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Jesus the Game Changer Season One - Rodney Stark Extended Interview — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:16so run you've written a number of books
0:18around the triumph of Christianity and
0:21what was your kind of interest in
0:22exploring that subject matter
0:24well it's oddly enough I backed in the
0:27whole thing I started out in graduate
0:30school I was recruited to work on on a
0:33great huge survey I having to do with
0:36Christian beliefs in anti-semitism and
0:39mostly focused on there on the religious
0:41aspect of it I wasn't planning to be a
0:46sociologist of religion it just might
0:48have happened and then through the years
0:51as I was doing this or that I began
0:54realizing that there was a lot of
0:57neglect of the history that well for one
1:01thing there were too many historians who
1:07were statistically illiterate that that
1:11were pretty simple arithmetical things
1:13were simply being neglected and
1:15overlooked and so I sat down and and
1:19tried to figure out what kind of a rate
1:22of growth the early church would have
1:23had to have had through God as big as it
1:26is it dead and discovered that wasn't
1:28really a very rapid rate of growth as
1:30these things go and that it wasn't
1:33miraculous it wasn't strange it was
1:36fairly ordinary and moving from there I
1:40thought well you know maybe maybe I
1:41should start studying the history of the
1:44early church and I discovered I loved
1:48doing that
1:48what was it surprised you most about
1:50that well you know we had the idea that
1:55until you sit down and work with the
1:58compound interest formula you don't
2:01realize how rapidly is let's let's
2:03assume a rate of growth of 3 or 4% a
2:13year and suddenly you get a stunningly
2:17large numbers in a relatively short
2:20period of time and we start playing
2:22around with a sort of thing and saying
2:23oh wow
2:25it really wouldn't have taken a very
2:27rapid rate of growth to get to three
2:30four five six million Christians by the
2:32Year 200 300 whatever and it gives you
2:37pause and said now just a second this
2:42this looks like a very reasonable kind
2:47of thing you know
2:51there was a story it said the most
2:53miraculous thing about the growth of
2:56Christianity is that it could have grown
2:58so large without any miracles and that's
3:02kind of true that there are religious
3:06movements have come a long sense that
3:09have grown as rapidly not as long but
3:12but the fact is that once you realize
3:15how easily it could have happened many
3:18things start understanding better how it
3:20did app you don't have to start grasping
3:23at and implausibility you can say well
3:27what the Bible tells us about what was
3:30going on probably was what was going on
3:34and then you start thinking that way and
3:36he started thinking rethinking a lot of
3:38things for example I was very concerned
3:41early on about the notion that this was
3:44a movement of the slaves in the ignorant
3:50because we've got the the Gospels to
3:54deal with and they're around by 7080 who
3:59could read if this was a religion of
4:01slaves and and and the ignorant oh why
4:06would they have wanted any Gospels the
4:08idea right him for two people I mean
4:10that doesn't make any sense and then of
4:12course I ran across a wonderful
4:14Australian scholar named judge who
4:18pointed out the obvious once it was
4:20pointed out which is the Apostle Paul
4:24didn't say none of you were
4:29intellectuals none of you were educated
4:32none of you were noble none of you were
4:34highborn
4:35he said not many
4:36view well that means some work and you
4:42look that opens the whole door after all
4:44there weren't very many noble people in
4:45the Roman Empire all together and you
4:49start saying well if some of them were
4:50their noble well what else is going on
4:55and the next thing you know you start
4:57realizing that there's evidence of
5:00Christians in the imperial family as
5:03early as the Year 50 it changes the
5:07whole view and you don't have to do
5:10something radical you don't have to be
5:11one of these guys that comes along and
5:13says you know I've got it all figured
5:16out and that's all backwards because it
5:17isn't backwards it's right there and
5:20it's it's it's it's it all works and
5:27I'll marvelous time with that you there
5:30was a number of places where you saw
5:32that the church the teaching of Jesus
5:34and the early church actually shifted
5:36the way people acted within the
5:38community and one of the areas was kind
5:40of that need and so it would explore the
5:44greco-roman world if you were in need in
5:46the greco-roman world what we were
5:48options a little and none there were no
5:53social services but of course early on
5:57within the Christian community there
6:00were social services the Christians did
6:03look after the widows they did look
6:05after the poor an early Pope was was was
6:09in fact bought out of slavery not after
6:13he was Pope he'll be a well before but
6:19they were basically setting up a
6:22different model of society it was
6:26enormous ly attractive actually when you
6:29started looking at the early church
6:31within the context of the Roman Empire
6:34you wonder why everybody didn't turn
6:36Christianity all the first ten years
6:38take women yeah you really look at the
6:43situation of the greco-roman women of
