forsook all the others.
So when Jesus came, the Romans didn’t care who he was. The Jews were obviously interested because of the claims Jesus made in relation to Yahweh and the Old Testament, but the Romans had other things to worry about than what was happening in Jerusalem. Besides, if Jerusalem were to be a problem, Rome could just destroy it and go about their business (Rome did actually destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD)
So for a small Jewish group, of whom Rome thought nothing about, to grow into something that in 300 AD would estimate to over 6 million people, is quite an interesting story.
So how did it happen?
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I am surprised that so many “Bible-believing Christians” take Wilken and Stark at face value. Neither of them appear to accept the clear numerical growth given in Acts and the Epistles. They deny any intervention of the Holy Spirit in the growth as portrayed in the New Testament. Their numbers are mere conjectures. Stark makes much of the comparison with the growth of Mormonism. True, since 1830 to date they have had an average growth rate of 43% per decade. Bingo, he’s nailed it! But what he DOESN’T reveal is that in their first decade (between 1830 and 1840) the Mormons grew by over 5,923%, from 280 members to 16,885 members (check it out!). So to say that in the time between AD 33 and AD 40, there were only 1,000 Christians, not only goes against the clear statements of Acts,. but completely throws out Stark’s model. Just do the math: if Christianity grew at the Mormon rate in the first decade – from 120 believers in the upper room (or even 500 as affirmed by Paul in 1 Corinthians), then by AD40 there would have been at least 7,000 (much more in line with Luke’s claims) rather than the 1,000 that Stark claims (clutched out of the air!). Then by using his growth model of 40% growth per decade, Christians would have numbered more than 80,000 (or 336,000 if we star from Paul’s figure of 500. I WOULD APPRECIATE COMMENTS AND PERHAPS AN ANSWER TO MY E-MAIL ADDRESS.
I’m sorry, I omitted to state that the figures of 80,000 (or 336,000) would have been reached by the year 100 (en of first century) which is a far cry from Stark’s 7,530 or Wilken’s “fewer than 10,000.