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The Triumph of Faith: Why the World Is More Religious than Ever
Rodney Stark
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Description for The Triumph of Faith: Why the World Is More Religious than Ever
Hardback. Believe it or not, the world is more religious than ever before-and bestselling author Rodney Stark has the numbers to prove it: Stark explodes the myth that people around the world are abandoning religion for secularism-and he shows why the growth of religion matters. Num Pages: 240 pages. BIC Classification: HRAB; HRAM. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 161 x 236 x 26. Weight in Grams: 576.
Believe it or not, the world is more religious than ever before. Everybody seems to take it for granted that the world is getting more secular-that faith is doomed by modernity. Scientists, secularists, and atheists applaud the change; religious believers and social conservatives lament it. But here's the thing: they're all wrong-and bestselling author Rodney Stark has the numbers to prove it. The Triumph of Faith explodes the myth that people around the world are abandoning religion. Stark marshals an incredible amount of data-surveys of more than a million people in 163 nations-to paint the full picture ... Read morethat both scholars and popular commentators have missed. And he explains why the astonishing growth of religion is happening and what it means for our future. Stark's lively, eye-opening book is full of insights that defy the conventional wisdom. He reveals: Islam is not overtaking Christianity 81 percent of people around the world claim to belong to an organized religious faith Half attended a worship service in the past week Despite all the attention paid to the New Atheists, atheists remain few, anywhere Latin America has never been so Catholic-and that's because there are now so many Protestants there Of all the great world religions, only Buddhism may not be growing As Stark shows, secularists have been predicting the imminent demise of religion for centuries. It is their unshakeable faith in secularization that may be the most irrational of all. In addition to being the author of acclaimed and popular books like How the West Won and The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark is a scholar who has completely reshaped the social scientific study of religion. He puts all those talents on full display in The Triumph of Faith. Show Less
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Place of Publication
Wilmington, United States
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About Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark is the award-winning author of How the West Won, The Victory of Reason, The Rise of Christianity, God's Battalions, and many other books. He serves as Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, USA where he is co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion. Stark is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study ... Read moreof Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Before earning his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, he was a staff writer for several major publications. Stark's books have been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish. He lives in Texas. Show Less
Reviews for The Triumph of Faith: Why the World Is More Religious than Ever
God is not dead. Despite the predictions of academics and liberal religious leaders, the world is becoming more faith-filled, not less. . . . [Stark's] real battle, though, is with intellectual elites of the West, who have been declaring the demise of religion for centuries and have been advancing a secularization thesis for decades. . . . Mr. Stark pushes ... Read moreback against the secularization thesis in several ways. . . . Indeed, religious fervor has taken hold in many countries where modernity is a settled fact.
Wall Street Journal Stark [is] one of the most prominent, respected and consistently insightful sociologists of religion in the business. . . . I enthusiastically recommend this stimulating book to religious leaders and to those generally interested in what's going on in the minds of people around the world. It has much to offer, not only for understanding but also, in my judgment, for action.
Deseret News Stark's clear writing
he was a newspaper reporter before going to graduate school
distinguishes him from most academics. His argument that Christian practice wasn't as common in the Middle Ages or in eighteenth-century America as we like to think distinguishes him from some church-oriented historians. The argument in his new book, The Triumph of Faith, that 'the world is more religious than ever, ' distinguishes him from 'new atheists' who seem ready to take a victory lap.
World If, in fact, religion is losing its influence
and 72 percent of respondents to a 2014 Pew Research Center study say it is
most people say that's not good. . . . But Rodney Stark, who holds the title of distinguished professor of social science at Baylor University, says in the new book The Triumph of Faith that 'The End of Christian America'
so proclaimed by a 2009 Newsweek cover
and religion's falling influence in the world aren't necessarily so.
Chattanooga Times Free Press Reports about the death of religion in the United States are greatly exaggerated, sociologist Rodney Stark insists. . . . In a particularly provocative section, Stark takes issue with the much-reported rise of the 'nones' in the United States. He cites data indicating the percentage of people who do not attend houses of worship remains steady, and the increase in nonaffiliated Americans appears to be drawn from that subset of the total population. . . . Readers will benefit from reading Stark's findings and conclusions that defy conventional wisdom.
Baptist Standard Praise for Rodney Stark Mr. Stark is especially adept at challenging received ideas.
Wall Street Journal Stark has a vigorous prose style and a gift for clear explanation.
New York Times Stark writes books that are models of popularly accessible scholarly writing.
World Rodney Stark is one of America's preeminent scholars of religion. . . . Often controversial, a slayer of historical myths.
Patheos Bracing, rollicking, startling, belligerent, informative, and guaranteed to provoke second and third thoughts about what readers thought they always knew about religion.
First Things Giants are rare in any day. . . . [But] maybe we do have giants . . . for example, Rodney Stark. . . . He continually throws the discipline of sociology of religion into chaos.
Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago An eminent sociologist of religion . . . Stimulating, provocative, even revolutionary.
Journal of Early Christian Studies [Stark] writes with a clarity and concision that make him a pleasure to read. . . . A number of fondly held myths get demolished.
National Review Here is theoretical brashness combined with disarming common sense, a capacious curiosity, and a most uncommon ability to tell a complicated story in simple prose.
Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University Show Less