6:46the Roman women it was awful
6:51and you compare that with the situation
6:54of Christian women and and you really
6:58wonder why
7:00well everyone who ever heard about it
7:02didn't become a Christian immediately
7:04mean Roman girls got married at 12 13 14
7:08the men are over 30 they had nothing to
7:13say about it and very little to say
7:15about it though max they could be
7:18divorced a snap of the fingers and
7:21abandoned no there was no divorce court
7:28telling they have to pay alimony or
7:30anything like that Christian women
7:33tended to get married at 18 19 had a lot
7:37of saying who they married divorce was
7:41thought to be impermissible it was
7:46thought normal for Roman men to play
7:49around it was thought a sin for
7:54Christian men to play around Christian
7:58women had simply a much more secure
8:03nicer life they'd see trees the biggest
8:06now people look at what say Paul taught
8:09about women there's this sense of always
8:11that's a terrible view but you're
8:12suggesting that he actually shifted well
8:15you know no people don't read the whole
8:18Bible verse I mean he said you know
8:21better to marry than to burn yeah right
8:24it doesn't mean burthen to burn in hell
8:26it means to burn with passion and then
8:30he goes on to talk about marital
8:36relations and the they advises people
8:40not to be celibate that that was they
8:45could do that briefly for some kind of
8:50religious reasons but that that was not
8:53the way you were supposed to live now
8:55some people like to quote where he says
8:58that the woman's body belongs to her
9:00husband
9:00but the next line says the Osmonds body
9:03belongs to the wife
9:05this was very symmetrical that was very
9:08different from what we're always I mean
9:10I assumed that Paul was against marriage
9:13and he wasn't at all yeah and the Bible
9:16is the Bible is very pronatal very pro
9:19marriage and important ways in the
9:24context of the of the Roman world very
9:27pro woman ceremony what about children
9:29what was a lot of children the wreck
9:31wreck around the world
9:32the rooms often abandoned if you will he
9:39see they didn't want to take a little
9:41girl out and just cut her throat
9:42so what they do is they wire up at the
9:45roadside I think we're talking about you
9:47know a day old to a old infant and the
9:50idea was that if somebody came by and
9:52wanted her and picked her up then she
9:56was going to have a life and if two
9:58didn't it didn't mostly they didn't it
10:03was even worse than that it's very hard
10:07I think for modern people myself
10:09included to realize that abortion was
10:13widespread in the Roman Empire at a time
10:17when the Renault antibiotics they didn't
10:20know anything about germs or cleanliness
10:24[Music]
10:26the fatality rate was enormous and you
10:31say well if when we were running such an
10:35enormous risk of death or serious
10:40disability why do they have abortions it
10:44wasn't up to them husband's decided
10:47whether or not there was going to be an
10:49abortion and again here is there is
10:51these older men with these very very
10:53young women and frankly wives were easy
10:58to replace and they didn't worry much
11:01about it I mean this is not a world that
11:06we can find very attractive so Rodney
11:09what was it that Jesus taught that the
11:11early church picked up on that kind of
11:13shifted
11:14suppose the main thing each other's
11:16their life was sacred that the life of
11:21everyone that people were to take care
11:25of one another that we were our brothers
11:27keepers that that we had a
11:32responsibility to look after the old and
11:35the young and the disabled and the ill
11:40you know it showed up incredibly during
11:44the two great plagues that hit the Roman
11:47Empire very early in Christian days the
11:53wealthy Romans fled the cities when it
11:55happened
11:56including the physicians and the priests
11:59the Christians stayed they nursed the
12:03ill took care of people and as a
12:06consequence some of them some of them
12:09died of the plague of course but
12:12Christians survived the plague at a much
12:14higher rate because as a matter of fact
12:17if you give people food and water you
12:21care for them during the height of their
12:24illness many of them will survive and so
12:28there was apparent to all these pagan
12:31neighbors that the Christians were out
12:32living them because they're taking care
12:34of one another
12:35it was an enormous lesson but it was the
12:40essence of the Christian lifestyle that
12:43the people care for one another and look
12:47after one another and that there's this
12:49much greater sense of an intimate
12:53community a community of believers but
12:56then a community of people who gave
12:59money every month to take care of widows
13:02and orphans and
13:04and whatnot in a world that had no
13:07social services there was a Roman
13:10Emperor somewhat later Julian the
13:12apostate who said who wrote to the pagan
13:17temples and said you've got to start
13:19looking after the the the sick people in
13:22the end the poor because these
13:25Christians are doing that and they're
13:27they're doing it just of course to outdo
13:31with some and make us look bad it was
13:34nothing the idea that they were doing it
13:36out of virtue but of course his
13:39directions to the temples went nowhere
13:41because there was there was there was no
