For the Glory of God : How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery

Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag really : to be read with extreme caution
Review: Though I would tend to agree with many of the reviewers on the basic achievements of this book (mainly the fact that it succeeds in weakening the legitimacy of well entrenched ideas concerning the Christian church), Mr Stark's project proves to be both too ambitious in scope and mired with inaccuracies. Professor Stark's task is indeed daunting : to engage in a broad multi-disciplinary study of the impact of Christianity on human thought is perhaps too demanding for a single scholar, even the best of them, let alone one who is not an historian. In fact, beyond his enthusiasm for the subject lies a quite shallow treatment of the numerous problems one encounters when treating with religion and history. In short, Professor Stark always seems ready to give a bold answer without really entering into the "meat" of the problem. He seems only too ready to disregard dents in his implacable demonstration. At the beginnig of the book, his mishandling of Antiquity, for example -while clearly an afterthought for him- reeks of amateurism and doesn't bode well for the rest. Who could call the rhetor and sophist Libanios (fourth century AD) a poet, while all his works were written in prose and are in fact set speeches ? Who could in his right mind dismiss the Manicheans as another christian sect, while it is clearly a lot more complex than that ? As a Classicist by trade, I could see easily where Professor Stark had erred. But could I trust him on periods that I knew less about ? I didn't think so. Yet the most glaring flaw of Rodney Stark's argument lies in his most bewildering silence concerning the other, eastern variants of Christianity. If Christianity is the catalyst the author thinks it is, then why didn't scinece blossom in the Byzantine empire or in Russia, in Coptic Egypt, in the Syrian plateau or in Ethiopia where Christian communities existed since the very beginning ? Certainly reformations, science, with-hunts and abolitionism have a more cultural core that that author thinks.

Being a fierce Church-critic myself and somewhat of a militant secularist, Rodney's Stark "For the Glory of God" did manage to make me think and consider revising some of my thinking concerning the role of monotheism in history, yet, taken as a whole, his book falls short. All in all, this is the work of a dilettante whose scholarship is too shaky to be relied on.


Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: Whether you wish to attack Christianity or support it, you have to read this book. It provides detailed evidence leading to conclusions that will be surprise anyone raised and educated in the secular Western world.