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Baylor ISR: Doing History a Second Time Around -- Rodney Stark Lecture - (Nov. 30, 2011) — Transcript

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0:05good afternoon
0:07i'm elizabeth davis executive vice
0:09president of provost
0:10university and it's my pleasure to
0:12introduce our speaker
0:14dr rodney stark dr stark grew up in
0:17jamestown north dakota and he began his
0:20career
0:21as a newspaper reporter he earned a ba
0:24in journalism from the university of
0:25denver
0:27served a tour of duty in the united
0:29states army
0:30and then received masters and phd from
0:33the university of california at berkeley
0:36at berkeley he held appointments as a
0:38research sociologist
0:39at the survey research center and at the
0:42center for the study of law and society
0:45he also published his first four books
0:48while at berkeley all of which would
0:50become classics in the sociology of
0:52religion
0:54he left berkeley in 1971 to become
0:57professor of sociology and of
0:58comparative religion at the university
1:00of washington
1:02then in 2004 he became uni
1:05distinguished professor of the social
1:07sciences at baylor
1:09and in 2005 byron johnson convinced dr
1:13start to become co-director
1:15of the baylor institute for studies of
1:17religion
1:19in just a few short years dr stark has
1:22helped to build isr
1:23into one of the most significant
1:25research centers in the world
1:27dedicated to the scientific study of
1:29religion
1:31dr stark has published more than 30
1:33books and more than 150 articles on
1:36subjects as diverse as prejudice
1:39crime suicide and city life in ancient
1:42rome
1:44however the majority of his work has
1:46been on religion
1:48he's past president of the society for
1:50the scientific study of religion
1:52and of the association for the sociology
1:54of religion
1:56he's also won a number of national and
1:58international awards for distinguished
2:00scholarship
2:02many of his books and articles have been
2:04translated and published in more than 10
2:06different languages
2:08in 1996 dr stark published the rise of
2:11christianity
2:12a sociologist reconsiders history
2:16the book sold tens of thousands of
2:18copies received widespread praise
2:21and was nominated for the pulitzer prize
2:24over time however in spite of the
2:26continued popularity
2:28of the rise of christianity he became
2:31increasingly dissatisfied with the book
2:34several years ago he decided to go back
2:36to the drawing board to revisit and
2:38reconsider the premise of this classic
2:40book
2:42the product just recently released by
2:44harpers
2:45the triumph of christianity how the
2:48jesus movement became the world's
2:50largest religion is the subject
2:53of today's lecture it's with great pride
2:56and gratefulness that i introduce to you
2:58a true giant within the academy
3:01and my baylor colleague dr rodney stark
3:16i found myself thinking about huck finn
3:18and
3:19tom sawyer sitting in the balcony of the
3:21church
3:22during their own funeral service
3:30i was asked to talk
3:33this group about why i wrote the book
3:37and i had to go back and look in the
3:39book quite a bit in order to
3:41figure that out because it's been 18
3:45months since i sent it off to the
3:46publisher
3:48far gone into new projects and quite
3:51honestly i couldn't remember
3:53a lot of what i had written
3:56that happened you know if you don't
3:58close the file you can't get on to new
4:00ones
4:02but the short answer as to why i wrote
4:04the book
4:06is self-indulgence
4:09that's always why i write i mean
4:12the big secret is that the academic life
4:16has given me the privilege of writing
4:18every morning
4:19for the last many many many years
4:26and it's a reason to get up and a reason
4:28to have a happy day
4:29and that's why i do it um
4:34i didn't write a history of christianity
4:38i cheated i skipped i picked out the
4:40parts that interested me
4:44things that i thought i might have
4:45something new to say or that other
4:47people that had new things to say
4:49that nobody seems to know about
4:52moreover if you were to look at the book
4:56you'd see that most of the chapters
4:58are on subjects that usually are nothing
5:00more than footnotes
5:02in the traditional history of the rise
5:05of christianity
5:07um because most histories of the rise of
5:11christianity are really
5:12histories of the christian church
5:15they're very narrowly focused
5:18um there's a lot about church councils
5:21a lot about church politics a lot about
5:24theological disputes
5:26and some heresies
5:31and of course after the reformation that
5:34became the history of the christian
5:36churches but still
5:39i find them narrow because they don't
5:42seem to
5:43relate to the world in which all of this
5:45is happening
5:47now of course everybody rings their
5:49hands over the fall of the roman empire
5:51you can count on that
5:53i happen to think that the fall of the
5:56roman empire
5:58was the best thing that ever happened to
6:00the rise of western civilization
6:03it was an era of no progress as a matter
6:06of fact if you really
6:07push it the only things that the roman
6:10era
6:10contributed to the world were the
6:12invention of concrete
6:14and the rise of christianity and they
6:17opposed the latter
6:19um so
6:27i decided to go back and see what i
6:29could do
6:31about having fun with this subject
6:34and of course i did it once before but i
6:36did it in very narrow
6:38focus because this was my first time
6:41trying to be a historian
6:44and i started too late
6:48about the year 40 and i ended too soon
6:50at about the time of constantine
6:52and so i decided to go back way before
6:55christmas eve
6:56and then come up to modern times
7:03going back before christmas eve takes me
7:06back