13:44base for it there was there was nothing
13:45in the pagan traditions about giving
13:51money to the poor
13:53the way you you gave something to the
13:57you gave something the priests for their
14:00care and you buy an ox and an avid
14:04slaughtered and feed all your friends
14:06but there was nothing there about about
14:10social services because there was
14:12nothing there about but the sanctity of
14:15life and about your responsibility one
14:18today people would find that really odd
14:20wouldn't they because today in in
14:22countries Western countries the the the
14:24kind of sanctity of life I would guess
14:26and the importance of each individual is
14:28just a part of almost the air that we
14:30breathe right it's intriguing trend to
14:32think that there was a time where that
14:33wasn't the case yes but then look around
14:35the world it isn't always it isn't isn't
14:38true in many other nations
14:42it isn't true in many parts of Asia that
14:45that people feel these kinds of
14:47responsibilities to one another or if
14:50they do it isn't part of the religion
14:54I'm sure there were Romans who care
14:56about one another I mean obviously you
14:59know people do but it wasn't built into
15:02the system it wasn't part of the thing
15:05that everybody was raised believing and
15:08and the fact that we have these views in
15:11the West is because we were raised
15:14in in the in the in these traditions and
15:17these views now of course some of this
15:19came from from from the the Judeo
15:21tradition within which Jesus arose it's
15:29it's of course the secret of the West
15:32yeah as we flow on from that there's an
15:35a distance a whole number of areas where
15:37the the early church and the the kind of
15:40attitude of Jesus the teaching of Jesus
15:42kind of shifted to our community and one
15:43of them is in the area of Education and
15:45we take free education of the
15:47communities for granted who was educated
15:50at these times
15:52very few literacy probably ran 5%
16:02possibly possibly 10 but certainly
16:06certainly no higher than that and and
16:08out in the in the province is much much
16:10lower the rich red and then of course
16:15that goes back again for my earlier
16:17point about why were there Gospels by
16:20the year 60 and 70 if only the rich
16:22could read that's because there were
16:24plenty of the Christians weren't about a
16:28bunch of down unders it's there was a
16:33wonderful scholar who was analyzed Jesus
16:39sermons and he said you know these were
16:43not sermons aimed at the ignorant these
16:49were sermons that that used imagery and
16:53and comparisons and parables that would
16:56be understood by by literate people and
16:59people of privilege there was a lot
17:03about being responsible with your wealth
17:07and what well why are you telling
17:10desperately poor people that they ought
17:13to give their money to the poor they
17:15haven't got any money to give the poor
17:16they are the poor but again it seems
17:19that the you know that the early church
17:22was quite different than some now for a
17:25long time people were led to believe
17:27the popular view still is there yeah so
17:30when it weighted education and say
17:32universities as we know them which is
17:34your background where did they
17:35where did they start what was the
17:37university started in the 11th 12th
17:40centuries they were entirely founded by
17:44the church and they were really
17:49universities I mean they were about
17:52studies of higher education if you will
17:55it was it was about I mean science
17:58begins in these early universities
18:01natural philosophy was an early part of
18:07the whole Christian outlook intellectual
18:10outlook is that the world is rational
18:16because it was created by a rational God
18:19the world will run according to rules
18:22because God not only created the basis
18:28of reason but he gave us reason so that
18:32we could understand things and the
18:34assumption that the world could be
18:36understood was the whole basis of what
18:40came to be Western civilization you
18:46don't study and look for explanations of
18:50how the world works if you don't believe
18:55that the world works according to reason
18:57and if you look back in the the
19:00philosophy of of China at the time and
19:04what everybody outside the Christian
19:08West believed that the world was
19:11incomprehensible because it was an
19:15eternal mystery that you can meditate on
19:18it but there was pointless to try to
19:20understand it because it was
19:22understandable the Christians the
19:25contrary believed that it could be
19:27understood some of the very earliest
19:30church fathers are saying we don't
19:33understand this today but we will will
19:36understand sometimes I was thinking
19:38about what God
19:38and whatnot but but the whole idea of
19:41progress was in fact a Christian ideal
19:45the idea that that 20 years from now
19:49things will be better and will no more
19:51we all take that for granted
19:53but in fact in most of the world
19:55particularly ancient world you would
19:58have been laughed at if you said such a
20:00thing it turns out it was true the
20:03Christians were right the universe could
20:05be understood which is why in fact we're
20:08sitting here talking on camera and and
20:12it's going to be shown over a television
20:14and whatever because this stuff only
