Religion

Vol. 42, No. 1, January 2012, 105–125

Rodney Stark’s One True Vision: retrograde

historiography and the academic study of religion

Michael P. Carroll*

Dean, Faculty of Arts/Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario,

Canada

ABSTRACT Although Rodney Stark is best known for his work on religious
economies, he has recently turned his attention to the social effects of monothe-
ism. If we look carefully on the theoretical trajectory evident in this recent work,
what we find is a social-evolutionary approach to religion that was prevalent in
the 19th century, but long ago assumed by most academics to be discredited.
Furthermore, as becomes increasingly evident going through this series, the par-
ticular social-evolutionary sequence that Stark constructs has been shaped by a
vision of Protestant triumphalism, and a privileging of evangelical Protestant-
ism, that also belongs to an earlier time. While it would easy to ignore Stark’s
work (and the last two books in this series do seem to have been ignored in aca-
demic circles), there are reasons (which include the popular appeal of his work
and his treatment of Islam) for taking his work seriously.
KEY WORDS current situation of religious studies; history of religious studies;
Christianity

For nearly half a century, Rodney Stark has been well known to anyone involved
with the academic study of religion in the English-speaking world. Partly this is
because his work with Charles Glock in the 1960s, which called attention to impor-
tant differences between denominations that were usually lumped together in a
single ‘Protestant’ category in social-science surveys, is still regarded as founda-
tional (Moberg 2008). Partly as well, Stark is known for his work with John
Lofland (Lofland and Stark 1965) on the rise of new religious movements, which
argued – among other things – that having ‘affective ties’ with existing members
(i.e., ties based on family relationship or friendship) was typically more important
than ‘belief’ in determining who joined these movements. Stark has also won
praise, mainly from people trained in schools of theology (see for example Bell
[2005]) for calling attention to the emphasis on undermining and discrediting reli-
gious belief that seems latent in much existing scholarship on religion.
But for the most part, Stark’s prominence results from the fact that during the
1980s and 1990s he and a variety of associates used rational-choice theory to
develop the ‘theory of religious economies’ that will be familiar to the readers of
this journal. Although that theory, and in particular that theory’s claim that

*Email: mcarroll@wlu.ca

ISSN 0048-721X print/ISSN 1096-1151 online/12/010105–21 © 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.640358
106 M.P. Carroll

religious competition and plurality leads to higher rates of religious participation,

has attracted (and still attracts) much criticism, there is no denying that it has been
influential. Randall Collins (1997) lauded the theory of religious economies as ‘a
landmark in the sociology of religion’ just as works by Weber and Durkheim
had been landmarks in an earlier period. In the same period, Skerkat and Ellison
(1999) described the scholarly debate over this theory to be the single most
visible debate in the sociology of religion, and for many sociologists, it still is
(see for example Aarts et al. [2010]). Hardly surprising, then, given Stark’s centrality
to that particular debate, and given the continuing visibility of his earlier work(s),
that he was elected President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
in 2004.
In that same year (2004), Stark moved from the University of Washington (where
he had taught for decades) to Baylor University, a private Baptist University in
Waco Texas, where he became co-director, with Byron Johnson, of the Institute
for Studies of Religion (ISR). At the ISR Stark has worked with a number of col-
leagues to produce studies, utilizing contemporary survey data (mainly using
American samples), which demonstrate that evangelicals are not as different
from other religious groups as the media suggests; that there seem to be social
advantages to religious belief; that rational-choice theories continue to explain
much about religion; etc (see Stark 2008 for an overview of these studies).
Over the past decade, however, Stark has supplemented his continuing concern
with the theory of religious economies with something else. That something else is
a series of books that collectively develop (though I doubt Stark would use this
label) ‘a social evolutionary’ perspective that provides an overview of different
world religions across time and space. What I want to do in this essay is to take
a close look at this recent work in order to trace out a troubling theoretical trajectory
that erodes distinctions and conceptualizations that would otherwise be seen as
foundational in the scientific study of religion. More specifically, I will be
arguing that in what can only be described as an instance of regressive historio-
graphy, Stark has increasingly projected a distinctively evangelical version of
Protestant triumphalism onto the historical record that severely distorts that
record and that precludes interpretative possibilities that are otherwise quite
plausible. Finally, while it is easy to ignore Stark’s recent work (and certainly
many scholars have done just that), I will be arguing that there are solid reasons
why we cannot afford the luxury of doing that. For now, though, let’s start at the
beginning.

God stuff
A distinctive feature of Stark’s more recent work is that beliefs about god have
become increasingly central to his thinking about religion. In Stark (2001a), for
example, he argued that the sociological study of religion long ago took a wrong
step when ‘Durkheim and the other early functionalists (including Robertson
Smith and Malinowski) dismissed gods as unimportant window-dressing, stres-
sing instead that rites and rituals are the fundamental stuff of religion’ (p. 620).
In Stark’s view, by contrast, at least if we are concerned with the link between reli-
gion and the moral order (and he was), we have to make beliefs about gods central
to the theories we develop about religion. Very quickly, this emphasis upon the cen-
trality of a belief in gods became an emphasis on monotheism specifically. In One
 Religion 107

True God (2001b) Stark looked at the ‘historical consequences of monotheism’ (the
subtitle to the book). His core claim was that the exclusive nature of the relationship
that exists between God and believers in a monotheistic tradition lays the foun-
dation for mass mobilization around a variety of issues (like missionization) in a
way that is far less likely in non-monotheistic religions. Since, he argues (pp. 20–
22), people prefer a god who is rational, responsive and dependable like, well,
the God who appears in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, most of his
discussion of mass mobilization in this book involves examples from these
traditions.
Stark is clear in noting that the emphasis on exclusivity in the monotheistic tra-
ditions can lead to violence, and spends a significant section of the book discussing
outbursts of collective violence against Jews in both Christian and Moslem
societies. In his final chapter, however, in what is clearly a nod to the theory of reli-
gious economies, he goes on to argue that under culturally sanctioned conditions of
religious pluralism, the violence that might otherwise flow from the logic of mono-
theism can be moderated or even eliminated. And the evidence for this? The experi-
ence in the United States.
Previous commentators (Alles 2009; Carroll 1996; Simpson 1990) have already
noted that Stark’s ‘general’ theorizing about religion, especially in regard to the
theory of religious economies, has been pervaded and shaped by a distinctively
American cultural ethos. That trend continues in this more recent work. For
example, American historians (and Americans generally) have always argued
that one of the greatest strengths of the federalist form of government developed
and instituted by the Founding Fathers was a system of ‘checks and balances’
that divided power among different branches of government, with the result that
no one branch could dominate the other (see for example Henretta, David and
Dumenil [2006]; Hofstadter, Miller and Aaron [1967]) In the last chapter of One
True God, Stark in effect borrows this ‘checks and balances’ model from the political
realm and makes it one of the great strengths of the American religious system. Thus
he argues that civility, that is, a tolerance for other faiths (even for other monotheis-
tic faiths), will develop when ‘power is sufficiently diffused among a set of compe-
titors that conflict is not in anyone’s interest’ (p. 222). The fact that this structural
condition prevails among religions in the United States but rarely elsewhere is –
for Stark – why the US has not experienced the sort of religious-violence experi-
ences in the Sudan, the Balkans, Mexico (where we are told – without citation –
that ‘Protestant converts still risk being murdered in the more remote villages’
[p. 257]), etc.
Given Stark’s scholarly credentials in sociology, it is hardly surprising that One
True God was well reviewed in sociological journals, and hardly surprising as well
that most of these reviewers stressed the theoretical continuities with Stark’s
earlier (and highly visible) work in sociology. Mirola (2002) and Johnson (2003),
for example, saw many of the arguments in One True God as deriving from
rational choice theory; Ammerman (2002) saw Stark as emphasizing the impor-
tance of social networks in promoting religious growth, an argument that he
had made forcefully in his earlier work on the rise of Christianity (Stark 1996).
On the other hand, it should be noted that outside of Sociology (and so in areas
where the cumulative weight of Stark’s sociological works likely mattered less)
Stark tended to be ignored. The American Historical Review, for example, which
had reviewed Stark’s work on religion in the early American republic (Finke
108 M.P. Carroll

