I'm beginning to wonder if any of the people commenting on Rodney  
Stark's new book - other than the exceedingly hostile Alan Wolfe - have  
ever read any of Stark's works.  Although I acquired a copy of _The  
Victory of Reason_ last week, I haven't yet had time to begin reading  
it.  However, I have read the two Stark books that preceded it - _One  
True God_ and _For the Glory of God_ - and found them highly intelligent  
works.  Indeed, what I read in those books leads me to discount much of  
what Wolfe has to say about _The Victory of Reason_, at least until I've  
had a chance to read it myself.  
  
Allow me to provide a few examples that indicate to me that Wolfe may be  
seriously misunderstanding (or misrepresenting?) what Stark has to say.  
Wolfe is astounded that Stark argues that Latin America never became "a  
Catholic continent."  Sounds crazy, eh?  Well, Stark also argues, in  
_One True God_, that most of "Protestant" northern Europe was never  
really Christian at all.  And he makes a very good case for his  
argument.  We cannot (or should not, at least) assume that just because  
the leaders of an area accept (often for political reasons)a religion  
and proclaim it the religion of the realm, the ordinary people really  
believe in the official God or in the particular doctrines being taught.  
Only when ordinary people come to faith and commit to the religion,  
rather than using the newly imposed language as a cover for their  
previous religious views, can we say that the people were converted.  
Stark makes a good case that neither northern Europe nor most of Latin  
America ever fit the bill.  He may be wrong, but the argument isn't  
stupid.  
  
Regarding the Christian assault on slavery, Wolfe dispatches Stark by  
noting that Martin Luther and the Catholic Church lacked tolerance.  
Well now, that's a clincher.  In _For the Glory of God_ Stark devotes a  
chapter of about 100 pages to detailing the European-led rejection of  
slavery (within Europe) and the Christian-led efforts to stop the slave  
trade, then to abolish slavery.  He doesn't pull any punches about the  
evils of slavery, and he provides a great many references to his  
sources.  He also documents what is widely known among scholars in this  
area, viz. that Muslims never took up the anti-slave mantle but rather  
had it imposed upon them.  That may not be P.C., but it is documented  
history.  
  
Wolfe charges Stark with "triumphalism" and with anti-Semitism.  Hmm.  
That must be why Stark examines so carefully the Christian persecution  
of Jews in his previous book.  And his defense of the Inquisition, that  
bastion of unreason?  Well, the Spanish and Italian Inquisitions almost  
totally prevented the witch burnings that took place elsewhere, and the  
whole "persecution of Galileo" is a well-known myth having more to do  
with Galileo's politics than with any desire of the Catholic Church to  
persecute him.  (By the way, I'm not Roman Catholic, so I'm not  
defending my personal position here.)  
  
I have little doubt that, as a mono-causal explanation of European  
ascendance, Stark's book will be found wanting in some, possibly  
important, ways.  But Wolfe's impassioned attack on it appears to me to  
be an effort to persuade people not to read it.  My position is, Read it  
for yourself; make up your own mind.  
  
Neil Skaggs