Words matter. These are the best Rodney Stark Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
American churches work very hard at reaching out to people to bring them in.
The more members of the clergy that are out there working to expand their congregations, the more people will go to church.
Regular church-goers are substantially more likely than non-attenders to read, to take newspapers and magazines, to listen to classical music, to attend symphony concerts, operas, and stage plays.
It can be demonstrated that in any society there is a distribution of religious tastes and concerns.
For one, thing, the media are dominated by the irreligious. So are universities.
High testosterone levels have been proven to make men more likely to commit crimes. The tendency in men toward risky behaviour keeps turning up even where socialization is different, and so does crime and delinquency.
Can anyone seriously imagine a society without stable families? Maybe we should raise all the kids in state orphanages.
There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did.
A whole lot of Americans have never met a Mormon.
The Christian image of God is that of a rational being who believes in human progress.
Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs.
Most churches are run by preachers who went to seminaries, who decided to be preachers when they were 18, 19, 20 years old. These preachers never met a payroll. They don’t know how the world works.
Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations.
Leading Christian theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas were not what today might be called ‘strict constructionists.’ Rather, they celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions.
America is an unusually religious nation.