7:06to look at the roman context
7:09and particularly to look at religion
7:12in rome rome not only was
7:16full of pagan temples
7:20but a number of other
7:23what are called eastern faiths although
7:25many of them were from egypt but in any
7:27event
7:28eastern faiths
7:31some of which were persecuted persecuted
7:35bitterly long before there was any
7:37christianity
7:38and kind of setting a model for things
7:40to come in that
7:41they were persecuted for many of the
7:44same things
7:45that eventually christianity was
7:46persecuted for
7:49i'm talking about the bakken aliens
7:52the worshipers of sybil
7:56the followers of isis and of course the
7:58jews
8:01now too many historians believe that the
8:04bakken aliens were punished for being
8:08drunks who held orgies and that's all
8:10about what olivia had to say
8:12about them but it's not so it's idiotic
8:15and if you really you know since that's
8:17our only source what can we do well we
8:19can do is learn a greek history because
8:20it wasn't a roman organization
8:23they were they were dionysians you just
8:25go to greek or
8:26any book on greek religion you can find
8:29out all about what they believed and
8:31when they came to rome
8:32they got a little bit more active
8:35but their sin their real sin and the sin
8:38of everybody else that was persecuted
8:40was congregationalism that is
8:45a group that had a sense of
8:49identity with their religion that was
8:52significant
8:53that set them apart uh that involved
8:56them rather deeply
8:57look if you looked around ancient rome
9:00there were no
9:00jovians there were no zeus
9:05you you went to temples you didn't
9:07belong to them
9:09but the black and aliens belonged they
9:12went at least once a week and they went
9:14at night
9:15because of chris they didn't want to go
9:16in the daytime because like everybody
9:18else they worked
9:20they went at night and that was pretty
9:22suspicious right
9:23there but the larger point was
9:26organizations real organizations that
9:28focused people that people belonged to
9:31were illegal in rome you had to have
9:34imperial permission to start one
9:38and that was a very difficult almost
9:41impossible thing to get there's a little
9:43bit
9:44here or a replay or a pre-play if you
9:47will
9:48of what the what the nazis did which
9:50they made even the chess clubs become
9:52nazi chess clubs and
9:54what what the soviets did you know they
9:56took over the chess clubs
9:59the romans well
10:02the real problem is the roman emperors
10:05thought everybody was plotting against
10:07them
10:09and rightly so of what is it
10:13between augustus and constantine there
10:16were 76
10:17emperors 19 of them died natural deaths
10:24seven died in battle and the rest were
10:26murdered well a couple of them were
10:28forced to commit suicide but you know
10:30that's just
10:31not much difference there so they tried
10:35to prevent
10:36organizations from forming here's a
10:39wonderful example in the second century
10:41pliny the younger
10:43wrote to the emperor trajan because he
10:47wanted to start a volunteer
10:49fire department in the city of nicomedia
10:52because there had been a bad fire
10:55and the emperor wrote back as follows
10:58it is societies like these which have
11:01been responsible for political
11:03disturbances
11:05if people assemble for a common purpose
11:08whatever name
11:09we give them and for whatever reason
11:12they soon turn into a political club
11:18your applications deny so they didn't
11:21get a volunteer fire department
11:24in any event by the time christianity
11:27came along there was a long tradition
11:30of persecuting congregational
11:34religious groups in 58 bc
11:37the senate outlawed worship of isis a
11:42little later they came back to the same
11:43subject again and the emperor tiberius
11:46had the temple of isis in rome destroyed
11:49had the statue of the goddess thrown
11:51into the tiber river
11:53and had all the priests crucified
11:57all for naught because before it was all
12:01over
12:01there were more temples to isis in rome
12:04than to any
12:05other divinity
12:09it seems to me of some significance
12:13to know there was this long tradition
12:16of persecution going on in rome
12:19before the christians even came along i
12:21mean the jews were thrown out any number
12:23of times
12:24and persecuted any number of times
12:28we shouldn't be too surprised by the
12:31fact then that
12:33christianity was also
12:38not permitted i mean you know they
12:40weren't even a volunteer fire department
12:44although some people would say they'll
12:45wear a fire department if you take a
12:47real baptist view of things
12:52i'm sorry that just slipped out
12:57it's also important to look at the
12:59jewish context
13:01one reason is because
13:04of the huge literature we have on the
13:07anti-jewish passages in the new
13:09testament
13:11now i mean my second book was about this
13:14and it's
13:15you know these passages eventually had
13:17some
13:18some some very unfortunate consequences
13:21in history
13:22but if we think back to when they were
13:24written
13:25we have a better understanding of the
13:27world and what's going on
13:29and as to what they meant and why they
13:31were written
13:35somehow there's always the sense that
13:37what's going on here is this huge
13:39christian majority coming down hard on
13:42this little tiny jewish minority
13:44and that's anachronistic
13:48at the time these were written there
13:50were maybe
13:51maybe as many as 300 christians
13:54in jerusalem there were maybe 3
13:58000 christians on earth
14:01there were 10 to 15 million jews that's
14:04not
14:04really kind of imbalance
14:08and keep in mind that in this era was an
14:11enormously conflicted and bloody
14:14era in jewish history i mean people run
14:17around killing each other
