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).

I think Rodney Stark makes a substantial contribution to the study of early Christianity in posing the kinds of questions that he pursues (which reflect his social-science background).

I think that Rodney Stark studies of new religious movements in the modern world give us some insights into the kinds of questions that we can ask about early Christianity.

I offer early Christianity as a case-study to show that the phenomena that we group under "religion(s)" comprise a somewhat artificial category, and that "religions" are not "all the same."

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).

In Destroyer of the gods I focus on several major features of early Christianity that made it distinctive, even odd or bizarre .We don't today realize just how different early Christianity was in that context.

Galen recognized, with some considerable puzzlement it seems, that Christians exhibited the virtues that he associated with the discipline of philosophy.