20:16happened because we thought it could
20:18happen you did some research on the
20:20first scientists didn't you the first
20:22the first people that we kind of
20:24scientists as we understood them run and
20:26scientists now science and scientists
20:28are often rated against Christian faith
20:30what were the first scientists like well
20:34the first scientists really go back to
20:37to the early universities and they were
20:40all ordained I mean we're talking about
20:43priests and some of some of them were
20:45Cardinals even and then when we come
20:48into what's called the Scientific
20:50Revolution of the 17th hundreds these
20:56were profoundly religious men and I say
21:00men because there weren't any women
21:02among them for all kinds of reasons but
21:07the fact is that Newton wrote a lot more
21:12theology than he did physics there's a
21:16very religious man most of them were
21:20there was only one Hallie who probably
21:23was irreligious probably twenty thirty
21:29percent of them were were actually
21:32priests and ordained they were a very
21:37religious group of people and they were
21:38in religious universities for the most
21:41part they not only just saw no
21:45contradiction between religion and
21:47science they saw nothing but
21:50a meshing and a complete fit between
21:52religion and science and the fact of the
21:55matter is most scientists do today
21:59they don't write books about it and they
22:01don't get their there themselves on the
22:04media like you know
22:08Dawkins and some of these people you
22:11know with or but the fact of the matter
22:16is it religion we have science because
22:19of religion that's how much it fit
22:22together and there is no necessary
22:24inconsistency religion is not about the
22:28material world and in the sense of we're
22:32talking about the existence of God and
22:33what not science is only about the
22:37material world so I ask you can say
22:39nothing about whether an immaterial is
22:41virtual world exists or doesn't exist so
22:45I just can say they don't believe it but
22:48science as such can't tell you anything
22:50about a non material realm so there's no
22:56overlap and you two have no need to
22:58collide at all
22:59go back those first universities often
23:02often end nd hospitals often came out of
23:05kind of monastic movements and
23:07monasteries give us a picture of what
23:09what they were like because I guess
23:11today we tend to see here's a group of
23:13people that locked themselves away and
23:14left the world well what were
23:15monasteries like and what difference did
23:17they make my monasteries were work
23:20communities people of course you know
23:24dedicated their lives to the church but
23:27they didn't lock themselves up they
23:29weren't unworldly they had their livings
23:32to make you consequently capitalism was
23:37invented in the great monastic
23:39communities of Europe when the the
23:44people running the monastery said now
23:46when I give our stuff away and the
23:51marvelous thing about the monasteries of
23:52course is they could make long-term
23:55economic plans and they would always be
23:58[Music]
23:59they were meritocracies of course
24:02because they didn't have to deal with
24:03idiot sons you know the nobility had to
24:06deal with the fact that would come along
24:08with a guy who who wastes all the money
24:10or or or was an idiot or whatnot but in
24:15the monasteries it was always you know
24:16they didn't put idiot in charge that way
24:19took the smart guys and put them in
24:20charge I'm sure there were plenty of
24:24idiots in the monastery but they doesn't
24:25give them responsibilities and and they
24:29were these wonderfully won't run
24:32factories and whatnot what we've got
24:34going on there was what was amazing is
24:36the early on specialized and
24:40consequently led to a money economy
24:42because trade was very inefficient and
24:44so the guys who were making wine bought
24:49their food from other places that were
24:52raising food and they bought their
24:53horses I mean there there was one famous
24:56monastery in Italy that specializes
24:58nothing but good horses I mean that's
25:01what they did they bred and raised
25:02horses it was it was an amazing it was
25:06amazing time did they just were that
25:09were they just money-making Enterprises
25:11what else did oh well of course they
25:13were they were they were intellectual
25:16operations they some of them wrote books
25:22they did a lot of worshiping they maybe
25:25these were seriously religious people I
25:30did a little study in which I took of
25:33the medieval Saints from the year 500 to
25:37the Year 1500 i coded them up and the
25:42marvelous thing is 20% of them were from
25:46the nobility and most of the rest of
25:49them were from the very very privileged
25:52I'm sorry 20 but many more than twenty
25:57first twenty percent were from royalty
25:59almost sixty percent were from the
26:02nobility the point here being is that
26:05the connection between the monasteries
26:08if you will because the most
26:10had been monastics the monasteries and
26:15the political elite was like members of
26:19your family are doing one or the other
26:21and so you've got brothers and sisters
26:24who are in the monastic movement it it
26:29held it held Europe together in
26:32interesting ways and it puts some moral
26:35constraints on the nobility because the