14:19all who claim to be jews
14:22they're even high priests killed by
14:24zealots
14:25for not being sufficiently faithful and
14:30in this context
14:32you've got a little tiny movement
14:34movement coming along
14:35proclaiming that someone crucified for
14:38blasphemy was the messiah
14:41persecution was absolute and there
14:43couldn't be anything
14:44you know more red flag than that
14:47persecution was inevitable
14:49and it happened and unfortunately it's
14:52very
14:53very hard to find anything
14:56outside of the new testament and in fact
15:01the uh the persecution that's going on
15:03we even have people who
15:04lots of people claim that there wasn't a
15:06single act of persecution ever happened
15:08we have other people say it doesn't
15:10count because they're all jews it was it
15:12was not christians and jews it was all
15:14you know a family affair well it didn't
15:15make it less bloody
15:21of course we must remain sensitive to
15:24subsequent
15:25interpretations of these passages but i
15:28think we ought to keep in mind
15:32the fearful situation in which they were
15:34written
15:38switching gears again
15:43sociologists have known for a while
15:45although
15:46many of them still deny it that new
15:49religious movements overwhelmingly
15:53originate and are sustained by the
15:56privileged
15:58buddha was of course a prince
16:02but 55 of his first 60 converts
16:05were members of the nobility the other
16:08five we just don't know about they might
16:10have been
16:11of the nobility also
16:16the methodists were founded at oxford
16:20not oxford mississippi either okay
16:25luther's reformation wasn't a movement
16:27of the people
16:29well of some people but the people were
16:31princes
16:32merchants professors and university
16:35students i suppose there are a lot
16:37obsidians and whatnot going on too but
16:40of 483 medieval
16:43ascetic roman catholic saints
16:47three-fourths were from the nobility 22
16:50percent were from royalty
16:54the prophets of the old testament belong
16:56to the land owning nobility
17:00are we really to believe that
17:02christianity was a movement based on the
17:04slaves
17:05and the lowest segments of the
17:08population
17:11well sure we are because
17:14paul told us so he wrote
17:19not many of you were wise according to
17:22worldly standards
17:24not many were powerful not many were of
17:27noble birth
17:29and of course i was raised as i suppose
17:31most of you were
17:33but the supposition the christianity was
17:36an
17:36upstart faith based on the under classes
17:41and then early in my
17:45sociological life i came along a
17:48wonderful
17:49little tiny book by an australian named
17:53fa judge and he said
17:56pointed out an obvious thing so paul
18:00never said
18:01none of you are powerful none of you are
18:04noble birth
18:06he said not many of you
18:09which means some of you were
18:14now given the minuscule proportion of
18:19nobility and privileged people in the
18:21roman empire it's kind of amazing if
18:23anybody was
18:25in this early little tiny movement
18:29but if we follow judges lead
18:33lots of things suddenly make sense
18:36that when you think about them otherwise
18:38don't really make sense
18:40for example why in the world did anybody
18:43write any gospels
18:46who could read certainly not about a
18:49bunch of slaves and and underclass folks
18:52they couldn't read in rome i mean as a
18:55matter of fact
18:56you had to have somebody who could read
18:57and write in order to write any gospels
18:59but why would they have written them who
19:01in the world could read them
19:02well somebody clearly could read them
19:04and then we start raising questions
19:06about
19:06well how many of them could well what
19:09kind of christians are
19:10these
19:14what about second corinthians 8 9
19:18paul remarks for you know the grace of
19:22our lord jesus christ
19:24that though he was rich yet for your
19:27sake he became
19:28poor so that his power through his
19:31poverty you might become
19:32rich and of course for centuries this
19:36has been
19:37explained as metaphorical
19:41but if you look at the context doesn't
19:42seem very metaphorical
19:45paul is in this context and these verses
19:48is asking for money
19:50not for prayers he cites the example of
19:54the macedonians as setting a standard
19:56for giving money
19:57and he assures the corinthians that
19:59god's blessings
20:01will accrue to generous givers
20:04i mean you know we're well this was
20:08development
20:09fun time we're not talking about uh
20:12uh you know
20:17prayers and hopes here
20:21in addition analysis of jesus metaphors
20:25suggests deep familiarity with financial
20:28matters
20:29and perhaps even more importantly a
20:32privileged audience
20:34buchanan pointed out many of his
20:36parables and images
20:38would be pointless have told the people
20:41who had not enough wealth to sustain
20:43guests
20:45hire servants be generous with
20:47contributions etc
20:49the audiences at least were
20:51predominantly wealthy
20:55i'm willing to go so far as to suggest
20:58that maybe jesus wasn't a carpenter
21:02mark is the only one who says so
21:05matthew says he was a carpenter's son
21:11giza vermees says the lalmutic sayings
21:18it's the aramaic noun devoting carpenter
21:21stands for
21:22scholar or learned man
21:26seems to me that makes better sense
21:28particularly
21:30in light of the fact that jesus probably
21:33was a trained rabbi
21:35as was his brother probably that his
21:38family was sufficiently wealthy to go to
21:40jerusalem for passover every year which
21:43most people
21:43didn't do one could go on and on about
21:47the wealthy supporters of paul
21:50and what not about how early there were
21:52christians in the imperial household
21:54perhaps as early as 40
21:5649 or 50.
