Book Review: The Victory of Reason (How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success)

In this rather controversial work (depending which side of the fence you are on), Rodney Stark advances a long-overdue idea, that Christianity and its associated institutions are responsible for Western progress and breakthroughs over the past few centuries. The New York Times has a longer review on this book
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/books/30book.html

Describing theology consisting of "formal reasoning about God", Stark puts forth the proposition that only with an image of God that is "conscious, rational, supernatural being of unlimited power and scope who cares about humans and imposes moral codes and respoonsibilities upon them" can the concept of reason, and its subsequent possibility of progress, be attained. This major premise is being revisited throughout the book, although at times the less-historically-inclined reader may be overwhelmed by Stark's historical anecdotes to appreciate the wider relevance of the historical data.

One minor problem i had however, was with Stark's notion of God - which seems to be that of a Roman Catholic Prime Mover espoused by natural theology - as compared to the God of Christianity as revealed in Christ. In addition, Stark also does not take into sufficient account the role the Protestant Reformation played in the contribution to Western success - which is a pity - since much of Western thought (especially the use of reason) can be traced back to roots found within the Reformation movement. Its a point that we should not overly dwell or nitpick upon though, considering Stark's already immense historical contribution to Christianity, despite him not being a professed Christian. His concluding remarks (quoted from a Chinese scholar) to the book are worth noting:

"One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubts about this."

Neither do I.