by Insider 17 Replies latest jw friends
No, Lisa, I'm saying that Stark has received direct funding for his academic activities from the Church of Scientology in the form of their paying for a large seminar, or seminars, dedicated to the proposition that cults do not exist. Stark is not a Scientologist, a Moonie, or a JW, so far as I know. For reasons beyond my understanding, he seems to see no problems with any of these organizations who are demonstrably abusive of people.
AlanF
Can we contact the good Mr. Rodney Stark?
I looked around for an email or website. Nothing.
He's a two timne loser and I am sure that he's not aware how the WTS is using him.
He's got alot of books. Some discuss cults. Hmmmmm....
DO you suppose we should read his books? Let's ask Bethel.
He's ignoring my emails too.
Perhaps we should all write him and ask him WHICH articles has to do with reporting child molestation, since I have never seen anything like that. In fact the whole issue of turning molesters over to trained experienced professionals (both law enforcement and medical) is strangely lacking in JW literature.
As J.R.Brown said "We don't change for anybody"
I think the most likely explanation of Dr. Stark's support for the Watchtower is the as the reason we all supported Watchtower for as long as we all did: WE WAS LIED TO!!!
Biography
Rodney Stark
RODNEY STARK
170 Camino Rayo del Sol
Corrales, New Mexico 87048
(505) 890-5271
[email protected]
Education
B.A. University of Denver, 1959, Journalism.
M.A. University of California, Berkeley, 1965, Sociology.
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1971, Sociology.
Employment
1971: Professor of Sociology, University of Washington.
1981: Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Washington.
1987-1999: Co-Founder and Director, MicroCase Corporation.
1968-1971: Research Sociologist, Center for the Study of Law and Society, University of California, Berkeley.
1961-1970: Research Assistant to Research Sociologist, Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley.
1959-1961: Reporter, Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California.
1957-1959: Private to Specialist 3rd Class, United States Army (promoted to Staff Sergeant in the active reserve, 1961).
1955-1956: Reporter, Denver Post, Denver, Colorado.
Academic Honors
Nominee, Pulitzer Prize, 1996 (The Rise of Christianity).
President, Association for the Sociology of Religion, 1982-83.
Chair, Section on the Sociology of Religion, American Sociological Association, 1996-97.
President, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2003-04.
Distinguished Book Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1986, for The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation.
Distinguished Book Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1993, for The Churching of America - 1776-1990.
Distinguished Book Award, Section on the Sociology of Religion, American Sociological Association, 2001, for Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion.
Award for Distinguished Scholarship, Pacific Sociological Association, 1993.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Lefters, Jamestown College, 1994.
Member, Sociological Research Association (membership is by election).
Endowed Lectureships
Mead-Swing Lectures, Oberlin College, 1984
Snuggs' Distinguished Lectures, University of Tulsa, 1986
Distinguished Lecturer, Santa Clara University, 1988
Eli Lilly Foundation Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Purdue University, 1992.
Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture, Association for the Sociology of Religion, 1994.
Annual Plenary Lecture, North American Patristic Society, 1997.
O.C. Tanner Lecture, Mormon History Association, 1998.
Plenary Address, World Conference on New Religions, sponsored by the Center for Studies of New Religions (Torino, Italy). 2002.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
The Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Forthcoming.
One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Bahasa Indonesian edition: S. Abdul Majeed & Co. (Kuala Lumpur), 2002.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000.
Paperback edition: 2000.
Rodney Stark and W. S. Bainbridge, Religion, Deviance, and Social Control. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Paperback edition: 1997.
Rodney Stark and Lynne Roberts. Contemporary Social Research Methods. Bellevue, WA: MicroCase Corporation, 1996.
Second edition, MicroCase, 1998.
Third edition, Wadsworth, 2002.
The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Der Aufstieg des Christentums. German edition (translation by Wolfgang Müller): Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum, 1997.
De Eerste Eeuwen. Dutch edition (translation by Julie Plokker): Baarn: Ten Have, 1998.
El Auge del Cristianismo. Spanish edition (translation by Sergio Coddou): Barcelona: Editorial Andres Bello, 2001.
Portuguese edition: Editora Paulinas, in press.
Paperback edition: San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America - 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Paperback edition: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
Doing Sociology: An Introduction Through MicroCase, Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1992.
Second edition, Wadsworth, 1995.
Third edition, Wadsworth, 1998.
Fourth edition, Wadsworth, 2002.
Criminology: An Introduction Through MicroCase, Bellevue, WA: MicroCase Corporation, 1989.
Second edition, MicroCase, 1992.
Third edition, MicroCase, 1995.
Steven Messner and Rodney Stark, Criminology: An Introduction Through MicroCase Explorit, fourth edition, Bellevue, WA: MicroCase Corporation, 1998.
Exploring The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, Seattle: MicroCase, 1988.
Second edition: 1993.
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion, Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 1987.
New edition: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Polish edition (translation by Tomasz Kunz): Kraków: NOMOS, 2001.
Crime and Deviance in North America, Seattle: MicroCase, 1986.
Second edition: 1993.
(editor) Religious Movements. Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, New York: Paragon House, 1985.
Paperback edition: Paragon House, 1985.
Sociology, Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1985.
Second edition: Wadsworth, 1987.
Third edition: Wadsworth, 1989.
Fourth edition: Wadsworth, 1992.
Fifth edition: Wadsworth, 1994.
Sixth edition: Wadsworth, 1996.
Seventh edition: Wadsworth, 1998.
Eighth edition: Wadsworth, 2001.
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Paperback edition: University of California Press, 1986.
(with others) Social Problems, New York: Random House, 1975.
(Editor and primary contributor) Society Today: Second Edition, Del Mar, Calif.: CRM Books, 1973.
Police Riots: Collective Violence and Law Enforcement, Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1972.
Paperback edition: Focus Books, 1972.
Rodney Stark, Bruce D. Foster, Charles Y. Glock and Harold E. Quinley, Wayward Shepherds: Prejudice and the Protestant Clergy, New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, American Piety: The Nature of Religious Commitment, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.
Paperback edition: University of California Press, 1970.
Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism, New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
Paperback edition: Harper Torchbooks, 1969.
Republished, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979.
Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Religion and Society in Tension, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965.
Paperback edition: Rand McNally, 1968.
Articles and Chapters
"Policy and the Pros: An Organizational Analysis of a Metropolitan Newspaper," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 7 (1962) 11-31.
"On the Incompatibility of Religion and Science: A Survey of American Graduate Students," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 3 (1963) 3-20.
"Class, Radicalism, and Religious Involvement," American Sociological Review, 29 (1964) 698-706.
"Through a Stained Glass Darkly: Reciprocal Protestant-Catholic Images in America," Sociological Analysis, 25 (1964) 159-166.
"A Taxonomy of Religious Experience," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 5 (1965) 97-116.
John Lofland and Rodney Stark, "Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective," American Sociological Review, 30 (1965) 862-875.
Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, "The New Denominationalism," Review of Religious Research, 7 (1965) 8-17.
"Social Contexts and Religious Experiences," Review of Religious Research, 7 (1965) 17-28.
Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, "Is There an American Protestantism?" Transaction, Dec., 1965: 8-13, 49.
Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, "Religion and Anti-Semitism in America: A Summation," Continuum 4 (1966) 330-340.
Rodney Stark and Stephen Steinberg, "Jews and Christians in Suburbia," Harper's Magazine, Aug., 1967, 73-78. (A brief version of #14).
"Age and Faith," Sociological Analysis, 29 (1968) 1-10.
Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, "Will Ethics be the Death of Christianity?" Transaction, 5 (1968) 7-14.
Rodney Stark and Stephen Steinberg, "It Did Happen Here: An Investigation of Political Anti-Semitism," in Peter I. Rose (ed.), The Ghetto and Beyond, New York: Random House, 1969, 357-383.
Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, "Prejudice and the Churches," in Charles Y. Glock and Ellen Siegelmen (eds.) Prejudice U.S.A., New York: Praeger, 1969, 70-95.
"Protest + Police = Riot," in James McEvoy and Abraham Miller (eds.), Black Power and Student Rebellion, Belmont: Wadsworth, 1969, 167-196.
"The Police in Protest," In Jerome Skolnick (ed.), The Politics of Protest, New York: Ballantine Books, 1969, 241-292.
Travis Hirschi and Rodney Stark, "Hellfire and Delinquency," Social Problems, 17 (1969) 202-213.
Rodney Stark and Bruce D. Foster, "In Defense of Orthodoxy: Notes on the Validity of an Index," Social Forces, 48 (1970) 383-393.
Rodney Stark, Bruce D. Foster, Charles Y. Glock and Harold Quinley, "Sounds of Silence," Psychology Today, 3 (1970) 38-41, 60-61.
Rodney Stark and James McEvoy III, "Middle-Class Violence," Psychology Today, 4 (1970) 52-54, 110-112.
"The Economics of Piety: Religion and Social Class," in Gerald W. Thielbar and Saul D. Feldman (eds.), Issues in Social Inequality, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971, 483-503.
"Psychopathology and Religious Commitment," Review of Religious Research, 12 (1971) 165-176.
Lincoln E. Moses, Allan Goldfarb, Charles Y. Glock, Rodney Stark, and Morris L. Eaton, "A Validity Study using the Leighton Instrument," American Journal of Public Health, 61 (1971) 1785-1793.
"Police Riots: An Anatomical Report," Urban Life and Culture, 1 (1972) 7-38.
Lawrence E. Cohen and Rodney Stark, "Discriminatory Labelling and the Five-Finger Discount," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 11 (1974) 25-39.
"Public Opinion," Chapter 12 in American Government Today. Del Mar, CA: CRM Books (1974) 367-385.
"Money, Media, and Campaigns," Chapter 14 in American Government Today. Del Mar, CA: CRM Books (1974) 411-433.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 18 (1979) 117-131.
Rodney Stark, W.S. Bainbridge, and Daniel P. Doyle, "Cults of America: A Reconnaissance in Space and Time," Sociological Analysis, 40 (1979) 347-359.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models," Sociological Analysis, 40 (1979) 283-295.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Sectarian Tension," Review of Religious Research, 22 (1980) 105-124.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects," American Journal of Sociology, 85 (1980) 1376-1395.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Towards a Theory of Religion: Religious Commitment," Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, 19 (1980) 114-128.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Client and Audience Cults in America," Sociological Analysis, 41 (1980) 199-214.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Scientology: to be Perfectly Clear," Sociological Analysis, 41 (1980) 128-136.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Superstitions: Old and New." The Skeptical Inquirer, 4 (1980) 18-31.
Rodney Stark, Daniel P. Doyle, and Lori Kent, "Rediscovering Moral Communities: Church Membership and Crime," in Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson (eds.), Understanding Crime, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1980, 43-52.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation, The Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion, 4 (1980) 85-119.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "The Consciousness Reformation Reconsidered," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 20 (1981) 1-16.
"Must All Religions Be Supernatural?" in Bryan Wilson (ed.), The Social Impact of New Religious Movements, New York: Rose of Sharon Press, 1981,159-177.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Friendship, Religion and the Occult," Review of Religious Research, 22 (1981) 313-327.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "American-Born Sects: Initial Findings," Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, 20 (1981) 130-149.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Secularization and Cult Formation in the Jazz Age," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 20 (1981) 360-373.
Rodney Stark, W.S. Bainbridge and Lori Kent, "Cult Membership in the Roaring Twenties," Sociological Analysis, 42 (1981) 137-162.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Suicide, Homicide, and Religion: Durkheim Reassessed," Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion, 5 (1981) 33-56.
Rodney Stark, Lori Kent, and Daniel P. Doyle, "Religion and Delinquency: The Ecology of a 'Lost' Relationship," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 19 (1982) 4-24.
Rodney Stark and Lynne Roberts, "The Arithmetic of Social Movements: Theoretical Implications," Sociological Analysis, 43 (1982) 53-68.
Rodney Stark and W.S. Bainbridge, "Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements," in Joseph H. Fichter (ed.), Alternatives to Mainline Churches, New York: Rose of Sharon Press, 1983, 3-25. (An expanded version of #27).