22:00it clears up if you will assume this is
22:02an affluent movement it clears up
22:04a lot of difficulties even if you
22:08disagree with me it's something that
22:09ought to be covered
22:11in any history of christianity and it
22:14never is
22:19it also seems important that as a result
22:23of constantine's
22:24favor the church suffered
22:28great harm and that from then on until
22:32the reformation
22:34there really were two churches i like to
22:37talk about him as the church of power
22:39and the church of piety
22:42church of power came into being because
22:45constantine showered so many benefits on
22:47the church
22:48it made bishops the equal of senators
22:52it was a wonderful wonderful position to
22:55be in the church
22:56and what happened you have a stampede of
22:59the sons of the privileged into the
23:01church
23:02some of them becoming bishops before
23:04they'd even been baptized
23:06that happened a lot of times
23:10well some of these people probably were
23:12sincere
23:14they were all worldly
23:18some of them were only in the sense that
23:19we kind of mean as having
23:21suspicious morals but more of them
23:23really worldly and they knew how the
23:25world
23:25worked they knew how politics work they
23:28ran the church
23:30but fortunately there was this second
23:33church based in the monastic movements
23:37which also flourished at the time and
23:40which could not be crushed
23:42because they were so tightly tied to
23:47privileged people to the nobility if you
23:49will
23:50i mean as i pointed out about the saints
23:54the sons and daughters of the nobility
23:58also went into the church many of them
24:00becoming
24:01priests monks and nuns
24:04they often were stationed within a few
24:08miles from home
24:10visited often were very close to their
24:12parents and had a lot of influence as a
24:15result
24:16consequently there was always this
24:19struggle between the church of piety and
24:22the church of power
24:23and along about the 11th century the
24:25church of piety went out
24:27for a while the crusades were part of
24:29that result
24:30another part with all of this
24:32campaigning for church
24:34reform which when it failed and the
24:37church of power took over again
24:39led to several centuries of heretical
24:41movements and
24:42all of the nastiness and bloodiness that
24:46that entailed
24:51and then of course came luther's
24:54reformation came out of it partly
24:56because of the arrogance of the church
24:57of power
25:00meanwhile the main consequence
25:03was not the heresies and not the bloody
25:06battles
25:07but the complete neglect of the religion
25:12of the people
25:15for centuries the only chapels you could
25:18find
25:18in rural areas were the ones of the
25:20nobility they're about the size of
25:22modern living rooms
25:24uh they were there for the you know the
25:26lord and his family
25:28and a couple of retainers and that was
25:30it
25:31there simply were no places to go to
25:33church even
25:34in rural areas and if we stop and think
25:37about 90
25:38to 95 of the population lived in rural
25:41areas
25:43and what that lead to is the fact that
25:48religious participation was extremely
25:50low and when churches even did appear
25:52nobody went there are enormous numbers
25:56of reports about people
25:57not ever going to church in medieval and
26:00late medieval times
26:02and from time to time they were forced
26:04to go to church whereupon they
26:06misbehaved
26:07i mean really misbehaved and
26:12mocked the priest and
26:16caused endless trouble brought their
26:18dogs and the dogs
26:19barked and and the women fell asleep and
26:22dropped their babies on the floor
26:24and and everybody was drunk and it was
26:26you know it was
26:27it was really something
26:31so what did they do for religion because
26:34the world doesn't go about to be what
26:36they did for religion was
26:38of course magic and kind of
26:41quasi-paganism they added jesus to the
26:43number of
26:45of divinities and went on with life
26:50and the sad part of it is in the long
26:52run as this led to the witch hunts
26:56and the irony here is the witch hunts
27:00were the result of the commitment to
27:02rationality on the part
27:05of christian theologians
27:08christian theologians have never been
27:10content to be like
27:12you know a buddhist or
27:17some of the eastern religions and just
27:20yeah here's what it is
27:24and it's all a mystery and it's all
27:26wonderful they won't know why
27:29and so you sit there and you reason and
27:31you reason and you reason
27:34and one of these days you know they
27:36invented church magic
27:37because they wanted to drive out popular
27:39magic and it was the same as popular
27:42magic only they had
27:43holy water and you know they signed the
27:45cross and various and sundry things
27:47involved
27:48which the people then copied the problem
27:51was the church magic couldn't drive out
27:53popular magic partly because the clergy
27:56weren't around enough and secondly
27:58because
27:59all magic seems to work equally well
28:02all magic works some of the time
28:06and the problem was as christian
28:10theologians thought about it
28:12is why does non-church magic ever
28:15work we know why church magic works
28:20god makes it work jesus makes it work
28:23the saints make it work we
28:24we know why it works okay
