59 Quotes by Rodney Stark

Mormons are an extraordinarily educated and professional population. They have all these virtues: They work hard, don't skip school, have no scandals. Consequently, you find them in a lot of consequential places.

Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs.

The great myth that many social scientists want to encourage is that there is an incompatibility between modern technology and traditional religion. This is absolute nonsense. If anything, it's the reverse.

There are many critics who think the megachurches thrive on people who enjoy dramatic Sunday services with fine music but don't wish to become very 'religious' on a day-to-day basis - that the megachurch appeal is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most of you would not have learned to read, and the rest of you would be reading from hand-copied scrolls.

It seems that not being religious is a form of risk-taking, consistent with other patterns of short-sighted behaviour in men.

The more members of the clergy that are out there working to expand their congregations, the more people will go to church.

Wherever you've got a state church, you have empty churches.

Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism.