The Future of Religion

Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation

Rodney Stark, William Sims Bainbridge

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780520057319
• eBook ISBN: 9780520341340
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

Religion is alive and well in the modern world, and the social-scientific study of religion is undergoing a renaissance. For much of this century, respected social theorists predicted the death of religion as inevitable consequence of science, education, and modern economics. But they were wrong. Stark and Bainbridge set out to explain the survival of religion. Using information derived from numerous surveys, censuses, historical case studies, and ethnographic field expeditions, they chart the full sweep of contemporary religion from the traditional denominations to the most fervent cults. This wealth of information is located within a coherent theoretical framework that examines religion as a social response to human needs, both the general needs shared by all and the desires specific to those who are denied the economic rewards or prestige enjoyed by the privileged. By explaining the forms taken by religions today, Stark and Bainbridge allow us to understand its persistence in a secular age and its prospects for the future,

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Nature of Religion
• 2. Of Churches, Sects, and Cults
• I. The Religious Economy
• 3. The Spectrum of Faiths
• 4. Religious Regionalism
• II. Sect Movements
• 5. The Eternal Exodus: Causes of Religious Dissent and Schism
• 6. American-Born Sect Movements
• 7. Sect Transformation and Upward Mobility: The Missing Mechanisms
• III. Cults
• 8. Three Models of Cult Formation
• 9. Cult Movements in America: A Reconnaissance
• 10. Client and Audience Cults in America
• 11. Cult Membership in the Roaring Twenties
• 12. Scientology: To Be Perfectly Clear
• 13. The Rise and Decline of Transcendental Meditation
• IV. Recruitment
• 14. Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects
• 15. Friendship, Religion, and the Occult
• 16. The Arithmetic of Social Movements: Theoretical Implications
• 17. The "Consciousness Reformation" Reconsidered
• 18. Who Joins Cult Movements?
• V. Sources of Religions Movements
• 19. Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation
• 20. Church and Cult in Canada
• 21. Europe's Receptivity to Cults and Sects
• 22. Rebellion, Repressive Regimes, and, Religious Movements
• Bibliography
• Index