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Roger Finke is a Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives. He is a former president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. [1]
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Roger Finke is a Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives. He is a former president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. [1]
Roger Finke earned his doctorate in sociology at the University of Washington in 1984, and held faculty positions at Concordia College in Illinois, Loyola University of Chicago, and Purdue University before joining the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University in 2000. [2]
Professor Finke co-authored two books with sociologist of religion Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy [3] received the 1993 Distinguished Book Award [4] from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion received the 2001 Book Award [5] from the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Section. These books extended what is often called the New Paradigm or the Rational Choice theoretical perspective, conceptualizing denominations as competitors in a religious market. [6] The Churching of America was methodologically noteworthy for demonstrating the utility of quantitative historical data on church membership. [7] Additionally, Finke is the co-author of The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century and Places of Faith: A Road Trip Across America's Religious Landscape.
He is author or co-author of numerous peer-reviewed articles appearing in edited volumes and journals such as American Sociological Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Review of Religious Research, Social Science Research, and The Sociological Quarterly. [8] In November 2015, Finke and fellow Pennsylvania State University professor Dane Mataic published a report entitled "Exploring the Trends and Consequences of Religious Registration: A Global Overview." [9] In this report, Finke and Mataic outlined a "significant increase" (from 13% to 18%) in countries that required religious registration around the world. [10]
Professor Finke was the founding director of the American Religion Data Archive, which was renamed as the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) in 2006. [11] Supported by the Lilly Endowment and the John Templeton Foundation, [12] the ARDA provides free data on American and international religion, along with tools and resources to assist educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers. Finke is also a Fellow of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, [13] and a past President of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture.
Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new religious movements (NRMs), and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God, the Church of Scientology, and other NRMs operating in Canada.
The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is a free source of online information related to American and international religion. One of the primary goals of the archive is to democratize access to academic information on religion by making this information as widely accessible as possible. Over 900 surveys, membership reports, and other data collections are currently available for online preview, and most can be downloaded free of charge. Other features include national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, historical timelines, tables, charts, and other summary reports.
William Sims Bainbridge is an American sociologist who currently resides in Virginia. He is co-director of Cyber-Human Systems at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is the first Senior Fellow to be appointed by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Bainbridge is most well known for his work on the sociology of religion. Recently he has published work studying the sociology of video gaming.
Christian Stephen Smith is an American sociologist, currently the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Smith's research focuses primarily on religion in modernity, adolescents and emerging adults, sociological theory, philosophy of science, the science of generosity, American evangelicalism, and culture. Smith is well known for his contributions to the sociology of religion, particularly his research into adolescent spirituality, as well as for his contributions to sociological theory and his advocacy of critical realism.
Joe Richard Feagin is an American sociologist and social theorist who has conducted extensive research on racial and gender issues, especially in regard to the United States. He is currently the Ella C. McFadden Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Feagin has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, University of California, Riverside, University of Texas at Austin, University of Florida, and Texas A&M University.
Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. He is presently the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion, and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
John David Brewer HDSSc, MRIA, FRSE, FAcSS, FRSA is an Irish-British sociologist who was the former President of the British Sociological Association (2009–12), and has been the Professor of Post Conflict Studies in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University Belfast (2013–present), Honorary Professor Extraordinary, Stellenbosch University (2017–present) and Honorary Professor of Sociology, Warwick University (2021–present). He was formerly Sixth-Century Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen (2004–13). He is a member of the United Nations Roster of Global Experts for his work on peace processes (2010–present). He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2012 from Brunel University for services to social science.
Edwin Scott Gaustad was a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside. He achieved fame with his study of the genealogy of religion in the United States, Historical atlas of religion in America. The 1972 edition of this work has been used in secular histories of Mainline Protestantism and the Emergent church movement (denominationalism) for decades, and his a Religious History of America was a standard text for college students. A graduate of Baylor University and Brown University, Gaustad dedicated his career to sharing his expansive research on religious history. Gaustad was president of the American Society of Church History. Gaustad died March 25, 2011, in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 87.
The Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) is an academic association with more than 700 members worldwide. It publishes a journal, Sociology of Religion, and holds meetings at the same venues and times as the American Sociological Association.
Peter Bernard Clarke was a British scholar of religion and founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.
The Journal of Contemporary Religion is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal which covers anthropological, sociological, psychological and philosophical aspects of religion.
Anthony James Gill is an American political scientist and adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Washington; he is a non-resident scholar at the Baylor University Institute for the Study of Religion. Gill specializes in political economy, comparative politics and religion. He obtained his PhD (1994) and MA (1989) from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Bryan Stanley Turner is a British and Australian sociologist. He was born in January 1945 in Birmingham, England. Turner has held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge (1998–2005) and Research Team Leader for the Religion Cluster at the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2005–2008).
Mark David Hall is Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics and Faculty Fellow in the Honors Program at George Fox University. He is the author of a number of books on religion and politics in American life. The majority of his research has been in religion in the American founding era.
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Mark Daniel Regnerus is a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. His main fields of interest are sexual behavior, relationship dynamics, and religion.
Omar Lizardo is an American sociologist who is LeRoy Neiman Term Chair Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was previously professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame (2006-2018), and co-editor of the American Sociological Review. In 2020, Lizardo became a member of the board of reviewing editors of the journal Science. He has also served on the editorial board of the journals Social Forces, Sociological Forum, Poetics, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Theory and Society, Sociological Theory, and Journal of World-Systems Research.
Grace Riestra Claire Davie is a British sociologist who serves as professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Exeter. She is the author of the book Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging.
In sociology, desecularization is the proliferation or growth of religion, usually after a period of prior secularization. The theory of desecularization is reactionary to the older theory known as The Secularization Thesis, which posits a gradual decline of religion to a point of extinction. In the last few decades, scholars have pointed to continued church attendance in Western countries, the rise in religious fundamentalism, and the prevalence of religious conflict as evidence of the continued relevance of religion in the modern world. A former proponent of the earlier secularization thesis, Peter L. Berger, has now expressed his support for the newer theory, stating that the world today "is as furiously religious as it ever was". The skeptic Michael Shermer wrote: "At the beginning of the twentieth century social scientists predicted that belief in God would decrease by the end of the century because of the secularization of society. In fact… the opposite has occurred… Never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the population believed in God. Not only is God not dead, as Nietzsche proclaimed, but he has never been more alive."
Fern "Bunny" Kaley Willits is an American rural sociologist and professor emerita at Pennsylvania State University known for research about rural women and youth. Willits has published over 70 academic papers and 14 books and she is recognised as a "distinguished rural sociologist" by the Rural Sociological Society.
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