Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling

If, after all, he looked like leading a whole town astray, then Deuteronomy 13:12–18 would come into play; it has been suggested that this was why several towns refused to countenance his teaching, since to do so would court disaster for them as well as for him.

So different was it, after all, that the early Christians sometimes had to argue to the authorities, against apparent appearances, that they were in some sense or other a ‘religious’ organization. It was perhaps almost as much their socio-cultural oddness as their denial of the pagan deities that earned them the title ‘atheists’. There were no othe

Christians were characterized in great part by their sobriety, their gentleness, their fidelity to their spouses, their care for the poor, their willingness to nurse the gravely ill even in times of plague and for their ability to exhibit virtues (like courage and self-restraint) that were generally thought impossible for persons of low estate, wit

Christians were characterized in great part by their sobriety, their gentleness, their fidelity to their spouses, their care for the poor, their willingness to nurse the gravely ill even in times of plague and for their ability to exhibit virtues (like courage and self-restraint) that were generally thought impossible for persons of low estate, wit