and Stark 1992) and his work on the rise of Christianity (Stark 1996), ignored One
True God.
What I want to call attention to here, however, mainly because it is so strongly
related to themes that would appear in subsequent books, is a section of Stark’s
last chapter (pp. 251–256) in which he rails against the ‘libels’ that liberal clergy,
liberal theologians, and writers in the secular press have directed against evange-
lical and fundamentalist Protestants. In particular, Stark takes issue with claims
implying that that evangelical and fundamentalism Protestants are ‘stupid, crazy,
ignorant and dangerous’ and argues that ‘competent social scientists know that
these [claims] are lies, entirely equivalent to fantasies concerning Jewish conspira-
cies or orgies in Catholic convents’ (p. 254). Although Stark himself mainly cites his
own work in support of this last claim, it is certainly true that since the publication
of One True God, much evidence has been brought forward that does undermine
common stereotypes of evangelical and fundamentalism Protestant (see in particu-
lar Gallagher [2003]; Greeley and Hout [2006]). What needs to be emphasized,
however, is that in this section Stark over and over again labels the stereotypical
statements made about fundamentalists and evangelicals to be instances of incivi-
lity. In the end, in other words, the logic of his overall argument is suggesting that
non-believers and liberal Protestants and Catholics (who, remember, are the groups
whom Stark sees as promoting these stereotypes about evangelicals and funda-
mentalists) are the real threat to the system of pluralistic tolerance that makes
the US religious system so wonderful. As we shall see, this devaluation of religious
liberals, and implicit privileging of fundamentalist and evangelical Protestantism,
is an important part of a message that has become increasingly central to Stark’s
work.
Stark’s next book, For the Glory of God (2003), purports to demonstrate how Chris-
tian monotheism was instrumental in giving rise to four historical processes in the
West: (1) the reforming impulse that culminated in the Reformation; (2) the rise of
modern science; (3) witch hunts; and (4) the eventual abolition of slavery. Generally,
this book too was relatively well received, mainly because Stark was seen as once
again bringing a new perspective on old issues. One reviewer (Petersen 2005), for
example suggested:
What is most thought provoking about the book is his reversal of Durkheim’s per-
spective on religion … For the Glory of God challenges numerous assumptions
about how religion interacts with society. The book, and its argument, will be
subject to much discussion. (p. 410)
Another (Rios 2004) was even more effusive:
For the Glory of God is a deep and fascinating contribution to the sociology of reli-
gion. It opens up new research paths. Stark’s book has the extraordinary merit not
only of shedding light on difficult and complex social issues, but also in establish-
ing a powerful link between theory and data. (p. 301)
Even an historian like Dana Robert (2004), who found Stark’s argument to be sim-
plistic, could compliment Stark for his ‘creativity’ and could recommend For The
Glory of God because ‘it injects new energy and evidence into old but significant dis-
cussion about the historical importance of religious belief’.
And yet, careful attention to the logic of Stark’s argument reveals that far from
being innovative and creative, his argument is really quite old and stale.
 Religion 109

Thus, very early in the book (p. 40), Stark makes a distinction that is central to the
argument he builds throughout the book. This is the distinction between the
‘Church of Power’ (more or less, the institutionalized hierarchy of the Church)
and the ‘Church of Piety’, by which Stark means ‘those who were still committed
to the moral vision of early Christianity’. He then goes on to argue that over the
centuries the Church of Power became increasingly corrupt. His evidence for this
corruption consists almost entirely in a litany of anecdotes detailing the sexual mis-
adventures of succession of popes (see pp. 41–46). If all this seems familiar, it
should.
Although Stark routinely emphasizes that he is a social scientist, not an apologist
for any particular religious viewpoint, his account of Christian reform is a fairly
straightforward version of what Carroll (2007: 93–95) has called the Degradation
Narrative that was for centuries the hallmark of Protestant historiography. Thus,
in the Protestant worldview, Christianity was originally a pristine religion, very
much centered on an interiorized religiosity and concerned with otherworldly sal-
vation, but over time became encrusted with a number of magical and sacramental
processes under the influence of a corrupt clergy. The great achievement of the
Reformation (in this narrative) is that it restored Christianity to its initial pristine
condition.
Although the Degradation Narrative was initially only a Protestant view of
Christian history, it has been projected by proxy onto other traditions. Norman
Girardot (2002: 86–89, 318–319, 590–591), for example, demonstrates how this nar-
rative was projected onto the study of Chinese religion in the 19th century; Philip
Almond (1988) has shown how this same narrative shaped the academic percep-
tion of Buddhism in Victorian England; and Jonathan Smith (1990) has argued
that the impulse to construct early Christianity as a pristine, interiorized religion
had long warped – and continues to warp – the study of the Roman mystery
cults with which early Christianity was often contrasted. What Stark has done is
to resuscitate the Degradation Narrative by once again making it central to the
study of Christianity (or at least, to his study of Christianity).
At least up until the 1960s, the Degradation Narrative was typically paired, at
least in accounts of Christian reform written by historians, with an emphasis on
Protestant triumphalism. Central to this view was the belief that the Reformation
was the culmination of reformist movements that had built up slowly but cumulat-
ively over the centuries in reaction to clerical corruption and to those encrustations
(the worship of Mary and the Saints, pilgrimages, etc.) that had distorted the
message of early Christianity. In this view of things, the fact that this reformist
emphasis gained more and more popular support with each passing century
made the Reformation itself inevitable. One consequence of this old historiographi-
cal emphasis on a slow but cumulative ‘building up’ of reformist impulse in Euro-
pean societies was a historiographical predisposition to focus on individuals and
movements who could be viewed a ‘precursors’ to the Reformation. John Foxe’s
massive, and influential, Acts and Monuments (1965), originally published in
1563, is likely the most well known English language example of this type of Pro-
testant literature. In any event, Stark (pp. 53–68) mimics Foxe (and other Protestant
historians) by running through a list of reformers and reform movements (includ-
ing the Cathars, the Waldensians, the Beghards and Beguines, Wyclif and the
Lollards, John Hus, etc.) in order to establish that indeed ‘the Church of Piety
had been trying to achieve a reformation for many centuries’ (p. 117). By
110 M.P. Carroll