28:28why does this other stuff work well it
28:30couldn't be god
28:32and very quickly but it had to be
28:33something supernatural
28:35and you know what he got left well you
28:38got satan
28:39and you got demons and that's
28:42not good stuff we've got to get rid of
28:45it
28:47and and there you are
28:51because you see the people who were
28:53brought up on witchcraft charges muslim
28:55were doing something they were doing
28:57magic
28:59the thing that was important however is
29:02they
29:02didn't know anything about satanism
29:06they were not
29:09they thought they were doing something
29:11legit
29:13they were not appealing to demons and
29:16the devil and whatnot there's no other
29:18trace of this in any surviving magical
29:21writings and whatnot
29:23and it's now accepted by historians that
29:25it wasn't there
29:29so then how did it all end and here
29:32comes one of the great ironies
29:35and this isn't my work this is drawing
29:36on some enormously important
29:40recent historical work that everybody is
29:42ignoring
29:44the witchcraft phrase
29:48ended largely because of the
29:50interference and the model and the
29:53writing
29:53and the publications of the spanish
29:56inquisition
30:00the spanish inquisition prevented there
30:02ever having been
30:03a witchcraft craze in spain or in italy
30:09occasionally although they usually sent
30:12them to the galleys occasionally the
30:14spanish inquisition
30:16punished somebody in relationship to
30:18witchcraft
30:21but it was the people they punished had
30:23burned witches
30:25and the inquisition took a very very dim
30:28view of that
30:29and and and and stopped it whenever they
30:32could
30:33and punished anybody who had been
30:35involved now how do we know any of these
30:37things
30:42the inquisition there were two
30:44inquisitions in spain because there were
30:46two parts of spain
30:48they kept incredibly complete records
30:53enormous files on every case
30:5744 701
31:00such cases and the records have
31:04all been made available and scholars
31:06have been in and
31:07plowing through them and quantifying
31:10them
31:11and now we know a great deal of what
31:14went on with the inquisition
31:18one of the things that went on and the
31:20reason they turned them against
31:21witchcraft in witch hunts
31:24is they listened to the first people who
31:26came before them
31:27charged with witchcraft they asked them
31:31what they were doing and they listened
31:32to their answers and they discovered
31:34that most of them thought they were
31:35doing the same thing the priest was
31:36doing
31:39and i thought well
31:42and they can making him up with a
31:44wonderful theological invention
31:48implicit and explicit invocation
31:52of demons now a real
31:55witch would be explicitly invoking and
31:58say come come yeah
32:01no these these darn pools didn't know
32:03they were doing that
32:04it was implicit and you certainly aren't
32:06going to burn
32:07people when they didn't know they were
32:09sinning
32:10and all these people had to do was say
32:12they were sorry
32:16they let them go
32:19of the 44 701 cases as a matter of fact
32:25only 826 people were sent over for
32:28execution for
32:30any crime and that amounts to about 10 a
32:33year
32:34during the course of the inquisition's
32:37history
32:39this at a time when almost every
32:42crime in europe was punished with
32:45execution
32:49they they weren't look
32:52henry the ace killed more lutherans and
32:55catholic priests
32:56than the inquisition executed in two
32:59centuries
33:01and i find the neglect of this
33:04negligent i mean yeah why don't we know
33:07about it
33:08well so i wrote about it
33:15ah turning the corner
33:19want to come to modern times we've been
33:22given
33:22an enormous privilege of access to
33:26something called the gallup world
33:28polls now they're being done
33:32annually in 166
33:36countries and then i mean that means
33:39you're down to the little islands and
33:40whatnot
33:41okay and these are done with
33:45good solid national samples
33:49and uh very nice items
33:53a lot of interesting information and for
33:56the first time we have some pretty
33:59good information on things like
34:04religious censuses
34:08church attendance and whatnot
34:13what it shows is that 41 of the people
34:17on earth
34:18are christians
34:2127 percent are muslims
34:2519 are hindus 6
34:28are buddhists and you can go from there
34:33now
34:36we know that a substantial number of
34:39these christians live in europe never go
34:41to church
34:43so what what when we cut it and cut out
34:46some of this
34:47nonsense what do we really get well
34:49let's
34:50look only at people who have been to a
34:53religious service in the past
34:54seven days and 44
34:58of the world's population who've been in
34:59church recently are christians
35:0229 are muslims
35:05most of us would have thought the muslim
35:07proportion would rise
35:08a lot compared to the catholics but now
35:11the muslims don't go to church either on
35:13you know they sleep in on
35:14um and
35:17in any event
35:21i very interested in the geography of
35:24this
35:26when we look at just nominal
35:27affiliations you've got
35:2913 percent of christians in north
35:31america
35:3225 percent in latin america 28 percent
35:35europe one percent in the middle east 23
35:39in africa et cetera et cetera