26:40family members who were who were monks
26:43and nuns would say you know you
26:44shouldn't be doing that
26:46dad or brother or sister or whatever and
26:51they tied Europe together and some some
26:53some very interesting ways and imposed a
26:56morality it's interesting because that
26:58kind of whole process of Education and
27:00they were you know and then not only
27:02with with universities but there was
27:04also educated educating children and
27:07then that developed more into literacy
27:09because they wanted people to to read
27:11the Bible but that actually had an
27:13influence on the the ability of
27:15democracy to rise didn't it well sure I
27:17mean literacy spread further in Europe
27:26than it did elsewhere in the world over
27:29one thing of course Western literacy is
27:34easier than say in China or Japan
27:38I mean learning six or seven thousand
27:45unique symbols to be become minimally
27:49literate that's pretty hard when in fact
27:55all you have to do is realize that
27:57you're you're just sounding out the
27:59words you're speaking that's a whole lot
28:01easier to learn how to read and in that
28:05sense the West had a huge advantage and
28:07literacy was much much more easily
28:11achieved you know where people admire
28:17how hard Chinese kids work in school
28:20well that starts on the fact that God
28:22will work really really
28:24really hard just to become barely
28:26literate there's no sliding by on those
28:30schools because literacy is so difficult
28:33and then and then literacy and education
28:37actually gives people just a wider
28:39concept of what their rights are and and
28:42and shifts the community it gives you a
28:45much larger body of the public who can
28:49be involved and will be involved of
28:53course you know these things it was in
28:56the the Italian city-states that in in
29:00medieval times that you got democracy
29:02democracy re-emerging from the Greek
29:06tradition and one of the reasons is you
29:10had a substantial middle class in in
29:14these in these cities and yes a lot of
29:18literacy and and this whole fundamental
29:25Christian conception of humanity you
29:28really didn't have the sense as you did
29:32in in many parts of the world that the
29:35upper class were almost of a different
29:37race almost almost a different breed of
29:40humans than the rest and there was a lot
29:45more moving up and down there were
29:47people who went in the army and became
29:50leaders who came out of very pretty
29:54pretty low backgrounds but it's you know
29:56talent out it or breaks or whatever but
30:00there was there was a much more fluidity
30:02in the system and you know it goes back
30:07to the early days of the church the idea
30:10buying people out of slavery and one of
30:12them ended up Pope I mean you know
30:14that's that's not the sort of thing that
30:17that you see in non-western situations
30:22or in the old days at least where if you
30:27weren't born privileged there was no
30:29privilege for you so Ronnie this series
30:31is called Jesus the game-changing with
30:33all the study and research you've done
30:35how would you
30:35see Jesus is a game changer Western
30:38civilization would not exist have not
30:44there been Jesus I did a book called how
30:51the West one the neglected story of the
30:55rise of modernity
30:56and basically in the early important
31:02times it's rooted in the church is
31:04rooted in Christianity it's rooted in
31:07Jesus these things didn't happen in the
31:12rest of the world you can say well you
31:14know this that leveling was invented in
31:16China right but it led to nothing I mean
31:20even take something as simple as
31:23gunpowder whether that was invented in
31:26China or simultaneously invented both in
31:29China and Europe we don't know doesn't
31:32matter the Chinese used it to fireworks
31:35and within a few years on a very few
31:39years of gunpowder being available in
31:43Europe you've got church bell
31:46manufacturers all over Europe casting
31:48canons and in 15 and 17 when the
31:53portuguese reached china they had
31:56firearms they had cannons on their ships
31:59and the chinese didn't have any of them
32:03maybe the Chinese invented a clock we
32:07don't know for sure but they didn't know
32:09what time it was when the Portuguese got
32:11there because they didn't have any
32:12clocks there were clocks all over Europe
32:15and all of this owes it goes back to the
32:21fact that Christianity believed in a
32:26rational world a rational God God of
32:30justice God of logic got a virtue all of
32:37these things conspired together to make
32:41it possible for us to be here in this
32:45kind of a civilized world
32:49even though there are many in Cebu
32:51uncivil aspects to it it's still the
32:55best that we could do and it wouldn't
32:59have been done we wouldn't have medics
33:03and we wouldn't have hospitals we
33:05wouldn't have automobiles we wouldn't
33:08have any of this if it hadn't been for
33:10the start of the whole thing which was
33:14Jesus
33:16[Music]
33:22[Applause]
33:27[Music]

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Jesus the Game Changer Season One - Rodney Stark Extended Interview by Olive Tree Media, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,427 words across 644 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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