characterizing these groups collectively as ‘the Church of Piety’ (whose defining

characteristic, remember, is a commitment to ‘the moral vision of early Christian-
ity,’ p. 40), and giving them a common goal (‘reformation’), he is homogenizing
what otherwise would be considered a diverse group in order to strengthen the
same impression that Foxe sought to create: the building inevitability of the
Reformation.
Stark is well aware that Protestantism did not triumph in all areas of Europe, and
he is careful (pp. 103–119) to outline the conditions which facilitated or hindered
Protestant success in particular areas. The fact remains, however, that for Stark,
as for those earlier generations of Protestant historians who embraced the Degra-
dation Narrative and Protestant triumphalism, the Reformation was the end
result of a constantly building, and centuries old, impulse to restore a corrupted
Christianity to its earlier pristine state. But Stark’s resuscitation of the Degradation
Narrative and Protestant Triumphalism favored by earlier generations of
Protestant historians is not the only instance of historiographical regression in
his work.

Grand ethnography
Stark’s recent work also very much resembles the sort of ‘grand ethnography’ (the
term is from Connell [1997]) that was typical of 19th-century social-evolutionary
theorizing. Thus, although different 19th-century theorists posited different
evolutionary sequences, what all theorists in the ‘grand ethnography’ tradition
had in common was: (1) a tendency to ransack the historical record for bits and
pieces of information that could be used to describe each of the stages posited in
the particular social evolutionary sequence they favored; and (2) an equally
strong tendency to explain away, or simply ignore material, that didn’t quite
fit the sequence they were promoting. I am by no means the first person to
suggest the latter. In his review of For the Glory of God, for instance, Robbins
(2005) noted that Stark’s explicit decision to exclude the Peasant’s Revolt or the Ana-
baptist movement from consideration in his discussion of Protestant success
‘makes for a clean and coherent sociological theory, perhaps, but renders suspect
his triumphalist tone’ (p. 143). But there are other instances in which Stark explains
away evidence that does not fit his version of grand ethnography, and I want to
discuss two of them briefly. The first concerns what might be called the ‘Erasmus
problem’ for Stark.
In any number of works, but in particular in Praise of Folly (1971 [1511]) and in
Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake (1997 [1526]), Erasmus was quick to condemn clerical
corruption, popular credulity and a range of practices and beliefs having to do with
relics, pilgrimages, the cult of the saints, etc. – and in his discussion of Erasmus (and
humanist reformers generally) Stark (pp. 75–79) concedes all this. The problem for
Stark, given his historiographical emphasis on Protestant triumphalism, is that
Erasmus did not break with the Church. How then to deal with Erasmus and
his fellow humanists? Answer: make Erasmus a religious reformer not really
concerned with religion. In Stark’s own words (p. 76):
However, some, perhaps most of the leading Biblical Humanists of the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were probably less than sincere. Their
personal faith often seems hollow, their criticisms of the Church and of religion
 Religion 111

often seem too viciously gleeful, and many of them greatly valued form over
content … These aspects of Humanism – snobbery and skepticism – were
exemplified by the most famous Humanist of them all, Desiderius Erasmus
(1469–1536).
Not content to simply label Erasmus as insincere in his religiosity, Stark goes on
(pp. 76–78) to further denigrate Erasmus by calling attention to the fact that
although Erasmus had entered the Augustinian order, he requested a dispensa-
tion to live in the world and to wear lay clothing; that he earned large royalties
from his writings; and that he ‘was always careful to stay on the good side
of Rome.’
At one level, the suggestion that Erasmus was skeptical and not really religious is
not new; as Cameron (1996) points out (p. 128), it was a charge that Erasmus’s
critics – both Catholic and Lutheran – leveled at him in his own time. Still,
careful analysis of Erasmus’s life and work by modern scholars (see for example
Halkin [1987]) suggests that while he did seek to avoid institutional entanglements
and was ruthless in satirizing what he considered superstitions, he was neverthe-
less committed to a very individualized type of piety centered on the figure of
Christ and emphasizing interiorized prayer aimed directly to God. Indeed, Mans-
field’s (2010) overview of Erasmian scholarship over the course of the 20th century
suggests that one of the hallmarks of this body of work is an increasing appreci-
ation of Erasmus’s individualized piety and of the fit between such piety and Eras-
mus’s dedication to reason, education and pacifism.
Nevertheless, what’s most important here is not so much that Stark (once again)
shows no awareness of modern scholarship on the subject he’s discussing, but
rather the sort of religion which Stark’s critique of Erasmus implicitly privileges.
After all, Erasmus’s own critiques fit well with the Degradation Narrative. So:
why then is it so important to Stark to dissociate Erasmus (the individual) from
the building process of reform that Stark is describing? The answer, I suggest, is
that Erasmus never embraced the sort of high-tension, in-your-face, religion that
in his earlier writing Stark has consistently argued is the sort of faith associated
with the highest levels of religious commitment in an unregulated religious
economy (see especially Finke and Stark [1992]). Erasmus’s misfortune, in other
words, is that although he clearly embraced a deeply interiorized religiosity, he
was clearly not the sort of proto-Methodist or proto-Baptist that he needed to
be in order to ‘fit’ with the specific notion of reform that underlies the social evol-
utionary sequence that Stark is describing. So: Erasmus has to be explained away,
and he is.
My second example involves Stark’s discussion of the Reformation in England
(pp. 87–92). This discussion proceeds by first mentioning that the Lollards prepared
the way for Lutheranism; then by discussing how Protestantism entered England
through mercantile links with the Continent; and then by describing the ways in
which ‘Crown and Parliament combined to initiate the English Reformation’
(p. 89). Still, when all is said and done, what does Stark see as the major cause of
the Reformation in England? Simply: it was the ‘great popular appeal of Protestant
Reforms’ (p. 91) in the context of a ‘conflict between the Church and the English
Crown that had been intensifying for many years’ (p. 91). To anyone familiar
with the historiography of the English Reformation, statements like these must
inevitably raise red flags.
112 M.P. Carroll