Rodney Stark, Daniel P. Doyle, and Jesse Lynn Rushing, "Beyond Durkheim: Religion and Suicide," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 22 (1983) 120-131.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Church and Cult in Canada," Canadian Journal of Sociology, 7 (1982) 351-366.
Rodney Stark, W.S. Bainbridge, Robert Crutchfield, Daniel P. Doyle, and Roger Finke, "Crime and Delinquency in the Roaring Twenties," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 20 (1983) 4-23.
"Religion and Conformity: Reaffirming a Sociology of Religion," Sociological Analysis, 46 (1984) 18-27.
"The Rise of a New World Faith," Review of Religious Research, 26 (1984) 18-27.
W.S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Formal Explanation of Religion: A Progress Report," Sociological Analysis, 45 (1984) 145-158.
"From Church-Sect to Religious Economies," in Phillip E. Hammond, ed., The Sacred in a Post-Secular Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, 139-149.
"Europe's Receptivity to Religious Movements," in Rodney Stark (ed.) New Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, New York: Paragon, 1985, 301-343.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, "Turning Pews Into People: Estimating 19th Century Church Membership," Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, 25 (1986) 180-192.
"The Class Basis of Early Christianity: Inferences From a Sociological Model," Sociological Analysis, 47 (1986) 216-225.
"Jewish Conversion and the Rise of Christianity: Rethinking the Received Wisdom," in Kent Harold Richards (ed.), Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986, 314-329.
"Demonstrating Sociology: Computers in the Classroom," in Reece McGee (ed.), Teaching the Mass Class, Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association, 1986, 130-141.
"Correcting Church Membership Rates: 1971 and 1980," Review of Religious Research, 29 (1987) 69-77.
"How New Religions Succeed: A Theoretical Model," in David Bromley and Phillip E. Hammond (eds.), The Future of New Religious Movements, Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987, 11-29.
"Religion and Conformity: A New Look," in James M. Day and William S. Laufer (eds.), Crime, Values and Religion, New York: Ablex Press, 1987, 111-120.
Rodney Stark, Lori Kent and Roger Finke, "Sports and Delinquency: Another Aspect of Moral Communities," in Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson (eds.), Positive Criminology, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987, 115-124.
"Deviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of Crime," Criminology, 25 (1987) 891-907.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, "American Religion in 1776: A Statistical Portrait," Sociological Analysis, 49 (1988) 39-51.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, "Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies: Religious Mobilization in American Cities, 1906," American Sociological Review, 53 (1988) 41-49.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, "How the Upstart Sects Won America: 1776-1850," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28 (1989) 27-44.
"Modernization, Secularization and Mormon Success," in Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony, eds., In Gods We Trust, second edition, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1990, 201-218.
"Normal Revelations: A Rational Model of 'Mystical' Experiences," in David G. Bromley, editor, Religion and the Social Order, Volume I. Greenwhich, JAI Press, 1991, 239-251.
"Christianizing the Urban Empire: An Analysis Based on 22 Greco-Roman Cities." Sociological Analysis, (1991) 52:77-88.
"Antioch as the Social Situation for Matthew's Gospel," in David L. Balch, editor, Social History of the Matthean Community: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to an Open Question. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991:189-210.
"Epidemics, Networks and the Rise of Christianity," Semeia, 56 (1992) 159-175.
"A Note on the Reliability of Historical U.S. Census Data on Religion," Sociological Analysis, 52 (1992) 91-95.
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, "Sociology of Religion," in Edgar F. Borgatta, editor-in-chief, and Marie L. Borgatta, managing editor, Encyclopedia of Sociology, New York: Macmillan, 1992: 2029-2037.
Rodney Stark and Kevin J. Christiano, "Support for the American Left, 1920-1924: The Opiate Thesis Reconsidered." Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, 31 (1992) 62-75.
"How Sane People Talk to the Gods: A Rational Theory of Revelations" in Michael A. Williams, Collet Cox, and Martin S. Jaffe, editors, Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992:19-34 (An expanded version of #71).
"Do Catholic Societies Really Exist?" Rationality and Society, 4 (1992):261-271.
Rodney Stark and James C. McCann, "Market Forces and Catholic Commitment: Exploring the New Paradigm." Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, 32 (1993):111-124.
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, "Rational Choice Propositions About Religious Movements," in David G. Bromley and Jeffrey K. Hadden, editors, Religion and the Social Order (Vol3-A) Handbook on Cults and Sects in America. Greenwhich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1993, pp.241-261.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, "A Rational Approach to the History of American Cults and Sects," in David G. Bromley and Jeffrey K. Hadden, editors, Religion and the Social Order (Vol3-A): Handbook on Cults and Sects in America, Greenwhich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1993, pp.109-125.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, "Revising American Religious History." Image File: A Journal from the Curt Teich Postcard Archives, (1993) 7:2-6.
"Europe's Receptivity to New Religious Movements: Round Two." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, (1993) 32:389-397.
"Modernization and Mormon Growth: The Secularization Thesis Revisited," in Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence Young, editors, Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp.13-23.
"American Religion Remains Robust" Insight Magazine. (July 11, 1994) 10:20-23.
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, "A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the 'Secularization' of Europe." Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion, (1994) 33:230-252.
"What Makes Oregon Attractive to New Religious Movements," Oregon Humanities, Summer, 1994, pp. 22-25.
"The Role of Women in the Rise of Christianity." [The Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture] Sociology of Religion, (1995) 56:229-244.
"Religion and the Moral Order Reconsidered." The IARCA Journal (1995) 7:6-9.
Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and Laurence Iannaccone. "Pluralism and Piety: England and Wales, 1851." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, (1995): 34:431-444.
Laurence R. Iannaccone, Daniel Olson, and Rodney Stark, "Religious Resources and Church Growth." Social Forces (1995) 74:705-731.
Roger Finke, Avery M. Guest, and Rodney Stark, "Mobilizing Local Religious Markets: Pluralism and Religious Participation in the Empire State, 1855-1865." American Sociological Review, (1996) 61:203-218.
