other firms are recognized and you may even select, on your own mix-and-
match agenda, several of the options. We should keep in mind, however, the
obvious danger of the twofold criterion: were there really no sort-crossers
in the pagan section, i.e., non-exclusive cults that nevertheless produced reli-
gion collectively?
By the “collective production of religion” Stark intends the building and
fostering both of the actual religious community and of the sense of com-
munity, which the religion imparts as one of its most valuable dividends;
also achieving, through the community, the religious goals of its individ-
ual members. The demonstration of how these religious goals were realized
in early Christianity and how, in sociological terms, they functioned as
growth factors occupies the bulk of The Rise of Christianity.Undoubtedly, it
is the book’s finest accomplishment.
“Privately produced religious goods,” in contrast, are services pur-
chased (most often literally so) from a religious specialist without the pur-
chaser’s ongoing commitment. Appropriately, such providers are termed
“client cults.” The one-off purchase of a magician’s services is typical of their
operations (Stark 1997, 205). Other typical (modern) products are “New Age
crystals,” “astrological charts,” and “psychic healing” (Stark 1997, 204).
Stark accordingly concludes that the non-exclusive, privately oriented
cults of the Roman Empire proved themselves to be poor competitors in that
they were incapable of building and maintaining brand loyalty. Since there
was nothing in market regulation or in the nature of the firms themselves
to inhibit shopping around, investors did precisely that, diversifying their
portfolios to minimize risk (Stark 1997, 204). Paganism’s competitive weak-
nesses were the mirror image of Christianity’s strengths.
THE PROBLEM
Given its effectiveness in accounting for the rise of Christianity, Stark’s
solution would be wholly persuasive if Greco-Roman paganism was indeed
as he describes it. It was not. Unfortunately, Stark’s characterization is
both simplistic and inaccurate. The problem, moreover, is not simply one
of misrepresenting the data or of failing to indicate the full range. It lies
equally in the construction of the model and paradigms of religious behav-
iour, which are supposed to cover pagan and Christian alike, indeed, any
and every individual exercising her or his religious options in any human
society.
Stark, to his credit, does not offer just a new and better empirical
account of the rise of Christianity. Rather, as Stark explicitly states, his aim
is to show how an historical process should be viewed as the consequence
The Religious Market of the Roman Empire 235