Sociology of Religion

A Rodney Stark Reader

Rodney Stark, Dedong Wei, Zhifeng Zhong

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Print ISBN:
  9781602589728
• Subtopic: Christian Theology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781481304597
• Index: Social Sciences

For the last five decades, Rodney Stark has been one of sociology's most prolific and important scholars of religion. The theoretical depth, the scientific rigor, and the clarity of style manifested in Stark's oeuvre--over 30 books and 140 articles--have made his work the standard texts. Stark's research career encompasses a wide spectrum of the necessary topics in sociology of religion. He has applied groundbreaking theory and method to issues of secularization, religion and society, religious movements, social theory, and the history of religion.

Sociology of Religion: A Rodney Stark Reader mirrors Stark's influential career by highlighting these very topics. In this anthology, Stark's significant articles are not only, for the first time, collected together but also clearly organized according to the thematic trajectory of Stark's carefully developed theory of religion. This volume is the essential reader for any scholar, teacher, or student encountering the work of one of this century's most compelling sociologists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title page, Title Page, Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: On Becoming and Being a Scholar
• Section I. Theory and Methodology
• 1. A Taxonomy of Religious Experience
• 2. A Theory of Revelations
• 3. Micro Foundations of Religion: A Revised Theory
• 4. Religious Effects: In Praise of “Idealistic Humbug”
• 5. Putting an End to Ancestor Worship
• 6. Discovering Data on Religion
• Section II. Secularization
• 7. Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation
• 8. Secularization, Revival, and Experimentation
• 9. A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the “Secularization” of Europe
• 10. Secularization, R.I.P.
• Section III. Religion and Society
• 11. Religion and Conformity: Reaffirming a Sociology of Religion
• 12. Religion and the Moral Order: An Introduction
• 13. Physiology and Faith: Addressing the “Universal” Gender Difference in Religious Commitment
• 14. Upper Class Asceticism: Social Origins of Ascetic Movements and Medieval Saints
• 15. Conversion to Latin American Protestantism and the Case for Religious Motivation
• Section IV. Religious Movement
• 16. Church and Sect
• 17. Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models
• 18. Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects
• 19. Rebellion, Repressive Regimes, and Religious Movements
• 20. Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail: A Revised General Model
• Section V. Social Theory and History
• 21. Why “Mainline” Denominations Decline
• 22. One True God" An Introduction
• 23. Extracting Social Scientific Models from Mormon History
• 24. God, Ritual, and Social Science
• 25. Cities of God: An Introduction
• 26. Revelation, Cultural Evolution, and Discovering God
• 27. God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
• 28. The Triumph of Christianity
• Notes
• References
• Credits