In the Marquette Lecture volume, I focus on the question in the title. I emphasize the social and political costs of being a Christian in the earliest centuries, and contend that many attempts to answer the question are banal. I don't attempt a full answer myself, but urge that scholars should take the question more seriously.

Galen's observations reflect one of the distinctive features of early Christianity. Roman-era religion was mainly about ritual actions vis-à-vis the gods, and there was little to do with ordering behavior otherwise.

In the Marquette Lecture volume, I focus on the question in the title. I emphasize the social and political costs of being a Christian in the earliest centuries, and contend that many attempts to answer the question are banal. I don't attempt a full answer myself, but urge that scholars should take the question more seriously.

[Christians] practiced moderation and chastity in marriage, for example, and Galen was puzzled at how they were able to do so. His comments are a kind of back-handed compliment, I suppose.

In its Roman-era setting, for example, Christianity was so different that critics of the time referred to it as a "superstition" (meaning a bogus or dangerous religion).

Justin's testimony about becoming a Christian is that he had been searching various philosophical traditions of the time, and then accidentally encountered a man who posed questions that pointed Justin [Martyr ] in a new direction.

I think that Rodney Stark puts his foot wrong on some things where he simply wasn't sufficiently current on scholarly developments.