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

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."

"Religions" of the Roman world varied. Most of it was ritual practices. There were periodic occasions when cities honored their guardian deities with sacrifices and ceremonies, to ensure that they stayed happy and kept the city safe.

Early Christianity, like Roman-era philosophical traditions, laid emphasis on everyday behavior, about how to live your life.

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.

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.