Up until the 1980s, the prevailing view of the Reformation in England was
indeed a Protestant triumphalist view that stressed – as does Stark – the great
popular appeal of Protestantism and widespread anti-clericalism. Starting in
the 1970s, and continuing into the 1980s and early 1990s, however, this view
came increasingly to be discredited. A number of writers – but notably J.J. Scar-
isbrick (1984), Christopher Haigh (1987, 1993) and Eamon Duffy (1992) –
brought forward an immense amount of evidence which established fairly
conclusively that popular Catholicism in England was thriving on the eve of
the Reformation and that earlier accounts had grossly exaggerated anti-clerical
sentiment. Very quickly, this revisionist position became the dominant position
among English historians, with the result that in the same year that Stark
published For the Glory of God, Peter Marshall (2003) could begin his text on
Reformation England with:
Since at least the mid-1970s, historians have regularly observed that the Tudor
monarchs were on notably good terms with the papacy; that the English
Church was almost uniquely fortunate in western Europe with the quality and
commitment of its bishops and clergy; and that English lay (non-clerical)
people participated with enthusiasm and sacraments, and poured considerable
resources into their parish churches. (p. 1)
It is difficult to imagine an account of the English Reformation that is so much the
polar opposite of Stark’s. In an even more recent overview of English historiogra-
phy Duffy (2006) notes that ‘the broad outlines of the revisionist account of the
Reformation has been accepted and absorbed into school and university courses’
(p. 724) and that the focus of English historiography has shifted to confront the
obvious puzzle: if Catholicism was thriving and there was little initial popular
support for Protestantism, why did England become a Protestant nation? Duffy
then goes on to review some of the better-known attempts to answer this question.
Stark’s account of the English Reformation, in other words, was woefully out of
touch with existing scholarship and (yet again) very much a throwback to an
earlier era. I should note here that Stark does cite Duffy (1992) in some of his foot-
notes – which means, I suggest, that Stark ransacked Duffy’s book for bits and
pieces of evidence to support his theory while ignoring the fact that Duffy
himself felt the evidence in his book undermined the very sort of Protestant tri-
umphalism that Stark is promoting. Interestingly, the one English historian men-
tioned most often by name in the main body of Stark’s text is A.G. Dickens,
whose major works appeared initially in the 1950s and 1960s and who in most
overviews of the revisionist tradition is usually regarded at the last serious propo-
nent of Protestant triumphalism.
Let me be clear: there’s nothing amiss in challenging prevailing accounts of any
particular phenomena, but that’s not what Stark did here. He simply and quite
uncritically presents the older Protestant triumphalist view and takes no notice
of the historical evidence amassed by revisionist scholars that attests to the vitality
of late medieval Catholicism in England – notwithstanding the strong visibility of
this revisionist scholarship in all serious discussions of the English Reformation
from the late 1980s onward.
In the remainder of For the Glory of God, Stark links Christian monotheism to a
number of other events, including the rise of modern science (modern science
arose only in the West because only in Christianity do we encounter one God
 Religion 113

who is seen to have created the universe according to immutable principles that can
be discovered); witchcraft persecutions (conflict between competing versions of
monotheism reduces tolerance of non-conforming belief); and the abolition of
slavery (only the logic of Christian monotheism creates the moral predisposition
to abolish slavery).
In these first two books, then, Stark is advancing nothing less than the claim that
Christian monotheism is responsible for the advance of Western civilization and the
superiority of Western society over non-Western societies.

Progress resumed
For the next book in this series Stark chose a title that makes the social-evolutionary
flavor of his argument especially blatant: The Victory of Reason (2005). Basically,
Stark devotes the bulk of this book to expanding the list of Western accomplish-
ments that he sees as deriving from the logic of Christian monotheism. His subtitle
is a good summary of what he intends to show: ‘How Christianity led to freedom,
capitalism and Western success.’ And what is it about Christian monotheism that
sets it apart from other monotheisms, like Islam and Judaism? Stark repeats here
much the same argument he made in connection with the rise of modern science.
Basically, according to Stark, the Christian conception of God promotes the view
that there is always more and more to be discovered about the universe created
by God, and over time (sometimes a long time!) this impels Christian societies
toward all the things that Stark discusses in this book (technological innovation,
progress in high art, capitalism, etc.).
Here again though, as in his previous books, although Stark has positive things
to say about Christianity (in general) and Catholicism, the logic of his argument
privileges Protestantism. This is easiest seen in his discussion of capitalism, a
subject that takes up almost half of his text. Stark is at pains to say that unlike
Weber, he does not see Protestantism per se as having given rise to capitalism.
On the contrary, he devotes an entire chapter (pp. 103–127) to showing that
capitalism arose in Catholic societies long before the Reformation. Still, in his
Introduction, he summarizes his explanation of why capitalism emerged only in
Europe this way:
Why did things turn out differently in Europe? Because of the Christian commit-
ment to rational theology – something that may have played a major role in
causing the Reformation but that surely predated Protestantism by far more
than a millennium. (p. xiii)
In other words, and consistent with the argument made in One True God, the
impulse toward progress that is latent in the logic of Christian monotheism led
first to the emergence of European capitalism and then (centuries later) to Protes-
tantism. Phrased differently still, Stark’s argument privileges Protestantism
because that argument sees Protestantism as one of the many progressive advances
(like Western success; the rise of modern science, the abolition of slavery, freedom,
etc.) that have emerged out of the logic of Christian monotheism. Catholicism, in
this schema, is once again just a social evolutionary way station on the road to
Protestantism.
Nor does Stark see the process of religious evolution he is describing to be at an
end. In the final two pages (pp. 234–235) of The Victory of Reason, he first wonders
114 M.P. Carroll

aloud if modernization is still linked to Christianity and then gives the answer: yes,
it is. The evidence? Simply: Christianity is spreading rapidly in non-Western
societies. While acknowledging that Christianity might be appealing for a variety
of reasons, one of them, he argues, is certainly that it is a ticket to Western
success. In his own words,
another significant factor is its appeal to reason and the fact that it is so insepar-
ably linked to the rise of Western Civilization. For many non-Europeans, becom-
ing a Christian is intrinsic to becoming modern. (p. 235)
Although he does make a passing reference to an increase in the number of Roman
Catholics in Africa, most of the examples he mentions in discussing the rising
popularity of Christianity in the non-Western world involve Protestant denomina-
tions and Protestant traditions.
The fact that Stark constructs the social-evolutionary process he is describing as
ongoing raises a theoretical question: what is fueling that process? In other worlds,
within the logic of his argument, what is it that ‘draws out’ – and is continuing to
draw out – the increasing emphasis on rationality and other good things that Stark
sees to be latent in the logic of Christian monotheism? Nineteenth-century theorists,
in constructing their own social-evolutionary schemes, faced the same type of ques-
tion. Although none of those theorists was truly monocausal, each did tend to favor
one motive element over others as the driving force behind social evolution. For
Spencer, it was population growth occasioned by military conquest and/or
natural increase; for Marx and Engels, changes in the means for production; for
Durkheim, increases in moral density, etc. What is it for Stark? The answer to
that question is to be found in the most problematic book in the series we’re
considering.