"Religion as Context: Hellfire and Delinquency One More Time." Sociology of Religion, (1996) 57:163-173.
Rodney Stark, Laurence R. Iannaccone, and Roger Finke. "Religion, Science, and Rationality" American Economic Review, papers and proceedings (1996):433-437.
"Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail: A Revised General Model." Journal of Contemporary Religion, (1996) 11:133-146.
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone. "Recent Religious Declines in Quebec, Poland, and the Netherlands: A Theory Vindicated." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, (1996) 35:265-271.
"So Far, So Good: A Brief Assessment of Mormon Membership Projections" Review of Religious Research (1996) 38:175-178.
"Bringing Theory Back In." in Lawrence E. Young, editor, Rational Choice Theory and Religion: Summary and Assessment, London & New York: Routledge, (1997) pp. 3-23.
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, "Why the Jehovah's Witnesses Grow So Rapidly: A Theoretical Application." Journal of Contemporary Religion, (1997) 12:133-157.
"German and German-American Religion: Approximating A Crucial Experiment." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, (1997) 36:182-193.
Laurence R. Iannaccone, Roger Finke, and Rodney Stark, "Deregulating Religion: The Economics of Church and State." Economic Inquiry, (1997) 350-364.
"Catholic Contexts: Competition, Commitment, and Innovation." Review of Religious Research, (1998) 39:197-208.
"On Theory-Driven Methods" in Jon R. Stone, editor, The Craft of Religious Studies. New York: St. Martin's Press (1998) pp. 175-196.
"Live Longer, Healthier, and Better: The Untold Benefits of Becoming Christian in the Ancient World." Christian History (1998) 17:28-30.
"A Theoretical Assessment of LDS Growth." in James T. Duke, editor, Latter-day Saint Social Life: Social Research on the LDS Church and its Members. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, (1998) pp. 29-70.
"E Contrario." Journal of Early Christian Studies, (1998) 6:259-267.
"Spiegare le Variazioni Della Religiosita: il Modello del Mercato" ("Explaining International Variations in Religiousness: The Market Model.") translation by Maurizio Pisati, Polis: Ricerche e studi su società e politica in Italia, (1998) 12:11-31.
Laurence R. Iannaccone, Rodney Stark, and Roger Finke, "Rationality and the 'Religious Mind'." Economic Inquiry, (1998) 36:373-389.
"The Rise and Fall of Christian Science." Journal of Contemporary Religion, (1998) 13:189-214.
"Atheism, Faith, and the Social Scientific Study of Religion." Journal of Contemporary Religion, (1999) 14:41-62.
"Extracting Social Scientific Models from Mormon History." [the O.C. Tanner Lecture] Journal of Mormon History. (1999) 25 (1):174-194.
"A Theory of Revelations." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1999) 38:286-307.
"Secularization: The Myth of Religious Decline." Fides et Historia, (1999) 30:2:1-19.
"Secularization, R.I.P." (A greatly expanded version of #114) Sociology of Religion, (1999) 60:249-273.
"Micro Foundations of Religion: A Revised Theory." Sociological Theory, (1999) 17:264-289.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, "Catholic Religious Vocations: Decline and Revival." Review of Religious Research, (2000) 42:5-25.
"Rationality." Willi Braun and Russell McCutcheon, editors, Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell (2000) pp:239-258.
"Religious Effects: In Praise of 'Idealistic Humbug.'" Review of Religious Research (2000) 41:289-310.
"Sociology of Religion" in Edgar F. Borgatta, editor-in-chief, Encyclopedia of Sociology (second edition), New York: Macmillan, (2000): 2964-2973.
"Efforts to Christianize Europe, 500-2000" Journal of Contemporary Religion. (2001) 16:105-123.
"Discovering Data: A Neglected Virtue of Theory-driven Research." Theory and Methods. The Official Journal of the Japanese Association of Mathematical Sociology. (2001) 16:19-29.
Susan Pitchford, Christopher Bader, and Rodney Stark. "Doing Field Studies of Religious Movements: An Agenda." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. (2001) 40:379-392.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark. "The New Holy Clubs: Testing Church-To-Sect Propositions." Sociology of Religion. (2001) 62:175-189.
"Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order." Journal for the Scientjfic Study of Religion. (2001) 40:619-636.
"Reconceptualizing Religion, Magic, and Science." Review of Religious Research. (2001) 43:101-120.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. "Beyond Church and Sect: Dynamics and Stability in Religious Economies." in Ted G. Jelen, editor, Sacred Markets and Sacred Canopies: Essays on Religious Markets and Religious Pluralism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. in press.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, "The Dynamics of Religious Economies," in Michele Dillon, editor, Handbook for the Sociology of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. in press.
"American Missionaries to 'Darkest' Europe." Sabrina P. Ramet and Gordana Crnkovic, editors, Kazaam! Splat! Ploof! The American Impact on European Popular Culture Since 1945, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. In press.
"Economics of Religion." in Robert A. Segal, editor, The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. in press.
"Physiology and Faith: Addressing the 'Universal' Gender Difference in Religiousness." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. in press.
Alan S. Miller and Rodney Stark, "Gender and Religiousness: Can Socialization Explanations Be Saved?" Submitted: American Journal of Sociology.
"Upper Class Asceticism: Social Origins of Ascetic Movements and Medieval Saints."
Rodney Stark, Eva Hamberg, and Alan S. Miller. "Exploring Spirituality and Unchurched Religions in America, Sweden, and Japan."
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. "Aggressive Gentiles: The Response of Non-Mormon Faiths in Utah."
"When Religious Movements Succeed: Final Stages."
BEFORE YOU TRY AND REMOVE THE STICK FROM MY ARSE, REMOVE THE TELEPHONE POLE FROM YOUR OWN ARSE.
Wow dungbeetle...what a list!
However....if all those books contain writing like what the WTS has used on their website, my next question would be..how does this guy make a living with his writings?
No Mr. Stark..I'm not being a "sorehead". I just find this example of your opinions laughable.
