The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult FormationReligion 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, 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, |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
THE RELIGIOUS ECONOMY | 39 |
The Spectrum of Faiths | 41 |
Religious Regionalism | 68 |
SECT MOVEMENTS | 97 |
Causes of Religious Dissent and Schism | 99 |
AmericanBorn Sect Movements | 126 |
The Rise and Decline of Transcendental Meditation | 284 |
RECRUITMENT | 305 |
Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects | 307 |
Friendship Religion and the Occult | 325 |
Theoretical Implications | 346 |
The Consciousness Reformation Reconsidered | 366 |
Who Joins Cult Movements? | 394 |
SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS | 427 |
The Missing Mechanisms | 149 |
CULTS | 169 |
Three Models of Cult Formation | 171 |
A Reconnaissance | 189 |
Client and Audience Cults in America | 208 |
Cult Membership in the Roaring Twenties | 234 |
To Be Perfectly Clear | 263 |
Secularization Revival and Cult Formation | 429 |
Church and Cult in Canada | 457 |
Europes Receptivity to Cults and Sects | 475 |
Rebellion Repressive Regimes and Religious Movements | 506 |
| 531 | |
| 559 | |
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Common terms and phrases
American analysis astrologers ATLANTIC audience cults Bainbridge belief Bible Belt Canada Catholic census centers Chapter Christian Science church membership rates claims clear client cults Community compensators concordances congregations conventional correlation cult activity cult formation cult members cult movements cults and sects cultural denominations Dianetics East South Central environment Europe examine example existence faith Fate magazine gious growth Hare Krishna high tension individual initial innovation Jehovah's Witnesses low tension magic major meaning systems measure ment million Moonies Mormon mysticism national rate occult offer Pacific region percent persons population Protestant psychic recruitment relatively reli religion religious affiliation religious bodies religious economy religious groups religious movements religious organizations respondents rewards Rodney Stark schism Scientology sect members sect movements secularization shows significant society Spiritual Stark status supernatural Table tend theory Theosophy tion traditional Transcendental Meditation Unchurched Belt United West William Sims Bainbridge Wuthnow