Dr Paul Allen

Dr. Rodney Stark has written nearly 40 books on a wide range of topics, incuding a number of recent books on the history of Christianity, monotheism, Christianity in China, and the roots of modernity. After beginning as a newspaper reporter and spending time in the Army, Stark received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. He later was Professor of Sociology and of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington; he has been at Baylor University since 2004. Stark is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and he has won a number of national and international awards for distinguished scholarship. Raised as a Lutheran, he has identified himself as an agnostic but has, more recently, called himself an “independent Christian”. His most recent book...

Inquisition Scene by Francisco Goya. The Spanish Inquisition was still in force in the late eighteenth century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A friend asked me that question earlier this week. And so I thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts, from a historical perspective. Opinions about how to answer the question vary widely. Some suggest that just a few thousand people were executed during the Inquisition, while others project that there were tens of millions of victims. So how can the estimates be so widely divergent? There seem to be several explanations: 1. First,  the imprecise nature of the historical records means that contemporary historians are forced to extrapolate on the basis of the limited information they possess. One of the first accounts of the Inquisition came from a former Spanish secretary to the Inquisition named Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–1823). According to Llorente, the total number of “heretics” burned at the stake during the Sp...

Saint Augustine of Hippo, The authority of Scripture he held in even higher esteem than that of the Church. Because the Scriptures are inspired by God , they are completely free from error and are therefore to be believed absolutely.2 Such a view of authority would seem to imply that reason has no role to play in the justification of belief, and sometimes Augustine gives that impression. He asserts that one must first believe before he can know.3 He was fond of quoting Isaiah 7: 9 in the Septuagint version : “Unless you believe you shall not understand.” The fundamental principle of the Augustinian tradition throughout the Middle Ages was fides quaerens intellectum: faith seeking understanding. But certain statements of Augustine make it clear that he was not an unqualified authoritarian. He maintained that authority and reason cooperate in bringing a person to faith. Authority demands belief and prepares man for reason, and reason in turn leads to understanding and knowledge....

Jesus is considered by scholars such as Weber to be an example of a charismatic religious leader. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) What if in our interactions with unbelievers, we stopped fearing that we might misrepresent Christianity , getting caught up in explaining away the Crusades and analogizing the Trinity , and instead just talked about who Jesus is? What if we simply introduce people to the Jesus we know, and let him speak for himself? If we know anything about the Jesus we follow, we ought to know that he can handle things — that he is the sovereign Savior who always knows exactly what he’s doing. Look at the Gospel accounts and you won’t see a man pining for a following (John 6:66–67).  You won’t see a man hesitant to dissuade the apathetic from the cost of discipleship (Matthew 19:16–22). You won’t see a man beating around the bush afraid to offend his listeners (John 6:60–65; Luke 9:57–62). What if we are simply called to make this Jesus known and let God be the ...

English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) First of all, he said that to his disciples and only to us indirectly, if at all. He is speaking to the first-century church , and he makes the statement that the works they do will be greater than the works that he performed ( John 14:12 ). Let me tell you what I don’t think it means. There are many today who believe that there are people running around this world right now who are performing greater miracles, performing miracles in greater abundance, and actually doing more incredible acts of divine healing than Jesus himself did. I can’t think of any more serious delusion than that, that somebody would actually think they have exceeded Jesus in terms of the works he has done. There’s nobody who comes close to the work that Jesus did. THERE’S NOBODY WHO COMES CLOSE TO THE WORK THAT JESUS DID. Some say that perhaps we can’t do greater works than Jesus individually but that corporately we are able to exceed in power the ...