35:42now let's move over to weekly attenders
35:46europe drops out i mean it's still 24
35:49in north america we come up latin
35:51america 22 europe's now only got 13
35:54of them but get ready for this 30
35:58in sub-saharan africa it's the largest
36:00single christian group
36:02on earth africa
36:05is so christian and so rapidly growing
36:09christian that it leaves you breathless
36:11so much so that if you go and get a
36:13catholic world almanac
36:15and look up their claimed membership in
36:17these latin in these
36:19sub-saharan african countries and then
36:22look at
36:22the gallup data you find the catholics
36:25are grossly
36:26underestimating their numbers
36:29in sub-saharan africa nobody
36:31underestimates their membership but here
36:33it is
36:34you know 20 30 low i mean big low
36:38so i've had some contacts with the
36:40vatican and they're very pleased about
36:42this but they don't know why
36:44uh the best guess the best guess is this
36:49that uh the church is growing so rapidly
36:52that the priests out in the boonies
36:54are able to to baptize and confirm but
36:57they haven't got any time to keep
36:58records
36:59and that it just isn't get just isn't
37:01getting counted up
37:05so then we come back and we look
37:09at europe and we look at all of these
37:13people who aren't ever going to church
37:15probably shouldn't be counted as
37:17christians
37:20and there's a great surprise hiding in
37:22all of it
37:24it's called fertility you may know that
37:29most european nations are well below
37:32replacement fertility
37:34that in a just a few more generations if
37:37things continue there won't be any
37:38swedes in sweden
37:40any germans in germany any europeans in
37:42europe
37:44and by the way they won't they won't be
37:46uh muslims either because
37:48uh muslim muslim
37:51fertility is going like that all over
37:54the world but it's going like that
37:55really rapidly in europe as well by the
37:57way
37:57iran's fertility is well below
38:00replacement already
38:02in any event church-going
38:05europeans are way above
38:08replacement level and some
38:12really really world-class demographers
38:15have looked at this
38:17and it comes out that in about four more
38:20generations
38:22church-going christians will outnumber
38:24non-church-going christians in europe
38:26the reason that the
38:27numbers are so low right now is because
38:29church-going christians are such a small
38:31minority
38:32but the way things are going they're
38:35having babies
38:37and uh
38:40europe is in
38:43if things don't change europe's having a
38:45great big religious revival
38:47purely through fertility
38:50which i find fascinating because i grew
38:53up sociologists were trained to look at
38:55the effects of religion on fertility
38:58they weren't elect trained to look at
38:59the effects of fertility on religion
39:03but american judaism is changing very
39:06rapidly for the same reason
39:08the secular jews are not having children
39:12uh
39:14the uh ultra-orthodox are having seven
39:18or eight
39:19per family uh you know and
39:23there's a huge shift going on simply
39:26through differential fertility
39:28and it means that
39:32the future is in many ways wide open and
39:35and kind of fun to contemplate
39:39and that's enough for now
39:42i'll take any questions from anybody for
39:45as long as we've got
39:56it's okay with me
40:06i'm sorry i can't hear you uh earlier
40:08when you spoke about the two churches
40:10you spoke to them as a piety and power
40:13or um when you were talking about
40:17constantine's influence right on the two
40:20churches
40:21were you talking about the orthodox and
40:22catholic church no i was talking about
40:24two branches of the roman catholic
40:26church it was really all it was around
40:27at the time
40:28uh yeah i mean there was often in
40:31byzantine for a little while
40:32something else going on but in the long
40:34run
40:36no i'm really talking about
40:39the secular clergy so-called uh
40:42and the monastics and the secular clergy
40:47uh knew how to work with kings
40:51they knew how to set up a a big
40:54administrative structure
40:55and for centuries to the extent there
40:57was any europe
40:59and any kind of unity it was it was
41:02church administration
41:05uh but they didn't work very hard at
41:08at uh say converting the northern
41:12you know the scandinavians and whatnot
41:15they didn't work much at uh
41:17um bringing anybody to church in the
41:20rural area i mean
41:22they were they were the church of power
41:23and they were in power
41:25and it was enough to baptize the king uh
41:28of norway and not worry what uh
41:30oli and hans did and and they didn't
41:33worry
41:34but the monastics were a whole different
41:36bunch they were really concerned with
41:38the piety of people
41:40and they worked very hard at it and uh
41:43and they had this wonderful run of power
41:45for about 150 years
41:47until of course come the counter revolut
41:50reformation
41:52the church of piety took over the church
41:54and has been in charge ever since
41:56um which which made for a very different
41:58catholic church and uh and
42:00much more interesting in my sense the
42:02catholic church
42:10would you comment on the gallup data on
42:12the growth of the church or church
42:14attendance in latin america
42:17i'm sorry i didn't get the end of it uh
42:20the