Perhaps the info that AlanF provided for us (Alan, how do you find these things out?) should be added to Stark's list of credentials. Being paid off (ooops I mean "funded") by the Scientologists to prove they are not a cult and that cults don't exist...wow...that's impressive!!![8>]
I'm usually not so sarcastic, but when an avid JW suggests that I should look at the "official" JW site to get the "real truth", I get real testy being subjected to this kind of drivel...an real insult to my intelligence.
Insider I'm still curious as to why you brought this subject up? Where do you stand on this?
Had Enough
"Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."...Margaret Mead
This is just pure pukeshit. Is that strong enough?
How many times does the WT give an experience in a magazine or yearbook of persons who leave their bad and corrupt church to become a JW? Couldn't this line of reasoning by this genius Starks be applied to these situations?
http://www.contendingforthefaith.com/summary/experts/es/stark.html
The Testimony of Rodney Stark, Ph.D.
MR. MORGAN: You are Dr. Stark, is that right?
DR. STARK: Yes.
MR. MORGAN: What is your occupation or calling?
DR. STARK: I am Professor of Sociology and Comparative Religion at the University of Washington.
(Curriculum vitae dated August 1983 of Rodney Stark marked for identification as plaintiff Exhibit 22.)
MR. MORGAN: Let me show you what's been marked as Exhibit 22, and I will ask you to identify that document.
DR. STARK: Yes, it is my vitae.
MR. MORGAN: How current is your vitae?
DR. STARK: Well, this is 1983. I guess there's been another book, and I suppose far too many articles.
MR. MORGAN: I will offer that into evidence at this time, Your Honor.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Be accepted.
MR. MORGAN: Do you want to tell us something about your education, where you went to college and what degrees you received?
DR. STARK: I got a degree in journalism from the University of Denver, and I have an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
MR. MORGAN: And the Ph.D.?
DR. STARK: Sociology.
MR. MORGAN: Did you also have some experience in journalism?
DR. STARK: Yes, I was a reporter for the Oakland Tribune and the Denver Post.
MR. MORGAN: Can you tell us what years you did that?
DR. STARK: The Denver Post in the middle fifties, and then I was in the army, and then I was at the Oakland Tribune in `59 and `60, and I think a little bit of `61. That was a very long time ago.
MR. MORGAN: Then did you go to Berkeley?
DR. STARK: Yes. Well, I started at the Tribune, and then after a year of that I started at Berkeley, and then I did both for awhile.
MR. MORGAN: Do you have some particular specialty at the present time?
DR. STARK: Yes, I would have to say that my specialty all along has pretty much been the sociology of religion with particular emphasis, say, in the last period in religious movements.
MR. MORGAN: Can you tell the court generally what is the field of sociology of religion?
DR. STARK: It is anything anybody wants to call it, but as opposed to historians, we are not so interested in a specific group over a long period of time as opposed to psychologists or anthropologists.
There are many things. What is the effect of religion on crime rates, for example, would be a perfectly appropriate set of topics. What is the nature of religious movements, how do they recruit, how do they form, how do they grow, what separates the winners from the losers. That would also be the sociology of religion. What is the implication of Protestantism on the rise of industrialization in western Europe is another classic area, so it goes all over the map.
MR. MORGAN: You have indicated that you were in 1982 and 1983 the president for the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Can you tell the court something about that organization, what it is?
DR. STARK: Well, it is an international scholarly society made up of people who are sociologists in religion.
MR. MORGAN: As president, is that an elective office?
DR. STARK: That is an elective office, and it is largely ceremonial and honorific.
MR. MORGAN: Then you have listed a number of pages of books and articles. I won't go into those, but I gather that you have written constantly, is that correct?
DR. STARK: It is my disease.
MR. MORGAN: Were you requested to make an evaluation for me of the `'Local Church,'' its people, and the publications by SCP and Mr. Duddy?
DR. STARK: Yes, I was.
MR. MORGAN: Can you tell the court what you did in that regard? Were you also asked to do something else? Were you asked to review something in the book regarding the use of your name?
DR. STARK: Yes, I was asked to read some pages, which didn't take very long, that purported to explicate something that I have gotten some, I guess, notoriety or whatever for. It is a theory of conversion that's been around for twenty years, and I was asked to see if Duddy had reported it correctly and applied it appropriately.
MR. MORGAN: We will get to it again later, but what was your conclusion?
DR. STARK: If a student had ever given me that, a freshman, I'd have flunked him.
MR. MORGAN: Tell the court what you did by way of study of the `' Local Church`' and review of the publications.
DR. STARK: Well, to a much less extent than some of the earlier witnesses, I have gone out and met members. I have attended some services. I have been in the Freeman home. I have seen the headquarters in Seattle. I have looked at a lot of TV tape. I have read or read parts of a substantial number of publications by Witness Lee.
MR. MORGAN: Let me go now to the publication. Does The God-Men purport to be a sociological study of the `'Local Church''?
DR. STARK: Yes, it does. It says specifically in the very beginning of the book that it has two basic strands that it is going to evaluate: on religious grounds and on sociological grounds.
MR. MORGAN: Can you comment for the court your opinion as to the merit of the sociological study?
DR. STARK: It has none.
MR. MORGAN: Can you tell us why it has none?
DR. STARK: Well, first of all, there is not the slightest effort to have given it any. As was said earlier today, there is no methodology; there is no social science here. No one collected any data. No one tried to formulate any testable hypotheses and see if they were confirmed vis-…-vis what goes on in the `'Local Church.'' There isn't a shred of sociology to it. There is the invoking of some sociological trappings.
MR. MORGAN: Are there some accepted methods of sociological study of religious movements?
DR. STARK: There are a varied number of them, I suppose. One could, for example, go out and do some observation. One could go out and hang around a group, be with a group, watch them.
So when John Lofland and I did research, for example, on the basis of the conversion theory, we went out and found a group in San Francisco, and we spent a couple of years, Lofland more than I. We spent a large amount of our time with those people, watching people actually join religious movements.
It is all well and good to sit in a library and speculate about who might have been attracted, but the only way you can find out who would be attracted is to go and see who is attracted and who comes in and fools around and nibbles a little bit and says no and goes away. That is the only way it can be done.
