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	Rodney Stark (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		stark steven stark stark naked rodney rodney mullen rodney king rodney collin rodney adkins quarterback rodney atkins rodney rodney brooks biology
		Stark Community Foundation A charitable trust that attracts and invests permanent endowment resources used to promote the betterment of Stark County.
		Stark Parks The Stark County Park District includes information on lakes and reservoirs, the Ohio and Erie Canal corridor, a system of trails, and Sanders Center of Outdoor Education.
	www.serebella.com /encyclopedia/article-Rodney_Stark.html (312 words)

	The Rise of Mormonism; ; Rodney Stark and Reid Neilson
		Stark examines the reasons behind the spread of Mormonism, exploring such factors as cultural continuity with the faiths from which it seeks converts, a volunteer missionary force, and birth rates.
		Stark's work also presents groundbreaking perspectives on larger issues in the study of religion, including the nature of revelation and the reasons for religious growth in an age of modernization and secularization.
		Rodney Stark is University Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University.
	www.columbia.edu /cu/cup/catalog/data/023113/023113634X.HTM (573 words)

	The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History - FARMS Review
		Stark makes a pervasive case that the misery of the urban life of the times, as well as natural disasters such as epidemics, earthquakes, and fires, contributed significantly to the emergence of Christianity.
		Of special interest to the Latter-day Saint reader is Stark's focus on the LDS Church and its growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a case study illustrating several of the social science hypotheses.
		Stark actually brings off the synthesis of historical and social science analyses and gives the reader some fascinating insights into the emergence of Christianity to the dominant religious force in the modern Western world.
	farms.byu.edu /display.php?table=review&id=295 (551 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Stark argues that persecution of Jews by Christians and Muslims came during times of stress from "significant (outside) threats." I found this one of his most interesting, and convincing, arguments.
		Stark also offers an intriguing explanation of the general tolerance of American society, which he thinks is stronger among believers than among secularists.
		The problem is that Stark seems to have begun with an assumption,'Religion thrives in a free-market, pluralistic society,' and then spent the rest of the book trying to support it, rather than letting the research take him to the its conclusion.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0691115001 (1901 words)

	FT February 2001: All Too Human (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Rodney Stark’s rational choice theory of religion has energized the social scientific study of religion by being big and wrong.
		Stark and his colleagues are fond of claiming that there is little published refutation of their supply—side theories.
		These ad hominem criticisms of Stark would be out of place were it not for that fact that his sectarian insistence on dividing the world of serious students of religion into his people and the rest severely limits the value of his scholarship.
	www.firstthings.com /ftissues/ft0102/reviews/bruce.html (1708 words)

	Rodney Stark
		Stark quickly realised that these cults were providing a much needed outlet for religious energy that modern society and even the mainline churches were finding hard to deal with.
		Stark starts off by having some fun with the myth of the flat earth and those famous nineteenth century polemicists who first invented the mythical conflict between science and religion.
		Stark is better on why science failed in Islam, ancient Greece and China (where he produces a killer quote from Joseph Needham) but this section badly needs input from Huff and Geoffrey Lloyd.
	www.bede.org.uk /stark.htm (1569 words)

	World History Connected \| Vol. 2 No. 2\| Book Review
		Rodney Stark does just this in For the Glory of God, the second of a two-volume study of monotheism and its historical consequences.
		In short, Stark carefully argues that conceptions of and about God have profoundly shaped important moments in western history, all with a particular connection to the sixteenth century: the Protestant Reformation, the rise of science, the witch hunts, and abolitionism.
		Third, Stark offers a new narrative of western history borne of an historical-sociological consciousness, shaped by cogent analysis, replete with rigorous interdisciplinarity, and full of questions and perspectives with which future discussions of western history (and world history) must grapple.
	worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu /2.2/br_sinitiere.html (794 words)

	Baylor University \|\| Sociology and Anthropology \|\| Rodney Stark
		Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, "Prejudice and the Churches," in Charles Y. Glock and Ellen Siegelmen (eds.) Prejudice U.S.A., New York: Praeger, 1969, 70-95.
		Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 18 (1979) 117-131.
		Rodney Stark, W.S. Bainbridge, Robert Crutchfield, Daniel P. Doyle, and Roger Finke, "Crime and Delinquency in the Roaring Twenties," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 20 (1983) 4-23.
	www.baylor.edu /sociology/index.php?id=17661 (3340 words)

	[No title]
		Stark is able to show how the kind of God/gods one believe in - and the intensity of this belief - are significant variables in several areas:
		The rise of modern science (Stark shows a high correlation between belief in a rational God and a rational Creation on the emergence of science from about the fourteenth century, while other beliefs had a negative effect) is a direct outcome of a Christian view of the Universe.
		What Stark does here is in fact to make some kind of sense of the craze, and to show that any country with a strong, central government (like in Spain, Portugal and Italy) managed to stop almost all cases before they went to court or to executions.
	www.tektonics.org /books/starkrvw02.html (483 words)