42:21growth of church of christianity or
42:23church attendance in latin america
42:25yeah wonderful story actually
42:30um latin america is finally becoming
42:34a christian continent for a long time it
42:36was called a catholic continent but
42:38there wasn't much church attendance
42:41there weren't enough
42:42men going to seminary so that they you
42:45know
42:46latin america has been staffed with
42:49with the import foreign clergy forever
42:53and then the protestants got in there
42:55and
42:57got going and after world war ii really
42:59started to grow
43:00rapidly and it was the best thing that
43:04ever happened to the catholic church in
43:06latin america
43:07they've responded extremely actively
43:11very effectively once they they stopped
43:14all of this
43:14uh liberation theology nonsense and
43:18and and started uh sponsoring uh
43:21uh charismatic catholics and what
43:24catholic church attendance in latin
43:26america right now
43:27is staggeringly high and it's
43:31its height depends on the strength of
43:33protestantism whereas
43:34countries with a higher percentage of
43:37protestants
43:38have the highest rate of catholic church
43:40attendance
43:41and what what it's doing is it's a you
43:44know it's
43:45it's this wonderful pluralism kind of
43:47competition
43:48uh going on and and latin america is is
43:52amazingly well churched at the moment
43:55uh uh i mean we're talking about
43:5860 or 70 percent of people showing up at
44:01mass on sunday and that's that's
44:02staggering
44:04uh and and and without you know we kind
44:07of knew
44:08all this but with the with the gallup
44:10data you can actually put numbers on it
44:13in a really accurate sense and it's it's
44:16just
44:17it's it's it's something to behold
44:20we are hoping by the way to buy a piece
44:25of the gallup operation
44:29so that we can have 8 or 10 or 12
44:33more religion items asked worldwide for
44:36a while at least
44:40and
44:45we have high hopes of being able to you
44:47know do that
44:48and really see what what
44:52what the face of religion worldwide
44:54looks like
44:55and and we'd really really like to do
44:57that and
44:58and we're working on it
45:05yes um when you're talking about
45:09um the fertility numbers with
45:13church attendance and how they relate to
45:15each other would you say that
45:18the more um
45:22that sense like church the term biblical
45:24views more like traditional roles for
45:26women
45:27in the households would you think that
45:29as
45:31society has progressed and more women
45:34are taking roles outside of the home
45:36that that's the reason why
45:38more churchgoers have more fertility
45:40than those who do not
45:41because if they push more traditional
45:43roles because you mentioned sweden and
45:45they're very
45:46um even in quality standards in a lot of
45:49other places
45:51right and what you're suggesting is that
45:53fertility
45:55drops out as
45:58as feminism progresses or
46:02something like that yeah well there are
46:04there there is there is some
46:05there's something that looks like that
46:08but this whole sex role issues is so
46:11complicated for example
46:13everyone loves to love to say
46:16evangelical families
46:20are dreadful because they have
46:22traditional sex rules and yet you go
46:24look inside them
46:25the relationships are much warmer i just
46:28finished
46:29in a little book i'm throwing off
46:34well my agent wanted it so i stopped on
46:36the big book i'm working on i'm going to
46:37do this in a couple it's called
46:38americans blessings
46:40and it's the contributions i'm talking
46:42about real
46:43tangible personal and social
46:45contributions
46:47of religion in the united states for
46:49example
46:50uh what would happen you know if we were
46:52an irreligious country what would happen
46:53to our crime rates
46:55well everybody says well of course you
46:57know europe isn't religious and they
46:59have low crime rates europe doesn't have
47:01low crime rates
47:02their crime rates are way way way higher
47:05than
47:05ours except for homicide and that has to
47:08do with firearms mostly
47:10uh they have a lot of attempted murders
47:12we don't even categorize attempted
47:14murders
47:15the problem is that you know
47:18i mean you know you you didn't have a
47:21gun so you threw a book at him and it
47:23didn't kill him
47:25uh but you know i mean 80 of the time we
47:28go bang
47:29you know you got a homicide but leaving
47:32that aside
47:33their assault rates in places like
47:35sweden and norway are three and four
47:37times as high
47:38as ours their burglary rates are way
47:41way way above ours and this goes through
47:44a lot of things
47:46you know our divorce rate
47:51is often misinterpreted because you've
47:53got to have a marriage in order to have
47:55a divorce european divorce rates aren't
47:57very high because their marriage rate is
47:58so low
48:00um but you know if you if you look at
48:02couples who separate who've been living
48:04together then you've got a whole
48:05different
48:06thing but the studies of american family
48:09life are
48:10really surprised to me because
48:15evangelical households much stronger
48:19warmer relationships with the kids and
48:22and some of these studies measure it
48:23from both sides
48:24and measure it until you know for 20
48:26years
48:28until the kids are are 30 uh and