One could, of course, having some reasonably well-fashioned notions, give people questionnaires. This could be done very usefully.
For example, Eileen Barker at the London School of Economics has for many years now been giving questionnaires to all people who show up in London at the first workshop, say, of a Unification Church, the Moonies. They let her do it. The people fill them out. She's now got data going ten, twelve years. In the long run she knows who actually joins the church, who stayed, and when they quit. That is science. That is social science. There is none of that here.
MR. MORGAN: Let me ask you, would it be social science to talk to three, four, five ex-members and then use that as your basis?
DR. STARK: Well, we don't have to talk social science, that wouldn't be journalism. MR. MORGAN: Why not? DR. STARK: My city editor at the Oakland Tribune would have canned me for something like that. Let's get religion out of here. Let's say he says, "Why don't you go out to Cal, and see how the Sigma Chi are doing." I go out to Cal, but I can't find any, but I can find three guys that de- pledged for whatever reason. Maybe they were cuckoo. I go interview these guys about Sigma Chi at Cal, and they tell me they are a bunch of bums and this, that, and the other thing. What do I know? I don't know anything that I can trust. The best way, I suppose, would be to walk in the Sig house, give them the secret handshake, and hang around for a few months or whatever. I took this out of religious context intentionally because what would you say about interviewing five guys who had gotten disbarred in Alameda County about the Alameda County Bar Association. Or say they hadn't gotten disbarred; let's say they had gotten disgruntled and had gone to be chiropractors. That is not the way you go about these things.MR. MORGAN: Let me ask you to refer to The God-Men's use of the phrase, "The Seduction Syndrome." Is that a sociological term?
DR. STARK: I had never seen it before, until I was given a copy of The God-Men to look at.
MR. MORGAN: First it mentions Dr. Anthony Campolo. Who is he?
DR. STARK: I have no idea.
MR. MORGAN: Then Duddy goes on; he says:
Dr. Anthony Campolo, an evangelical Christian sociologist who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, has done exceptional research on the topic of cultic religious conversions. He endorses the Lofland-Stark model of conversion as a useful basis for understanding conversion from natal beliefs to a deviant religion.
Lofland-Stark, does that ring a bell?
DR. STARK: Yes, that is John Lofland and Rodney Stark, "Becoming a World- Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective," American Sociological Review of 1965. We were young; we had much to learn, but we broke new ground then. So everything kind of seems to go back to this stuff, although I must say there are 1980 versions of this thing that are a whole lot less antique but, yes, I do recognize this.
MR. MORGAN: For the benefit of some of us, what is a model? What are we talking about?
DR. STARK: A theory in which we lay out some variables or some steps or some conditions or set of propositions trying to explain how it is that people go from A to B.
In this case we are talking about how is it that people ever decided to take up a new religious belief system which is quite different, say, than why a person in a Christian tradition, raised as a Christian, suddenly gets much more committed to his Christianity and talks about having a conversion.
I am talking about what happened to Paul. He was a Jew one minute, and he was a Christian the next minute. We are talking about a shift in perspective. What we attempted to do was to explain how this occurred.MR. MORGAN: Also Mr. Duddy writes:
Other prominent sociologists in accord with Campolo include William Bainbridge of the University of Washington.
Do you know William Bainbridge?
DR. STARK: I have published about twenty-five papers with him and I guess the third book is on the way, so, yes, I have written with the man quite a lot.
MR. MORGAN: In your opinion, would Mr. Bainbridge approve of Mr. Duddy's utilization of the Lofland-Stark Model here?
DR. STARK: He would throw up.
MR. MORGAN: Mr. Duddy goes on, then, to in effect restate your model. Does he accurately restate it?
DR. STARK: No. He does not. He misses the entire point.
MR. MORGAN: Maybe I could ask you first to tell the court in substance what Mr. Duddy says is your model.
DR. STARK: The model basically has two sets of elements. We could call them background elements and process elements.
The background elements are characteristics of individuals that they develop over time or they were born with. These are the characteristics people bring with them to the situation in which they encounter either family and friends who have suddenly taken up a new religious outlook or they run into people who are out there with a new religious outlook, new in terms of their background.
These people could be Baptists or they could be Moonies, but different from your previous background. All right. So there are those aspects. Those are the aspects the social science had always concentrated on.
Well, these people must be feeling a little antsy, to the extent that they aren't perfectly satisfied with their religion. They must probably not be complete atheists if you are going to try and convert them to religion. If they absolutely cannot accept the conceivable, that there is a spiritual world, presumably there are some background beliefs that lock people off from the possibility of changing. Somebody who is a very satisfied Catholic doesn't become something different. So we isolated some of these conditions, and we get to a point where we are talking about a turning point in people's lives. I hate the language now. But what it really meant, and we spelled it out, is that people are structurally more or less available during the course of their lives.
When you are married and have a job and five kids, you have less freedom to conceive of a new kind of life. When you are nineteen years old and just came to San Francisco from Biloxi, Mississippi, and you are looking for a job, you have got a lot of options open. You still don't know what you are going to be when you grow up, and you haven't got a wife and kids. People who are in that condition of freedom often find it much easier to shift who they are and what they are going to be when they grow up.
But up to this point we are talking pretty conventional social science, and we are kind of saying it is not important because there are millions and millions of people out there who meet all of these conditions and yet very few of them ended up joining the particular group we were looking at.
And so at this point we introduced what we thought was the guts of the model, which is a process of interaction between the potential convert, if you will, and the group to be converted to. It is at this point that the door comes down, Duddy stops reporting the model, and in other words, he skips everything important in the model and comes with some flat assertions that are completely, almost diabolically, the reverse of what the model says.
MR. MORGAN: In your opinion, could Mr. Duddy just have misunderstood your model?
DR. STARK: Well, it's possible he never read it. No, it is entirely possible that he got a third- or fourth-hand re-chew of the thing that other people have been grinding up and passing around. It becomes almost an oral tradition out there. I can't be in Mr. Duddy's mind, and Mr. Duddy has told me nothing. I don't know whether he actually went and consulted the paper or not.
MR. MORGAN: But if he read it?