	Department of Religious Studies
		Although recognized as one of the leading contemporary sociologists of religion, Rodney Stark initially studied journalism at the University of Denver and began his career as a reporter for the Denver Post in 1956.
		From 1971 to 2003, Stark was professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington.
		Stark's extensive writing in the field of Christianity, which he has used as a domain to test his work in rational choice theory of religion, culminated in his book, The Rise of Christianity, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996.
	www.as.ua.edu /rel/aboutrelbiostark.html (295 words)

	Barnes & Noble.com - The Rise of Christianity: How to obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the ...
		Stark's conclusion that the rapid rise of early Christianity was due mainly to high fertility rates and social policies rather than to faith in the messianic message of Jesus is likely to generate spirited argument.
		Stark (sociology, Univ. of Washington) considers the theories of many of the classic Christian historians (Harnack, Meeks, and Wilckens, to name a few), subjecting their historical speculations to the rigors of social science as a means of ascertaining both their validity and their value.
		Stark notes that much of the growth of early Christianity was due to children being born into it, rather than to new converts.
	search.barnesandnoble.com /booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=eD6bsiBA3U&isbn=0060677015&itm=2 (1340 words)

	Sacred Algorithms
		When Rodney Stark and I first published elements of the New Paradigm Theory, we made no attempt to trace the evolution of human society all the way back to its biological and chemical foundations.
		Stark and I found it useful to distinguish magic from religion in terms of the specificity of the compensators they provide.
		Stark even links this better cultural adaptation to biological superiority, because he says Christianity caused believers to have a higher rate of fertility, and lower mortality, compared with non-believers.
	home1.gte.net /wsbainbridge/dl/sacal.htm (6936 words)

	Italian Religious Economy (Introvigne)
		This theory, known as the "rational choice theory" (a label Stark and his colleagues do not particularly like), states that "to the degree that religious economies are unregulated and competitive, overall levels of religious commitment will be high.
		Stark calculated that the number of movements per million population was 3.4 in Europe (Western Europe plus Poland) against 1.7 in the United States.
		Stark (2001) predicts that a real, or perceived, conflict between large religious bodies will increase general intolerance of smaller religions, and there are signs that this may happen in Italy in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.
	www.cesnur.org /2002/mi_italianrel.htm (4789 words)

	New Page 1 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Rodney Stark, Ph.D., sociology, wrote a book titled ‘The Rise of Christianity,’ for which he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
		Rodney Stark is professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, and has taught at Baylor University.
		Stark, who writes two thousand years after the fact, says they are wrong, because their testimony doesn’t fit his mathematical model.
	home.earthlink.net /~gbl111/dialog_3_round_3.htm (1812 words)

	Amazon.co.uk: For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts and the End of Slavery: ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		But readers may be surprised by Stark's assertion that the persecution of witches actually had more to do with the conflicts between the world's major religions than the oppressive beliefs of fanatical clergy or sexist men.
		Stark also asserts that the same religious leaders who were the first to persecute witches were also the first to take a stand against slavery.
		Rodney Stark's provocative new book argues that, whether we like it or not, people acting for the glory of God have formed our modern culture.
	www.amazon.co.uk /exec/obidos/ASIN/0691114366 (806 words)

	Skeptical Inquirer: The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History - Review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Stark begins with the three references in Acts of the Apostles regarding the number of early Christians (Acts 1:14-15; 4: 4; and 21:20) and discusses how most historians discount these figures as inflated.
		Stark's analysis reveals that this small annual percentage would increase the number of Christians to 33,882,008 by the year A.D. Stark's 3.42 percent annual estimate was based on very careful mathematical and historical analyses.
		Stark suggests that the philosophy the Christians practiced, of selflessness and caring for the sick, created in the Christian community a stronghold of mutual aid, which resulted in a superior survival rate to that of the Greco-Roman pagans.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m2843/is_4_23/ai_55208060 (812 words)

	Rodney Stark and I have repeatedly argued that the decline of old religious traditions clears the spiritual marketplace ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Rodney Stark and I have repeatedly argued that the decline of old religious traditions clears the spiritual marketplace for th
		Stark and Bainbridge have repeatedly argued that the decline of old religious traditions clears the spiritual marketplace for the rise of new ones
		When people greatly desire a reward that they cannot acquire, argue Stark and Bainbridge, they will accept compensators for these rewards in the form of "explanations that are not readily susceptible to unambiguous evaluation".
	www.rouncefield.homestead.com /files/a_soc_rel_8.htm (689 words)

	Barnes & Noble.com - For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and ...
		Rodney Stark's new book argues that, whether we like it or not, people acting for the glory of God have formed our modern culture.
		Stark asserts that, contrary to traditional notions, no single religious reformation can be isolated in any monotheistic religion.
		Stark also argues that science could have evolved only out of a monotheistic culture that viewed the world as God's handiwork, and that the witch-hunts of Europe could have taken place only in a culture marred by religious conflict and motivated by the desire to displace heretical religious sects.
	search.barnesandnoble.com /booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0691119503&itm=1 (539 words)

