Thursday 20 August 2009

Rodney vs the Reprobates

Rodney Stark is author of The Rise of Christianity, a volume with a good deal to recommend itself - at least from the perspective of the church history paper I took a year or so back. Stark is a sociologist with a fascinating reconstruction to offer on how early church growth reached warp drive so quickly in the first centuries CE.without the aid of either WGN or a Branding Task Force.

Stark's subsequent books have been tilted in an ideological direction, something bemoaned here once before. The Stark truth is that Christianity turned out to be the best thing since sliced bread. No wait, that's a bit redundant... sliced bread owes its genius to Christianity (or something like that.)
Wicked rationalist Richard Carrier is calling his bluff. Stark would have us believe that the scientific weltanschauung could only arise in the Christian West. This is just bad history, according to Carrier, in two podcasts for the Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour. This is an amusing excursus, if you're moderately geekish or into ancient history.

Okay, so you have to be a bit patient while Carrier and his affable host "Dan the Demented" indulge in a spot of intellectual banter on famous-but-forgotten Greeks and Romans, but perseverance will reward with some weirdly fascinating historical stuff (did you know that Luther is said to have had a copy of Josephus with no references to Christ?)
Sorry Rodney, but I think you're toast.

4 comments:

  1. Gavin,

    When I saw the header "Rodney vs the Reprobates" I thought you had regressed to matters political within Aotearoa.


    Cheers,

    Jorgheinz

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  2. Hmm. In that case the title would have been "Rodney THE Reprobate."

    Unless it was a broader reference to Rodney's band of rodent coat-tailers, then it might be "Rodney AND the Reprobates."

    Guess who I didn't vote for in the last election! ;-)

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  3. I think I found a title for a book about Rodney Lain and the WCG!

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  4. Gavin,

    I am glad you didn't HIDE your political non-leanings,if I can put it that way.

    Probably all titles are applicable as they are all a bunch of bankers...after all, look at at the amount of tax that the Govt banks.

    And I am not being cynical or disingenuous,either.


    Cheers,

    Jorgheinz

    ReplyDelete