There are three main related factors that contribu-converted

There are three main related factors that contributed to the growth and expansion of Christianity,
and ultimately its success. These were a combination of political, social and economic factors. The rise
of early Christianity has been the topic of much debate and historical analyses. I will be attempting to
simply outline and comment on some of the main social factors that lead to the rise of Christianity.
Christianity seems to have come at the right time, in an age where life was uncertain and many
circumstances could not be controlled such as the barbarians invading; fires burning down whole
cities and plagues killing off quite a lot of the population, whether you were rich or poor it made no
difference, life in the Greco-Roman world was very fragile and short. Life expectancy was not great
and the average person lived until around the age of 30 or even considerably less. Life expectancy was
very low and what may have appealed to pagans was that the Christian articles and doctrines
offered hope and certainty in the afterlife and even some personal divine protection in this world.
These new doctrines would have seemed attractive to pagans, when there was growing discontent
with pagan practices and a general spiritual unrest. Like Christianity the Roman Religion was for the
ordinary man but interest was waning and the mystery religions were far too complicated for the
common Roman, thus the people's choice was likely to be Christianity.
Christianity also offered hope to a usually pessimistic society that believed that their destinies were
fixed, either to be in the Gods' favour or to be out of it, with no hope of redemption. Christianity
offered an alternative with the much desired possibility of salvation.
Christianity was primarily an urban movement, in these urban centre's Christianity grew at a steady
pace, the urban areas of cities such as Antioch, were very condensed with people it is estimated that
there were 117 people per acre. In comparison to modern cities of today this is rather overcrowded.
The overcrowding was so extreme, entire families were living together in single room apartments; this
left little personal space and allowed everyone to know each other's business. Given that urban
centre's were dramatically overcrowded and that early Roman Greco cities had minimal sanitation or
sewerage to the average apartments people would often just throw their bodily waste out the
window of their apartments onto the streets. Starks describe the situation in these urbanized areas as:
Given limited water and means of sanitation and the incredible density of humans and animals, most
people in the Greco-Roman world would have lived in filth beyond our imagining.
Christianity revitalized the way of life in Greco-Roman society offering social change, which dealt with
some of the consequences of urban problems. Charity and hope was offered to homeless and the
poor, often the cities were full of newcomers and strangers and Christianity offered an extended
family and a base for attachments as well as effective nursing services in times of disaster, that were
often brought on by plagues, earthquakes and fires.