The Future of Religion () von Rodney Stark

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



This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.
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,

Acknowledgments

1 The Nature of Religion
2 Of Churches, Sects, and Cults

I THE RELIGIOUS ECNOMY
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 RELIGIOUS 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