Taking God as an independent variable

Stark begins Discovering God (2007) with a simple sentence: ‘Since I was very young
I have often wondered about God’ (p. 1). He goes on to argue that recent research
into the ‘origins and cultural evolution of the world’s great religions’ is ‘remarkably
inferior because so few authors could restrain their militant atheism’ (p. 1). A few
pages later, after briefly discussing Augustine’s position on Scripture, Stark intro-
duces what will eventually become one of this book’s most important organizing
principles:
This line of thought [Augustine on Scripture] is entirely consistent with one of the
most fundamental, yet remarkably neglected, of all Judeo-Christian premises, that
of Divine Accommodation, which holds that God’s revelations are always limited to the
current capacity of humans to comprehend. …This view is of course, firmly rooted in
scripture. (p. 6; emphasis in original)
Readers can decide for themselves if the principle that Stark is enunciating is truly
as fundamental a ‘Judeo-Christian’ premise as he claims. The only point I want to
make is that this principle, though first introduced simply as a Judeo-Christian
belief, very quickly becomes (for Stark) nothing less than an explanatory tool for
understanding the evolution of all religions across time and space. In his own
words: ‘The principle of divine accommodation provides a truly remarkable key
 Religion 115

for completely reappraising the origins and history of religions’ (p. 7) – and using
this key to do just that is what Discovering God is all about.
Unlike the other books in this series, which are mostly about the things brought
into existence by the unique logic of Christianity, Discovering God is almost entirely
about religion itself. Thus, after the now-familiar discussion designed to establish
that Durkheim and a host of other earlier theorists had it wrong and that gods
are central to what religion is all about, Stark considers a dizzying array of case
studies, including: the religions of ancient Mesopotamia; Mayan and Aztec reli-
gion; Roman religion; Hinduism; Buddhism; Taoism, Confucianism and other
Chinese religions. In each case, he argues that the historical record is best under-
stood using the theory of religious economies. In other words, in Stark’s reconstruc-
tion of the historical record, these case studies establish that: (1) religious
monopolies promote clerical laxity and low levels of popular participation; (2) reli-
gious plurality leads to competition; and (3) high-tension religion sells best.
Although I suspect that there is much in Stark’s discussion of non-Christian reli-
gions that would be challenged by specialists, there is nothing inherently proble-
matic in trying to show the universal applicability of what is supposedly a
general theory. Where Stark’s argument does become problematic, however, is in
the last quarter of the book (p. 282 ff).
One of the first signs that Stark will be developing an argument that is just a bit
unusual, at least in social-scientific circles, appears in the discussion of miracles
(pp. 284–285) that forms part of his chapter on the rise of Christianity. He starts
by noting that some scholars have used the mention of miracles in the Gospel nar-
ratives as the basis for discrediting those narratives. For Stark, this is simple ‘ignor-
ance’ (his term) and he goes on to identify two groups here. The first are those
‘militant atheists’ (Stark seems never to have met an atheist who wasn’t militant)
who ridicule miracles on the grounds they are violations of natural law and so
impossible. The second group are those people who see miracles as the mispercep-
tion of entirely natural events. He holds little regard for either view. In his own
words:
Both approaches to miracles are equally absurd. To make miracles plausible, all
that is needed is to postulate the existence of a God who created the universe,
nothing more. Surely a God who created the natural laws could suspend them
at will … So, was Lazarus raised from the dead? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But
if God exists, he could have been. Was Mary a virgin? She could have been. Did
the resurrection occur? It could have. (p. 285, emphases in original)
This is a truly remarkable passage. Remember that Stark is not talking here about
what ordinary Christians might believe to make miracles plausible. He is talking
about the plausibility of miracles, and for Stark what makes them plausible is
the existence of God.
Much of what remains in this particular chapter reprises and then builds upon
arguments that Stark has made in earlier publications (such as Stark [1996])
about Roman religion and the rise of Christianity. Basically: Christianity flourished
because it was a high-tension sect that did well in the relatively open religious
economy of the Roman Empire. Naturally, for Stark, Christianity changed when
it became the official religion of the Empire and entered into a monopoly situation.
The fact that he uses the heading ‘Monopoly and Decline’ (rather than, say, the
more neutral ‘Monopoly and Change’) at the beginning of his discussion of the
116 M.P. Carroll

post-Constantine Church (p. 327) signals to the reader that his account is once more
being shaped by the Degradation Narrative.
In Stark’s account, once Christianity became the official state religion, sons of the
aristocracy flooded into the priesthood in order to ‘pursue luxury and ease’ (p. 329)
rather than to promote piety. As a result, ‘Christian fervor was allowed to wither’
(p. 329) and a substantial proportion of medieval society failed to attend church at
all unless ‘ordered to do so by their lord’ (p. 329). We also know that ‘when the
common people did show up in church they often misbehaved’ (p. 329). As has
been noted before (Carroll [1996]; see also Sommerville [2002]), the measures
that Stark has used to measure religiosity (and uses again here), namely, interior-
ized fervor and regular attendance at formal church services, rests upon an
implicitly Protestant notion of piety that misses much about the lived experience
of Catholicism during the medieval and modern periods.
In the end, though, Stark – like past scholars caught in the rigid grip of an old-
fashioned Protestant historiography – is concerned with progression toward
‘truth’ and so it is to the matter of religious truth, in the good old-fashioned
sense of that word, to which he turns in his Conclusion. In a section headed ‘Cri-
teria of Divine inspiration’ he first rejects the ‘idea that all religions are somewhat
true’ (p. 390). He then poses the question ‘have all religions contributed to the dis-
covery of God?’ (p. 390) and in the next sentence gives his answer: ‘Assuming for
the moment that God exists, the answer must be ‘no’ (p. 390). Stark then tells us:
I suggest three criteria by which it is possible to separate faiths into those that could
reflect actual divine inspiration in that they increased our understanding of God, and
those that seem not to have been inspired. (p. 390, emphasis added)
And what are the three criteria that we can all use to separate the religions of the
world into those that tell us something about God and those that do not? ‘The first
criterion,’ we’re told, ‘assumes that God reveals himself’ (p. 390). This means, for
Stark, that religions whose founders did not claim divine revelation ‘lacked the
means to contribute to the discovery of God’ (p. 391). The second criterion is con-
sistency. Here again, Stark has to be quoted to appreciate the sheer enormity of
what he is saying:
It is all well and good to suppose that God limits his revelations to the prevailing
level of human understanding, but it is not plausible to suppose that his revel-
ations are utterly contradictory. Granted that variations can arise … but there
should still be substantial compatibility among any religions that are based on
divine inspirations. (p. 391)
In other words, starting from the premise that there really is only one God out there
(up there?), then he (and this one God is always ‘he’ in Stark’s discussion) would of
course be consistent in revealing his message to people in different cultures and
different times. And the third criterion?
The third criterion is progressive complexity. Ordered as to when they appeared,
authentic religions [emphasis added] should reveal an increasingly sophisticated
and complex understanding of God – they should form a developmental or evol-
utionary sequence. (p. 391)
Of course the use of a descriptor like ‘authentic’ in this context only reinforces what
should now be clear: Stark’s analysis suggests that the God he is describing does
exist and religions which have a direct connection with this particular God are
 Religion 117

