growth in numbers can come from three directions: births, transfers from other churches, and converts.2 Births, for example, are a neglected source of church growth. Sometimes a birth surplus is not even seen as “real” church growth. However, as Rodney Stark makes clear in his celebrated study The Rise of Christianity,3 the growth of the early church had much to do with a unique respect for families and motherhood, combined with the rejection of abortion and infanticide. In a sense, Christians outbirthed