DR. STARK: If he did, then one doesn't want to underestimate the capacity of idiocy. I am forced to conclude that if he did read the paper, this was malicious.
MR. MORGAN: And how did he alter the model?
DR. STARK: What Lofland and I say is, hey, the world has millions of people out here qualified to change religions, and they definitely do not do that because certain social processes and conditions are required for conversion to occur. To sum it up, you end up accepting the religious views of your closest associates, whether these are new associates or old associates.
Very frequently people join a new religion because their friends and relatives join it before them, and this spreads through pre-existing friendship nets and bonds, which is the way the real world works; we influence one another.
The reason most of us don't steal is because we influence one another. We kind of keep each other straight, and what we discovered watching conversion is that if people had more and closer ties to the group than they had ties to people outside the group trying to pull them back, they joined, but if the equation worked out the other way, they didn't join. The marvelous thing is how unimportant frequently religion was in this whole process.
That people could, in fact, hang around a group, like them, maybe be relatives of them, friends with them, whatever, but be there in a long period of close association expressing little or no interest in the religion and no belief in it, and eventually having their interest kindled by the fact that their friends really did care and were committed, and finally building up to a point, saying, you know, it just came to me last night that I have been just kind of wasting my time and failing to see the truth, and suddenly comes the vision.
Then a lot of things can get recoded by these people saying, actually I was always interested in religion. In my observation, watching them, they typically weren't.
MR. MORGAN: How did Duddy's differ?
DR. STARK: What he says, first of all, is that it is like knocking passenger pigeons out of the trees at this point. He is talking at this point of how any experienced proselytizer can take these people right over:
The fourth, final stage in the seduction syndrome is the turning point-a moment of transition, migration or uncertainty such as a change and/or failure in career or school, divorce, etc., that renders the pre-convert rootless, thereby susceptible to messianic figures/groups. If, through peculiar happenstance, persons in the fourth state (the turning point) of the seduction syndrome-
MR. MORGAN: That is not your words, is it?
DR. STARK: No, there are no such words. I mean, it is a word but- -meet a purveyor offering to solve their personal problems within the natal method of the pre-convert, a conversion inevitably results (barring a "fumble" by the group's representative or leader). Conversion, say Lofland and Stark, can be readily achieved by skilled proselyters.
It is not so. If I said it, I was an idiot. I hope that I can do a better job pretending not to be.
MR. MORGAN: You're saying, "It did not say that"?
DR. STARK: It did not say that. It said the reverse! Still, conversion is very rare of people who have fulfilled all these stages of the model, gotten to the turning point. What we were trying to stress was that the world is full of people. How many nineteen year olds are there? There are millions. There are all kinds of people who have just gotten divorced, just changed to a new town, just gotten out of school, just flunked out of school, or whatever.
There are lots of people who are loose and available and who might not think that their religion satisfied. There are millions of them, but they don't join groups. In order to do this you have got to build bonds of friendship and trust and affection and concern and interest.
I will bet there's never been anybody show up to the door of the `'Local Church'' saying, "Got your tract, here I am. I am ready to join." I have never seen a conversion like that happen in my life.
MR. MORGAN: Have you also made studies on what happens after the conversion? How many stay?
DR. STARK: Well, I haven't done a lot of that, but there certainly has been a great deal done on that. That will vary. Frankly, the people who join liberal Protestant congregations don't stay because there is no cohesive group life to hold them there. The more affection that people give you, the more you feel good about being someplace and the more you want to stay there.
Now in terms of what you might call the really heavy- duty religious movement, that is asking tremendous commitment from you; I guess the heavier the request, the more frequently that there is turnover in membership.
Lots and lots of people go into these groups in which the turnover is very high. Eileen Barker, as I said, has been studying the Moonies for about twelve years in London. For every hundred people who actually show up at a workshop, so it means they have been preselected for having some interest, for being willing to come, for knowing Moonies.
They have been exposed to the mind benders. Out of every one hundred who comes, only about three ever join the church. Boy, is that a bad mind control. And of those, about half quit within the first eighteen months. So it must be relatively easy to do.
Of those who leave, it is hard pickings to find that many disgruntled people. People say, hey, that seemed like the thing to do, and boy, have I got a lot of good, warm friendships there, but now I think it is time to go do something else. That is kind of an interesting rhetoric compared to what we're being quoted here. I have never met a skilled proselytizer. There might be some guy someplace who can just walk up and do that, but he is busy doing something else.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Do you believe that with some of these people that are converted, there is a need in the person that the people doing the conversion are able to satisfy a need? For instance, I remember reading in Helter Skelter that Manson says, "These were your children that you discarded or couldn't relate to or couldn't get along with. They were left sitting on the corner of the streets, and I came along, and they were in need of love and friendship, and I just provided it for them, and they came along."
DR. STARK: Yes, I think he used a phrase like they were set out like the garbage.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: He said, "I picked up your garbage."
DR. STARK: There are people around desperately in need of a connection, and so sometimes conversion can happen pretty darn fast. I am more familiar with the Love Family in Seattle, which is now disbanded, than with Manson; this group doesn't have nearly the ugly characteristics. They were a halfway house for all the sick and crazy and lost kids. You could crash with them. Some people found it real snug and real comfortable and real good, and so they stayed.
One of the interesting things is that now these people are approaching forty and have children; they're feeling so good about themselves that they decided not to do it anymore.
MR. MORGAN: In the book Mr. Duddy is purporting to show that this was a sociological study, isn't that right?
DR. STARK: Yes, of course he was. There was no reason to bring this in but to give it the trappings of science and say, "By the way, if the religion isn't bad enough, and I have pointed out all these terrible, terrible, terrible things of being unbiblical, let me tell you these people have been identified as part of this ugly crowd by scientific sociologists. They come and prey upon you and upon your children. I guess they can pray-read too, but it is a sinister image. They are standing at the alley with the net."
MR. MORGAN: Immediately following this statement about the skilled proselytizer there is a story about a young girl named Cia who gets ensnared in this; is that right?