privileged. In any event, Stark expands on this third criterion by linking it to the
principle of divine accommodation mentioned in the Introduction. Since ‘God
reveals himself within the current limits of the human capacity to understand’ it
follows that ‘over the course of history, God’s revelations should progress from
the simple to the more complex’ (p. 393).
Having introduced these three criteria, Stark goes on to quickly order all the
world religions discussed in earlier chapters. The temple religions of Sumer,
Egypt, Greece, early Rome and Mesoamerica are quickly set aside, since they
‘have no place within the progressive core of inspired faiths’ (p. 393). Judaism, Zor-
oastrianism and Christianity do make the cut, though of course ‘Christianity epit-
omizes revealed religion and offers a substantially more complex and nuanced
vision of God as is appropriate for a faith that fulfills the Old Testament and pre-
sents a more comprehensive doctrine of salvation’ (p. 394). And Islam? Sorry.
Allah is too unpredictable and unknowable within the Islamic tradition. For
Stark this is regressive, and ‘why would God have sent a regressive message to
Arab tribes that were in the process of converting to Judaism and Christianity’
(p. 395)? Presuming progressive complexity, then, Stark concludes that it would
be ‘inappropriate to include Islam in the inspired core of faiths’ (p. 395).
In the end, then, what we have in this concluding chapter is an especially clear
statement of the social-evolutionary schema that underlies all of the books in this
series. Basically: God exists and he reveals himself to humans throughout the
world according to what they can understand. Religions can therefore be
ordered on an evolutionary scale depending up how truly ‘inspired’ they are,
with – again – Protestant Christianity at the apex. In the end, though, what is
most significant about this iteration of his argument is that it allows us to see
even more clearly the nature of the Protestant historiographical bias that has
shaped Stark’s work.
Thus, for some time now both David Tracy (1981) and Andrew Greeley (2000)
have argued that there is a fundamental difference between the Protestant Imagin-
ation and the Catholic Imagination. In the Protestant Imagination, the emphasis is
on God’s transcendence and so on: the great distance between God and humanity.
Within the logic of this worldview, what becomes important is the message that
God sends to humanity and the ways in which human beings respond to that
message. In the Catholic Imagination, by contrast, the emphasis is on God’s imma-
nence, that is, on his presence in the world. This in turn gives rise to a predisposi-
tion to ‘think about’ God using metaphors drawn from daily experience as well as a
predisposition to draw closer to God (or, more generally, to the sacred) by involve-
ment in human society (since society is pervaded by the sacred). Stark’s emphasis
on a transcendent God who sends messages that progressively reveal more and
more about his intent and nature to human beings would seem to be a textbook
example of what both Tracy and Greeley take to be the worldview that proceeds
from the Protestant Imagination.
But there’s more: Stark’s particular take on progressive revelation seems bor-
rowed, not just from the Protestant tradition generally, but more specifically
from the evangelical Protestant tradition. True, given that most Christians tend
to see the ‘New Testament’ as a divinely inspired advance over the ‘Old Testament,’
the notion of progressive revelation is to some extent shared by all Christians. The
evangelical tradition, however, takes this a step further. Thus central to the evange-
lical narrative that developed in the 18th century was the view that God
118 M.P. Carroll

periodically intervened to bring Christians closer to him. These periodic interven-

tions, evangelical groups believed, had occurred at Pentecost and during the Refor-
mation, and were occurring in their time (Lambert 1999: 23–25). Obviously, the
content of what God reveals at discrete point in human history is different for
Stark as compared to 18th-century evangelical groups. Thus, Stark sees God as
revealing more and more about the logic of Christianity; evangelicals were more
apt to stress spiritual awakening and the new birth made possible by an outpouring
of God’s grace. My point is only that there is a common emphasis on direct inter-
vention from God at well-defined points in history as the force that drives
people toward a ‘better’ version of Christianity.

Social science as theology

If Discovering God seems more like theology than sociology, Stark would likely not
disagree. On the last page of that book, after saying some nice things about propo-
nents of Intelligent Design, he tells us in the last four lines of the book (p. 399):
Why is the universe rational and orderly? It seems to me that the most remarkable
‘retreat’ from reason is to cling to the belief that the principles that underlie the
universe came out of nowhere, that everything is one big, meaningless accident.
I am no longer sufficiently arrogant or gullible to make that leap of faith. Instead,
I find it far more rational to regard the universe itself as the ultimate revelation of
God and to agree with Kepler that in the most fundamental sense, science is theol-
ogy and thereby serves as another method for the discovery of God.
What Stark is clearly saying here, it seems to me, is that science has led him to the
discovery of God’s nature. The implication is that ‘evidence’ has led Stark to the
conclusions he has reached – but that is precisely what has not happened. On
the contrary, Stark’s recent work has been shaped by a number of historiographical
biases that proceed ultimately from a distinctively evangelical Protestant world-
view, and these historiographical biases have produced an account of religious
evolution that is more reasonably seen as having been imposed on the evidence
than derived from it.

The New Triumphalism

For the most part, Stark’s most recent book, The Triumph of Christianity (2011),
recycles arguments presented in earlier books. Thus, the first third of this latest
book draws heavily on the arguments relating to the growth of Christianity in
Stark (1996). One interesting difference is that this newer book has more material
(pp. 49–54) on the person of Jesus Christ himself. Since most of this material is
derived from the Gospel accounts, Stark has added a section (pp. 54–56) asking
‘But can the Gospels be trusted,’ and answering, as you might expect at this
point, in the affirmative. In later chapters, Stark repeats his arguments linking
monotheism to the rise of capitalism; the elimination of slavery; the rise of
modern science, etc.
Stark also repeats and updates his version of the Degradation Narrative. Thus,
for example, in a section on ‘Defective Clergy’ he again excoriates the medieval
clergy for their corruption, although this time around he at least moves beyond
the popes by citing Ludwig Pastor (1854–1928) as saying ‘it is a mistake to
 Religion 119

