Cities of God

by Rodney Stark

Christianization, we are led to: HYPOTHESIS 3-1: Port cities tended to be Christianized (that is, to have Christian congregations) sooner than inland cities. This hypothesis can be tested by simple cross-tabulation and by correlation coefficients. Both are shown in the Statistical Appendix, as is an explanation of how to read and interpret the data. Here in the text it will be adequate to summarize the results. These show that most port cities (64 percent) had a church by the end of the first century, while far fewer inland cities (24 percent) had a church that soon. Conversely, only 14 percent of port cities still lacked a church in 180, while many inland cities (35 percent) still were without a church by that year (Table 3-1 in the Statistical Appendix). These are very substantial differences.