Urban Mission

On my recent trip to Turkey I visited the seven churches of the Apocalypse, as well as such ancient centres as Troy, Assos, Constantinope (Istanbul), Hierapolis and Troy. I mused with others as to the conditions in which early Christianity spread.

Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome, by Rodney Stark, gives interesting, well-research and quite plausible theories about the early spread of this powerful movement of God.

On review asks - it? Where did Christianity spread, and how? Based on quantitative data and the latest scholarship, preeminent scholar and journalist Rodney Stark presents new and startling information about the rise of the early church, overturning many prevailing views of how Christianity grew through time to become the largest religion in the world.

Drawing on both archaeological and historical evidence, Stark is able to provide hard statistical evidence on the religious life of the Roman Empire to discover the following facts that set conventional history on its head:

Contrary to fictions such as The Da Vinci Code and the claims of some prominent scholars, Gnosticism was not a more sophisticated, more authentic form of Christianity, but really an unsuccessful effort to paganize Christianity.

Paul was called the apostle to the Gentiles, but mostly he converted Jews.

Paganism was not rapidly stamped out by state repression following the vision and conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 AD, but gradually disappeared as people abandoned the temples in response to the superior appeal of Christianity.

The "oriental" faiths—such as those devoted to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of love and magic, and to Cybele, the fertility goddess of Asia Minor—actually prepared the way for the rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire.

Contrary to generations of historians, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism posed no challenge to Christianity to become the new faith of the empire— it allowed no female members and attracted only soldiers.

By analyzing concrete data, Stark is able to challenge the conventional wisdom about early Christianity offering the clearest picture ever of how this religion grew from its humble beginnings into the faith of more than one-third of the earth's population.

Corner Ahead

One always wonders what's just around the bend. My parents grow old and I covet the time left to know them, love and care for them - now that it's come to that time in all our lives. O reversal of days - that we should end up carrying the ones who have carried us.

My mother is doing so well, younger even, her years extended I'm sure by living with my sister, Beth - sleeping each night in a condo bedroom scarcely 100 yards from the place she was born, nearly 86 years ago on Great-Grandpa Almas' farm.

Every blood transfusion my father receives (3 bottles yesterday since his haemoglobin was down to 69) perks him up for several weeks - with new and rich supply of oxygen to the brain. So that he knows me - almost, though sometimes still mistakenly calling me 'Bert' - thinking of his much loved, but now departed brother. Still, in one way, a Christian way, I suppose I am brother to my Dad.

And so I pray, wait, hold and hold-on, whenever the visit may be possible, fighting what seems now to be a jangled mix of so many irrelevant, though once-thought important, demands upon my energies and time.

Colour

Our lives are coloured by various events that come, at least to me, like images, both stark and beautiful. The passing minutes, days and hours, have their own coldness in winter (with, thank God, also the promise of spring). Formative interactions with family, friends, even strangers help to shape and direct our paths. A certain Providence orders our ways and guides our steps whatever thoughts or actions we may forge. That, rather than depressing, helps give certitude, necessary boundaries, freedom even. In winter, I miss - and look for colours that bring joy, and that tower over the necessary, and otherwise bland, greys and shimmering whites of our small landscapes.