suppose that the corruption of the clergy was worse in Rome than elsewhere …
there is documentary evidence of the immorality of the priests in every town in
the Italian peninsula’ (Stark 2011: 261). Later, in discussing the forces that led to
the Reformation, he continues to see the ‘widespread immorality and indolence
among the clergy at all levels’ (Stark 2011: 322) as central to this process. Indeed,
so committed is Stark to the Degradation Narrative’s emphasis on clerical corrup-
tion that he seems unaware of inconsistencies in his argument. Thus, at one point
(p. 261), for example, he cites the fact that a priest in Southern Italy kept a concu-
bine, and would not end the relationship because he was fond of his children, as an
example of clerical corruption in the Middle Ages. A bit later, however, Stark
(p. 319) lists Luther’s call for a married clergy as one of the many organizational
reforms that Luther championed. Allegations of clerical corruption aside, Stark
also repeats the ‘encrustation’ argument that is similarly central to the Degradation
Narrative. Thus, after a discussion of medieval magic, Stark (2011: 272) concludes
with: ‘For the vast majority of medieval Europeans, their “religious” beliefs were a
hodge-podge of pagan, Christian, and superstitious fragments; they seldom went
to church, and they placed greater faith in the magic of the Wise Ones than in
the service of the clergy.’ And Stark once again, in several sections, contrasts ‘the
Church of Power’ with the ‘Church of Piety’ and once again describes the
Church of Piety’s attempts to reform the organizational Church – an effort which
culminated in the Reformation.
Towards the end of this book Stark (pp. 353–367) also repeats the argument,
developed most of all in Finke and Stark (1992), that religious pluralism (of the
sort that emerged in the United States) promotes increased religious participation
and that under conditions of such religious pluralism ‘high-tension’ religion sells
best. Finally, he presents statistics attesting to the rapid growth of Christianity
throughout the world (pp. 389–412).
So is there anything new in this latest book? Not really. And the underlying
reason for this, I suggest, is that within the logic of Stark’s cumulative argument
religious evolution has reached its endpoint in Christianity, and in particular, in
the evangelical Christianity that his analysis privileges. Given this, the only thing
left to do is to repeat his theoretical arguments (over and over again) and to docu-
ment the inevitable growth of Christianity – which is exactly what this last book
does. And again, although Stark does provide data relating to the growth of
both Protestantism and Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism remains the telos
of the process he is describing. Consider, for example, how he explains the
growth of Christianity. Partly, he argues (Stark 2011: 412), as he did in The Victory
of Reason, that Christianity is embraced because of its link with Western modernity.
But Christianity is also embraced because of its fundamental message. And what,
for Stark, is that message? In his words:
Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity conceives of God as a transcendent, omnipo-
tent, merciful ‘being’, who is somewhat mysterious, remote and awesome. But
unlike Judaism and Islam, Christianity also embraces the Son, a very human
and approachable figure … adults speak of Jesus having come into their lives,
children sing ‘Jesus loves me’ … When Christians seek to convert others, their
emphasis usually is on Jesus, which is facilitated by the fact that the Gospels
are the story of Jesus.
120 M.P. Carroll

And the fundamental message of the Gospels is that Christ died for our Sins,
and hence all who accept Jesus as their Savior will enjoy everlasting life after
death. This is the doctrine that forms the core of the Christian appeal and gives
meaning, purpose, and duration to human life. (Stark 2011: 408)
The emphasis here on having Jesus come into your life; on accepting Jesus as
your personal Savior; on the Gospels – all these emphases link what Stark sees
as the essential appeal of Christianity, and central to its triumph, not simply to Pro-
testantism but more specifically to evangelical Protestantism. The casual reference
to the hymn ‘Jesus loves me, this I know,’ which has always been especially popular
in the Baptist tradition, only reinforces this evangelical emphasis. Basically,
whereas ‘Protestant triumphalism’ used to mean a historiographical tendency to
see the Reformation as inevitable, what is inevitable within the logic of Stark’s the-
orizing is the triumph of evangelical Protestantism.

An aside: evolutionary thinking and religion

It is important to point out that although Stark’s theory might be criticized for being
little more than a warmed-over version of 19th-century social-evolutionary theoriz-
ing, this is not to say that evolutionary theorizing has no place in the study of reli-
gion. To take an obvious example, Robert Bellah (2011) has recently developed an
argument about the evolution of religion that avoids many of the difficulties
implicit in Stark’s argument. Basically, Bellah surveys the emergence and develop-
ment of religion from the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (roughly, ‘the middle centu-
ries of the first millennium BCE’; rf. Bellah [2011]: 266) and argues that we can
discern a developmental sequence. Although Bellah makes use of modern (biologi-
cal) evolutionary theory in coming to this conclusion, he is also quite clear in
acknowledging the debt he owes to the theories of cognitive development associ-
ated with Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner (Bellah 2011: 117).
Basically, Bellah argues that what is common to the earliest religions (that we
know about) is an emphasis on mimetic behavior, which usually means ritual,
and on mythic narrative. He links both of these things (ritual and myth) to par-
ticular intellectual capacities which emerged during a process of human evol-
ution. He goes on to argue, however, that a number of developments led to the
emergence of a new intellectual capacity. This was ‘the ability to think analytically
rather than narratively, to construct theories that can be criticized logically and
empirically’ (Bellah 2011: 274). While this new capacity for analytic thought did
not displace the older emphasis on ritual and myth, it did re-shape earlier
traditions that had been rooted in ritual and myth alone. Indeed, the last half
of Bellah’s book (pp. 265–597) is taken up with showing how this capacity for
analytic thought gave rise to four of the great religions of the Axial Age: the reli-
gions of Ancient Israel, Ancient Greece, Ancient China and Ancient India,
respectively.
It is too soon to tell if the specifics of Bellah’s argument will be judged favorably
or unfavorably by knowledgeable critics. The only point I want to make is that his
work shows how evolutionary theorizing might be used in a manner that avoids
the difficulties I have identified in Stark’s theorizing. Thus, for example, in
Bellah’s formulation, the motive force driving religious evolution is not direct rev-
elation from an evangelical God, but rather the emergence of new intellectual
 Religion 121

capacities as the result of human evolution. Similarly, although Bellah’s scheme

(like Stark’s) does allow for an ‘ordering’ of religions, the basis for this ordering
is not ‘how much a religion approximates evangelical Christianity’ but
rather ‘what intellectual operations have shaped that religious tradition.’ Finally,
although Bellah stops at the Axial Age (though a second book is promised), and
so does not consider Christianity, his discussion of the Axial Age does not privilege
Judaism over the religions of Greece, China and India, and so I see nothing in
Bellah’s argument that would imply (as does Stark’s argument) a privileging of
Christianity.

OK, but so what?

It appears then that Rodney Stark, at this point in his long career, has embraced a
retrograde historiography of religion that very significantly blurs the line
between ‘religious belief’ and ‘the scientific study of religious belief.’ Ok, but
so what? Why, in other words, is this anything to be concerned about? After
all, there seems little evidence that Stark’s latest works are having any serious
influence on the academic study of religion. Thus, while the first few books in
his monotheism series, notably One True God and For the Glory of God, were rela-
tively well reviewed and well received in academic journals (see the reviews cited
earlier), academic reviews of the later books in his monotheism series are vir-
tually non-existent. The scholarly community, in other words, has not paid
much attention to these later books. Taken at face value, this suggests the oper-
ation of a self-correcting process that validates our faith in the scientific
method. Thus, while it would have been hard to ignore Stark’s first few monothe-
ism books given his strong association with the very visible theory of religious
economies, his work on monotheism became easier and easier to ignore as the
religious underpinnings of his argument became more and more blatant. So
again: why worry?
Actually, I think there are several reasons why we need to think carefully about
Stark’s recent work and take it seriously.
First, the struggle to separate the academic study of religion in Western societies
from its original religious underpinnings was hard fought and it took decades, if
not centuries, to achieve such a separation. And even then, that struggle is not com-
pletely over. Although scholars like Robert Orsi (2004) have assured us that Protes-
tant Christianity is ‘no longer the hidden norm of the academic study of religion, its
secret telos’ (p. 399), it is still easy to catch sight of a distinctively Protestant world-
view latent in a great many of the supposedly ‘generic’ measures used by aca-
demics to assess religiosity (see the discussion in Carroll [2007] for examples). In
this context, Stark’s monotheism series is (dare I say it?) a stark reminder we
cannot become complacent about the separation between religion and the aca-
demic study of religion. If someone like Rodney Stark, who was for decades
such a central participant in the organizations and cultural milieu associated
with the sociological study of religion in the United States, can so easily revert to
a 19th-century social-evolutionary framework whose telos is evangelical Protes-
tantism – then such a worldview is clearly not dead.
Second, and related to the above, while Stark’s recent work may not have
attracted support in the academic community, his work has likely reached a
large popular audience. The first two books in this series, One True God and For
122 M.P. Carroll