48:31and you you have you know the mother and
48:32father side of the the relationship and
48:34you're asking the kids
48:36and and these relationships simply are a
48:39lot firmer
48:40uh a lot warmer
48:43i hesitate to say it but evangelical sex
48:47lives are a whole lot better than those
48:49of the non-church attenders
48:51i mean there's a huge amount of research
48:53on it it's just there
48:55uh it's it's it's true in the in in in
48:57the jewish community the
48:59the orthodox women report much happier
49:02sex lives than
49:04the secular so
49:07i don't know i mean what can you say but
49:09but it isn't at all clear how some of
49:11this stuff works
49:13um and uh
49:16what i do know is that uh european women
49:20who go to church are having kids
49:23their total fertility rate is about 2.9
49:26which
49:27which will give you some pretty serious
49:29growth
49:30um whereas in the country as a whole it
49:33will be 1.6
49:35and italy's down to about 1.1
49:38and you know i mean you don't go very
49:40long and replace yourselves i mean
49:42population really does do that
49:46but here's this kicker that the
49:47religious people are not going with it
49:50and you make some interesting
49:53projections and you know
49:55you know projections never need to hold
49:57but but
49:58but it's interesting i mean people can
50:00change their minds and
50:02the non-church goers can start having a
50:03bunch of kids too
50:05but i was shocked about uh
50:09about muslim fertility dropping so
50:12rapidly it's it's it's just
50:14i mean it's it's the slope is extremely
50:18steep
50:19and as i said iran is well below
50:22replacement already
50:23there are only three western countries
50:26so-called
50:28with population growth at the moment
50:30with replacement rates and that's the
50:31united states
50:34ireland and israel
50:38that surprised me
50:41but uh one more question yeah
50:45not from me just one more question how's
50:47that oh oh
50:49he said one more question i thought he
50:51had a question
50:52um you talked about the strengths that
50:55piety
50:56christian piety brings to a nation is
50:59there
51:00do you find i'm interested in education
51:02k-12 education
51:03okay do you find that the nature of
51:05public education whether it's religious
51:08secular within a country
51:11what effect does it have on translating
51:13the strengths that christianity might
51:15bring to the nation
51:16into the public realm yeah well
51:19public education is a real problem as we
51:22all know
51:23what's interesting of course in this
51:26country
51:28is the enormous prevalence of
51:31parochial schools which are these days
51:33the catholic schools are at least half
51:35protestant in terms of their students
51:39and homeschooling homeschooling is
51:42overwhelmingly of course
51:46religious parents i mean truly
51:48overwhelmingly
51:50and uh and and the performance is
51:52staggering i mean you know these kids
51:54are four grade levels ahead by the time
51:56they're in the sixth grade and that sort
51:57of thing but
51:59um
52:03i don't know where any of that's going
52:04to going to work out
52:06now this whole public school thing but
52:09at least
52:12at present things like achievement
52:15scores religious kids do much much
52:17better
52:18and that's especially so in the minority
52:20communities
52:21um it's it's it's it's staggering but
52:24but the hispanic
52:26and and the african-american kids really
52:28benefit
52:29uh in the sense of if they're to the
52:32extent their family is religious they
52:33perform
52:34so much better and uh
52:39you know it's hard to know where it goes
52:43we got off into a book i'm writing
52:44instead of the book i wrote
52:48well i have a question about the book
52:49you wrote you really piqued my interest
52:51when you said that
52:53early christianity appealed not to the
52:55underclasses i think i also grew up
52:57believing that
52:58we can see in the gospels all their all
53:00the appeals to those who are downtrodden
53:02and
53:03right more on the fringes and so i'm
53:05wondering
53:06uh what do you think that's about what
53:08was appealing to
53:09you know the nobility in the upper class
53:11in the early church that brought them
53:13into this
53:15i've written recently on on
53:19why it is that the affluent
53:22get into religion and
53:27i don't want to take a lot of time on
53:28this but
53:32as long as you're poor you think money
53:34will solve your problems and then you
53:36got money and it doesn't solve your
53:38problems
53:39and you're still unhappy and you're
53:41still wondering what it all means
53:44um and again and again and again
53:48see the upper classes turning to you
53:51know buddha's
53:55it's a standard case you know i mean it
53:59couldn't find happiness in a palace had
54:01to go sit under a banyan tree to find it
54:04or you go to essel and instituted big
54:06sur and they were all rockefellers and
54:08people like that
54:10uh that that the people who
54:13who really truly know uh
54:16that there has to be something more and
54:18it's got to be spiritual
54:19are the people who've got everything
54:21else and
54:22and and it wasn't enough
54:28uh i'm still trying to get everything
54:31you see i'm okay
54:38okay well i guess we stayed long enough
54:41and thank you very much for having me
54:52you

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