Inside the Conversion Tactics of the Early Christian Church - HISTORY - 0 views
-
The triumph of Christianity over the pagan religions of ancient Rome led to the greatest historical transformation the West has ever seen: a transformation that was not only religious, but also social, political and cultural.
-
But how did it happen? According to our earliest records, the first “Christians” to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus were 11 male disciples and a handful of women—say 20 people altogether. These were lower-class, uneducated day laborers from a remote corner of the Roman Empire. And yet, within three centuries, the Christian church could count some 3 million adherents. By the end of the 4th century, it was the official religion of Rome, numbering 30 million followers—or half the Empire.A century after that, there were very few pagans left
-
Christianity did not succeed in taking over the ancient world simply by addressing deeply sensed needs of its target audience, the pagan adherents of traditional polytheistic religions.
- ...20 more annotations...
-
But the key point is that the gods were principally active—for good or ill—in the present life, to worshippers in the here and now. Almost no one in the Roman world practiced religion in order to escape eternal punishment or receive an eternal reward—that is, until the Christians came along.
-
Unlike pagans, Christians claimed there was only one God and that he should be worshiped not by sacrifice but by proper belief.
-
Christians created a need for salvation that no one knew they had. They then argued that they alone could meet the need. And they succeeded massively.
-
Christians declared that their God was more powerful than any other god—in fact, more powerful than all the supposed other gods combined. God alone was God, and he alone could provide what people need.
-
His disciples also did miracles—amazing miracles—all recorded for posterity in writings widely available.
-
Christianity did not initially succeed by taking its message to the great and the powerful, the mighty Roman elite. It succeeded at first as a grassroots movement.
-
The original followers of Jesus told those close to them what they believed: that the great miracle worker Jesus had been raised from the dead, and that his wonders continued to be performed among those who believed in him. They convinced others.
-
The key was to reach people one at a time. It grows from the bottom up, not the top down. The top will eventually convert. But you start below, at the base, where most people actually live.
-
Christianity succeeded in large measure because it required potential converts to make a decision that was exclusive and final.
-
If they chose to join the church, they had to abandon all previous religious commitments and associations. For the Christian faith, it was all or nothing, so as it fed its own growth, it devoured the competition.
-
The pagan religions didn’t operate like that at all. Since pagans all worshiped many gods, there was no sense that any one God demanded exclusive attention. Quite the opposite. Within pagan circles, if you chose to worship a new god—say, Apollo—that didn’t mean you gave up the worship of another, such as Zeus. No, you worshiped both
-
n the long run, this meant that every adherent Christians gained was completely lost to paganism. No other religion demanded such exclusivity. For that reason, as Christianity grew, it destroyed all competition in its wake. And it went on like that for millennia, as Christians forged into new territories, toppling Celtic gods, Norse gods and many others.
-
its first three centuries it recognized fully the importance of converting influential supporters. At the beginning, this simply meant converting an adult male who was head of his household—the paterfamilias.