the Glory of God, were published by Princeton University Press. While Princeton
does not share exact sales figures, a representative did say (private communication,
2011) that each book sold thousands of copies, with For the Glory of God selling over
10,000 copies – not at all bad for books published by a university press. The next
three books considered here, however, were published as trade books by
well-known publishers (Random House in the case of The Victory of Reason and
Harper Collins in the case of Discovering God and The Triumph of Christianity).
I have not been able to obtain sales records for these books, but it seems plausible
to suggest that with the distribution networks available to these publishers, sales
might well have been good. Furthermore, sales numbers aside, positive reviews
of his work have appeared in non-academic publications. Writing in the National
Catholic Reporter, for instance, Turner (2008) tells us:
Discovering God … is breathtaking in its scope. It illustrates not only the amazing
varieties of religious belief that have marked the journey of humankind but also
the often contradictory variety of sociological explorations of those beliefs. (p. 18)
Similarly, in the Library Journal Wigner (2007), again commenting on Discovering
God, writes:
Written in an engaging style yet retaining scholarly integrity … this work would
serve well as an introduction to the history/sociology of religion. Recommended
to public, academic and seminary libraries. (p. 77)
Stark’s work, in other words, has likely reached a large audience and has been rela-
tively well received in some circles. The net effect, I suggest, is that Discovering God,
and Stark’s monotheism series generally, has functioned to legitimize in the minds
of many people a retrograde approach to religion that undermines that separation
between religion and the study of religion – and that for many scholars is a necess-
ary precondition for insight into religious phenomena.
Third, although Stark’s privileging of a distinctively evangelical vision of God in
his monotheism books does not necessarily invalidate his work on religious econ-
omies, it does lend support to earlier critiques (Carroll 2004) which suggested both:
(1) that the theory of religious economies rested upon a distinctively evangelical
Protestant vision of what it means to be ‘religious’; and (2) that much of the evi-
dence supportive of the theory of religious economies dissipates if we conceptual-
ize religiosity in non-evangelical terms. In other words, although Stark’s
evangelical vision may only have become especially explicit in his monotheism
series, it seems likely that that vision has been shaping his work for quite some
time, and so should be taken into account when assessing his earlier and more
well-known analyses.
Finally, there is one more reason for paying careful attention to Stark’s recent work
and it has to do with Islam. In a book we have so far not considered, God’s Battalions:
The Case for the Crusades (2009), Stark takes aim at claims that European Crusaders
were ruthless barbarians who attacked a relatively tolerant Islamic society for
plunder and land, and that the Crusader kingdoms were part of a European coloni-
alist impulse. On the contrary, Stark argues, the pope (Urban II) who preached the
First Crusade was part of the Church of Piety; the Crusaders were driven by true
piety; Saladin was not the good guy he is often made out to be in romanticized
Western accounts; the Crusader kingdoms were relatively tolerant societies com-
pared to their neighbors; etc. These same arguments are repeated, in shortened
 Religion 123

form, in The Triumph of Christianity (Stark 2011: 199–234). There seems very little soci-
ology or theoretical argument in Stark’s discussion of Islam, and Renick (2010: 40), in
commenting on God’s Battalions, has already made the point that ‘much of the
research he [Stark] uses to refute the historical accounts of the past generation [of his-
torians] is itself over 30 years old.’ Here again, in other words, just as he did in dis-
cussing the Reformation in England, Stark reaches into the past for his scholarly
materials and promotes a vision of history (and historical development) that has
long been discarded by most modern scholars.
But once more: so what? Actually, Renick (2010) also provides the answer here,
noting first that news sources in the United States today are tailored to appeal to
particular audiences, so that ‘conservative viewers tune in to Fox News for a con-
firmation of their judgments and perceptions’ (p. 38), and then, when discussing
God’s Battalions, noting that Stark’s argument ‘provides an account of the Crusades
perfectly fitted for the Fox News audience’ (p. 39). Stark’s analysis of course deals
with the Crusades, not Muslims and Islam in the modern world. Renick’s point is
only that God’s Battalions creates an account of the Islamic past that reinforces many
of the views and perceptions about Islam and Islamic societies in the present that
are held and promoted by contemporary conservatives in the United States – who
see Islam as intolerant, as a source of violence, and as opposed to Western culture.
Here again, of course, there is nothing inherently inappropriate about developing a
view of history at odds with most contemporary scholarship. Still, given the
rampant Islamophobia that pervades our society, can we really turn a blind eye
when a former President of the Scientific Study of Religion, who for more than
40 years has been a leading practitioner in the Sociology of Religion, implies that
reason and science has led him to statements of the ‘I think it inappropriate to
include Islam in the inspired core of faiths’ (Stark 2007) variety and who then
goes on to write an account of the Crusades of the sort that appears in God’s Batta-
lions? I think not.
Quite the contrary, in today’s climate, I believe that academics who study religion
have an obligation to look carefully at any scholarly work that devalues Islam
(whether in the past or the present) in order to see if something other than evidence
is driving the argument and to lay bare what that something might be. And in
Stark’s case, the analysis here does indeed suggest that underlying his conclusions
about Islam is long-standing and distinctively evangelical approach to what reli-
gion is all about. Generally, while the corpus of Stark’s work on religion – including
his work on Islam – can and should be taken as an object of study for anyone inter-
ested in the political and historiographical corollaries of an evangelical worldview
in modern America – we must recognize that it is nothing more and nothing less.

Acknowledgements
I want to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their very con-
structive comments on the original version of this article; taking their comments
into account resulted in a better argument and a more clearly written text.

Michael P. Carroll is Professor of Sociology and Dean of Arts at Wilfrid Laurier

University in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada). Apart from his early work on myth
and folklore, he has published seven books on popular Catholicism in different his-
torical periods and cultural contexts. His most recent books include Veiled Threats:
124 M.P. Carroll

The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy (Johns Hopkins, 1996); Irish Pilgrimage: Holy
Wells and Popular Catholic Devotion (John Hopkins, 1999); The Penitente Brotherhood:
Patriarchy and Hispano Catholicism in New Mexico (Johns Hopkins, 2002); and Amer-
ican Catholics in the Protestant Imagination (Johns Hopkins, 2007).

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