	Powell's Books - Exploring the Religious Life by Rodney Stark (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		In Exploring the Religious Life, Rodney Stark boldly overturns much received wisdom within the social sciences about religion, drawing on a wide range of sources to reassess a diverse selection of topics in the study of religion.
		In his first essay, Stark addresses the carelessness with which scholars use the term religion and the conviction that the belief in divinity evolved from the practice of magic in primitive cultures.
		Stark concludes with an essay on the ingenious methods he uses to unearth data about the popularity of new religions in California and northern Europe, the decline of Christian Science in America, the spread of Christianity in the Roman world, and the execution patterns during the antiwitchcraft frenzy of Enlightenment Europe.
	powells.com /cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=719&cgi=product&isbn=0801878446 (458 words)

	Sociology With Infotrac: Internet Edition:0534609392:Stark, Rodney:eCampus.com
		This text, considered to be a living classic among introductory sociology texts, is written by Rodney Stark- a major sociology researcher and scholarly author.
		The text introduces students to the methods and theories of sociology using Rodney Stark's hallmark "Over the Shoulder of a professional sociologist" approach that addresses students directly and presents sociology on a personal level.
		Stark describes what sociologists do and how they do it, focusing first on the questions they pose and how they search for and formulate their answers, and only then moving on to study their answers and conclusions.
	www.ecampus.com /bk_detail.asp?isbn=0534609392 (163 words)

	Alibris: Rodney Stark
		Stark finds that early Christianity attracted the privileged rather than the poor, and that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life.
		Rodney Stark, a sociologist by training, has written a book that should end much of the Christian-bashing occuring in academia.
		Stark demonstrates that Christianity became popular very quickly because it offered its adherents a better faith than competing religions and treated those believers better both physically and spiritually.
	www.alibris.com /search/books/author/Rodney_Stark (897 words)

	The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark
		In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium.
		In Stark’s view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief.
		In the fifth century, Stark notes, Saint Augustine celebrated theological and material progress and the institution of “exuberant invention.” By contrast, long before Augustine, Aristotle had condemned commercial trade as “inconsistent with human virtue”–which helps further underscore that Augustine’s times were not the Dark Ages but the incubator for the West’s future glories.
	www.randomhouse.com /catalog/display.pperl?isbn=1-4000-6228-4 (458 words)

	RomanRite - Journal of John Lilburne for 3 September 2001
		Some were scourged with innumerable strokes of the lash, others racked in their limbs and galled in their sides with torturing instruments, some with intolerable fetters, by which the joints of their hands were dislocated.
		Rodney Stark, using "rational choice theory" concludes "sacrifice and stigma were the dynamo behind the rise of Christianity - the factors that created strong organizations filled with highly committed members ready to do what needed to be done."6
		Stark describes how Ignatius of Antioch was condemned to death during the reign of Trajan (98-117).
	www.romanrite.com /j030901.html (1230 words)

	Amazon.com: The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Stark, who is no believer himself, has done Christians a real service in helping them to understand the historical roots of their faith.
		Rodney Stark uses a sociological perspective to reconsider the development of Christianity from the early first century until it became the dominant faith and official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
		Stark writes, "Whatever one does or doesn't believe about the divine, obviously God didn't cause the world to be Christian." That the world has become Christian and will continue to be Christian depends on human effort that is based on the reflection and commitment of that Christian faith and community.
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060677015?v=glance (2375 words)

	Rodney Stark versus James Holding - TheologyWeb Campus
		Johnny: Due to Stark’s credentials and reputation, I never bothered to study your criticism of Stark’s comments about the growth of the Mormon Church, but since you claim that skeptics are running from you on this one, I’ll give it a try.
		Stark said “This is a very encouraging finding since it is exceedingly close to the average growth rate of 43 percent per decade that the Mormon church has maintained over the past century (Stark 1984, 1994).
		On page 208, Stark says “Christianity did not grow because of miracle working in the marketplaces (although there may have been much of that going on) (Johnny Skeptic: Stark is definitely not making a plug for miracles here), or because Constantine said it should, or even because the martyrs gave it such credibility.
	www.theologyweb.com /forum/showthread.php?t=44521 (4254 words)

	[No title]
		Other than a few minor errors and problematic presumptions, of the sort we might expect from someone not trained in Biblical scholarship and not taking theology into account, this is an incredibly useful and insightful book.
		Stark stands against the conventional wisdom of much of NT scholarship.
		Packed with useful information, and written at a comfortable pace, Stark's volume makes the case for Christianity as a belief system that won out because, quite frankly, it was the best deal in the Empire.
	www.tektonics.org /books/starkriservw.html (262 words)

	The Rise of Christianity : Reviews, Prices, Deals (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Stark paints a vivid picture of the life and times of ordinary Jews, Greeks and Romans in the years following the Crucifixion.
		Stark is a sociologist straying into historical analysis, and there are some accompanying flaws as a result of this adventure.
		Stark makes skillful use of a number of methods but never loses sight of his problem.
	www.medfools.com /shopuk/product/ASIN/0060677015/The_Rise_of_Christianity:__How_the_Obscure,_Marginal,_Jesus_Movement_Became_the_Dominant_Religious_Force_.....html (462 words)

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