Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. After teaching at the University of Washington for 32 years, Stark moved to Baylor University in 2004. He is a major and respected advocate of the application of Rational choice theory in the sociology of religion.

Bibliography

Stark has published 27 books and 138 articles according to his Curriculum Vitae. The list below is incomplete; see his Curriculum Vitae for the full list.

Books

Sociology of Religion

• The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult formation (1985), with William Sims Bainbridge
• The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (1996)
• Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (2000), with Roger Finke
• One True God: Historical Consequence of Monotheism (2001)
• For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (2003)
• Exploring the Religious Life (2004)
• The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (2005)
• The Rise of Mormonism (2005)
• Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (2006)

General Sociology

• Sociology (1985) an introductory college sociology text that has been through ten editions as of 2007.

Articles

• John Lofland and Rodney Stark Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective American Sociological Review of 1965. (an early and influential conversion theory based on the observations of the then little known Unification Church)
• Rodney Stark and Williams Sims Bainbridge (1979) Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no 2: 117-33

• Stark, R., “Fact, Fable and Darwin” in One America, September 2004; Part 1 in [1]and Part 2[2]

Additional biographical source: Rodney Stark. "On Theory-Driven Methods." Pp. 175-196 in The Craft of Religious Studies, edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

External links

• Rodney Stark his homepage
• Stark interrogated in court as an expert
• The Victory of Reason, a french version review
• How Christianity (and Capitalism) Led to Science is an on-line article by Stark available only to subscribers
• Fact, Fable and Darwin

Notes

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