What Americans Really Believe

by Rodney Stark

Overview

A shocking snapshot of the most current impulses in American religion. Rodney Stark reports the surprising findings of the 2007 Baylor Surveys of Religion, a follow up to the 2005 survey revealing most Americans believe in God or a higher power. This new volume highlights even more hot-button issues of religious life in our country. A must-read for anyone interested in Americans' religious beliefs and practices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781602581784
Publisher:	Baylor University Press
Publication date:	09/19/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rodney Stark (Ph.D. University of California, Berkley) University Professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University. Co-Director of the Institute of Studies of Religion, Stark is also widely published. His most recent publications include Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief (2007), Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (2006), and The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (2005).

Table of Contents

List of Tables

Introduction

The Stability and Diversity of American Faith

Part I

Congregations

1 Church-going

Labels Matter

2 Church Growth

Competing for Members

3 Strict Churches

The Reasons for their Popularity

4 The "Scattered" Church

Traditional Congregations are not Going Away

5 Megachurches

Supersizing the Faith

Part II

Beliefs and Practices

6 Religious Experiences

God Told Me to Go to Church

7 Gender

Women Believe More, Pray More

8 Heaven

We are All Going There

9 God

Love Makes a Difference

10 Evil

Did Sin Cause the Hurricane?

11 Spirituality

Religion and Spirituality Are Not Mutually Exclusive

12 Giving

The Rich, the Poor, and the Widow’s Mite

13 Personality

Are We Hard-Wired for God?

Part III

Atheism and Irreligion

14 Atheism

Godless Revolution Never Happened

15 Credulity

New Age Believers in Big Foot

16 New Age Adherents

Well-Educated, Formerly Irreligious Elites

17 The Irreligious

Simply Unchurched—not Atheists

Part IV

The Public Square

18 Faith and Politics

Is There a Secret Plot of Evangelicals to Take over the American Government?

19 Merry Christmas, Jesus

It’s Okay to Put Sacred Symbols in the Public Square

20 Incivility

Talking about Faith in Public

21 Religious Media Consumption

The DaVinci Code Effect

22 Civic Participation

Faith as Social Capital

23 Going to College, Getting a Job

What Happens when Mom and Dad Take Their Kids to Church

Epilogue

The Institute for the Study of Religion

Contributors

Notes

What People are Saying About This

An indispensable resource for understanding the American public.

George H. Gallup

An indispensable resource for understanding the American public.

Editorial Reviews

A worthy addition to the burgeoning survey data literature in the sociology of religion. Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.

CHOICE

An indispensable resource for understanding the American public.

- George H. Gallup Jr., American Public Opinion Statistician

All who find in statistics precise food for thought owe Stark and his colleagues at Baylor gratitude.

-Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

Sociologist Stark has been surveying and observing American religious beliefs and practices for 40 years. This broad experience is reflected in the breadth of questions used to characterize contemporary American religious attitudes; from the Bible to Bigfoot, denomination to Da Vinci Code, beliefs are measured and correlated with oodles of demographics. Stark provides evidence for his overarching theme that some fundamental American religious practices and ideas have remained both stable and diverse as a result of religious competition. The book's numbers will spark lively discussion and questions about inferences drawn from statistics and the ways in which questions were posed. Why, for example, are Catholics not considered a "strict" church that makes demands of members? Why is belief in miraculous physical healing considered mystical and not paranormal? Some will say that snarky snipes (calling other researchers "careless" and disparaging National Public Radio) have no place in data-driven sociology; others will relish a statistics-slinging fight among academics. Regardless, all who find in statistics precise food for thought, as well as articles, more surveys and books, owe Stark and his colleagues at Baylor gratitude. (Sept.)

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Publishers Weekly