The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire

by Alan Kreider

The most formidable disincentive to major religious change is always our social formation. Floating on the surface of our consciousness are our ideas and convictions. We are thinking creatures, and we may believe that ideas determine our identity and that decision making shapes our ethical behavior. If we have been informed by Marx and Freud, however, we will realize that socioeconomic structures and psychological realities also shape us profoundly. All of us are shaped by poverty or wealth or power-relationships, and our experiences of our parents are potent. Without negating these realities, French reflexive sociologist Pierre Bourdieu points us to another motivator that he believes is deeper which he calls habitus.6 Bourdieu contends that the knowledge that truly forms us is more profoundly a part of us than our intellectual knowledge. It is “corporeal knowledge,” a “system of dispositions” that we carry in our bodies.7 This knowledge is trained in ways that are non-explicit. It is formed by social conventions, including the ways we do everyday tasks—Bourdieu points to our table manners, the way we use knives and forks—that at an early age we learn are acceptable and that become second nature to us.8 Habitus is reinforced by story, the little stories of our family and community as well as the big stories that undergird our culture. Habitus is further formed by example, by our parents, peers, and role models—people who have authority in our life. Above all, habitus is fo...