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    The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
    The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
    The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success

    Written by Rodney Stark

    Narrated by Bob Souer

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium.

    In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason: While the world's other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference.

    In explaining the West's dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted "truths." For instance, by contending that capitalism thrived centuries before there was a Protestant work ethic-or even Protestants-he counters the notion that the Protestant work ethic was responsible for kicking capitalism into overdrive.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 17, 2018
    ISBN9781977379818
    The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
    Author

    Rodney Stark

    Rodney Stark is the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University. His thirty books on the history and sociology of religion include The Rise of Christianity, Cities of God, For the Glory of God, Discovering God, and The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Stark received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

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    Reviews for The Victory of Reason

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    • 3/5
      recommended by Breakpoint commentary.

      The first two chapters were very good and really made the thesis case. The next three were an interesting political, industrial, and economic history of Europe, but rarely even refereced the role of Christianity in these developments. The seventh chapter used the new world colonies as an interesting reflection of Europe to underscore the point.
    • 4/5
      Stark sets out to challenge anthropologists like Jared Diamond who contend that Europeans rose to prominence mainly out of geographic factors in their favor. Stark's hypothesis is that Christian thinking-- forward looking thought towards progress and in favor of basic equality and property rights-- led to European development. That while the decline of the Roman Empire is something historians have lamented in centuries past, it was precisely the catalyst that freed up individuals to become entrepreneurs. Stark makes the point that Max Weber's protestant work ethic hypothesis is a myth--capitalism existed long before protestantism.

      In short, Stark thinks like an economic historian and shows that it's the incentives that matter. I thought Ferguson's Ascent of Money (my review) did a good job of showing the development of basic finance and economic thought. But Stark goes further back then Ferguson did, and does a much better job. Ferguson's book was a bestseller and got a PBS special. Stark's book won't.

      The problem I have with Stark's book is that the links he makes to Christianity being a catalyst for economic development come across rather weakly. Early church fathers frowned on lending and commercial activity. There was a long period where the Catholic church looked more favorably on these activities, and then after the Protestant Reformation the Catholic church reverted back to opposing those activities and preserving its sovereignty. So, the church has played it both ways.

      But if you can link Christian thinking to equality-- no king has any more right to your property than you because God shows no favoritism-- then you have the basis for property rights, which is the basis for capitalism.

      This book was recommended to me by my dean, and then someone referred me to Horizon Community Church in Cincinnati, where the pastor was preaching a sermon series supposedly inspired by the book. So, it was a must-read. I'm requiring it for the Winterfest course I'm teaching on the history of economic and financial thought.

      In all, I give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. Namely because I'd bet that someone has some good arguments to oppose Stark. But the book is an easy read and is quite entertaining and informative. I am humbled by how much I learned from it.
    • 4/5
      It was wonderful. It's nice to read a fact-based history of economics and religion that isn't written by someone with a secularist agenda. I so enjoyed it that I bought another book by the same author and am looking for more. It's dense in terms of subject matter, but it makes for a very entertaining and quick read.
    • 5/5
      Ever wonder why so many developments came out of the West? Stark did, and his explanation may be controversial to some, but it's true nonetheless, Christianity. Christianity gave birth to scientific reason, the story is told here.