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The growth of Christianity in the early centuries, as was written about the other day, is quite staggering. This is especially so in light of the Roman Empire and its religion.

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 an incredible story. And it’s one we can learn much from.

So how did it happen?

Rodney Stark, in his book The Rise of Christianity, gives us some answers. “It is obvious,” writes Stark, “that people do not embrace a new faith if they are content with the older one.” In order for a new religion to break into a culture therefore, they must always “make their way in the market opening left them by weaknesses in the conventional religion (s) of a society.”

This is especially true in a pluralistic market where there are many options. For a new religion “to make headway—Hindu groups in the United States, for example—is extremely rare and depends on something’s having gone wrong in the process by which pluralism maintains market equilibrium.”

So why did Christianity grow in the Roman Empire? In a world full of religious options and a plurality of gods, what was the attraction to Christianity?

One attraction to Christianity was it’s treatment of women. Many have said that Jesus’ “attitude toward women was revolutionary as for him the sexes were equal.” So the early church, as it modeled Jesus, viewed men and women as equal as well.

Stark writes that increased female status can be found “within the family and within the religious community.” This happened as a result of several things. First, Christians did not condone female infanticide (actually, they didn’t condone infanticide at all). Second, Christians condemned “divorce, incest, marital infidelity, and polygamy.” And third, should women be widowed, they were not pressured to remarry and were allowed to keep their husband’s estate.

There has been objective evidence that leaves no doubt that the early Christian women did enjoy greater equality with men than did Jewish and pagan women. A study of Christian burial in the catacombs under Rome, based on 3,733 cases, found that Christian women were nearly as likely as Christian men to be commemorated with lengthy inscriptions. This “near equality in the commemoration of males and females is something that is peculiar to Christians, and sets them apart from the non-Christian populations of the city” (see the Triumph of Christianity by Rodney Stark).

To summarize, “women were drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led” (see Chapter 7 in The Triumph of Christianity).

So what can we learn from this? What does this say about the power of the gospel to change lives and the cultures we live in? What does the early church say to us about the power of “loving your neighbor as yourself” and treating those around you as equals, not inferiors?

There is something powerful about the gospel when we treat others as Paul commands in Philippians 2:3-4: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

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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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Tag: church growth

The Growth of Early Christianity Among Women

The Growth of Christianity In The First Centuries