DR. STARK: Yes, and as I recollect, the headline is that it is a case study. Well, a case study of what? I assumed that it was going to be some kind of effort to apply our model. It rambles away and doesn't with any great clarity do that, but it is clearly there. My stuff is used as a front end, as frosting on the cake for a horror story that he is now going to tell, and I gather when all is said and done, it was all hearsay.
MR. MORGAN: And there is no support from your study for what he is saying, is there?
DR. STARK: No.
MR. MORGAN: Let me ask you this. You had a chance to study the `'Local Church'' people?
DR. STARK: Well-
MR. MORGAN: Not a sociological study.
DR. STARK: I didn't sit on the couch with them or anything, but I saw and talked to them. Had very nice shortcake with them once. I needed it.
Melton Classified The "Local Church" Right, They Are An Evangelical Protestant Denomination
MR. MORGAN: Let me ask you, can you give us your opinion as to where they fit in the spectrum of Christianity?
DR. STARK: Well, being a sociologist of religion, I agree that Gordon Melton put them in the right volume of his book. They are without a doubt an evangelical Protestant denomination. Given the kind of moral tone of the group, one would call them a sect rather than a church, a church being a place where the minister says, "Well, a spot of Jack Daniels is okay and let's go play golf," a sect saying, "Well, we don't need the golf course, and a 7-Up, please." They fit right in the middle of evangelical Protestantism. We never thought to classify them as anything else nor would any sociologist of religion that I would know of.
MR. MORGAN: Are you saying they wouldn't be classified as a cult in the pejorative term?
DR. STARK: Oh, pejorative or non-pejorative, I'm one of these idiots who clung to trying to use the word cult in a technical, sociological sense to mean a religious movement not in the main tradition of the society we are observing. So that Christianity is a cult movement in India; Hinduism is a cult movement in the United States.
I am now sorry I tried to fight this battle for twenty years because the newspapers have killed me. The newspapers are going to own that word, and it's going to mean awful, awfulness. It is going to mean Jim Jones. It is going to mean bad things.
But, going back to the word cult as a technical, useful word; it is precisely what I have said: no, absolutely not! Because we are not talking here about structure. We are talking about doctrine. Are they still within the conventional tradition within American society, and the answer is so obviously yes.
MR. MORGAN: As a reporter you had a chance to review Duddy's work by way of investigative reporting. In your opinion, would you describe for us the type of investigative reporting that you saw he did in this book?
DR. STARK: Well, I guess I have lost a lot of my faith in that old profession because the National Enquirer and lots of groups have come to the fore since then, but this isn't journalism. First of all, it is clear the book was written backwards.
MR. MORGAN: What do you mean by that?
DR. STARK: The conclusion is where the book starts, that the Spiritual Counterfeits Project doesn't go after people to go out and say, "Hey-it isn't the Mobil four-star. We are going to give these people good ratings and these people bad ratings." They only write attacks. The decision had been made. There had been earlier rumbles over here, after all, by the same group. Duddy was given an assignment, and he did it.
Unfortunately, he didn't cover his tracks. He was extraordinarily careless, because as was clear in the depositions, he didn't check anything. If all he was going to do was write a book being real nasty to Witness Lee's theology, we wouldn't be here today, because that is fair in American society. You can do that.
But the second you start naming names and events, discrediting events, sexual hanky-panky, financial hanky-panky, or indeed getting to a certain point of quoting a man's theological statements diametrically opposed to what the man is saying, then I think we are not talking about religion; we are talking about truth; we are talking about libel; we are talking about fairness; we are talking about a whole constellation of things.
There is none of that here. This is the worst kind of rumormongering being passed off. But it is clear it was being done for a purpose, and it was systematic.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Being what?
DR. STARK: It was done for a purpose.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Do you know what that purpose was?
DR. STARK: Yes. For some reason, which I have no idea of, the `'Local Church'' was next on the hit list, and they got hit.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: I have a question. Do you feel that when you write books of this type that people would be more likely to read something negative than positive?
DR. STARK: Sure. When I was at the Oakland Tribune, I can remember old Al Reck, rest his soul, sweet old city editor, jumping up and saying we have had a hell of a great air wreck.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Obviously the volume of these books that are sold is nothing compared to any kind of a hit list book, so you are not going to make money on the number of books you sell, but does anything in your studies show that publishing these books where people would read them with this kind of a story would create contributions that might assist whatever you are trying to do in your cause, in other words, the writers of this book would seek to get additional contributions because people read these things and say, "Hey, these guys are real crusaders out here." Do you think that could occur in this kind of journalism?
DR. STARK: Well, I think the motive for this kind of journalism is to damage the group as much as possible.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Do you think people then contribute to these kind of things?
DR. STARK: Oh, absolutely. I think that the project has been sold to a lot of people in the evangelical world as a good work, as a terribly important thing to help us guard our children, and you said the book doesn't have terrific circulation, but it can have very targeted circulation.
I met a young man. He had taken introductory sociology from me as a freshman. I didn't know that because I had eight hundred kids in the room. I met him. He's now become a member of the Local Church. When he was a student in my class and a freshman at the University of Washington, perhaps a sophomore, and had begun fellowshipping with the `'Local Church'' and was kind of checking it out, The God-Men was put on his bunk in his room in the dorm along with an anonymous note kind of suggesting that he ought to check out what he was playing around with because he was playing around with the devil, he was playing around with bad stuff. Here is a book published by what is thought to be a very legitimate-
MR. MORGAN: Inter-Varsity Press.
DR. STARK: Legitimate people. This is an evangelical kid, and so he is sensitive to the fact of anti-cult literature, if you will, and he didn't know. As it turns out, some of the people in the book were people he had already gotten to know, and he realized that it didn't wash.
But, sure, how many kids have been scared off? How many parents have been scared? The aim of this book is to keep the `'Local Church'' from converting the Christians to their particular denomination. That is the whole point. Spiritual Counterfeits is out there to warn. It is kind of a `'consumer research'' for the evangelical world as it is so conceived.
MR. MORGAN: His Honor asked you, do you have any opinion that by SCP achieving this so-called fame that they in turn get assistance and contribution from people throughout the country?
DR. STARK: I imagine that is a matter of public record since they are a nonprofit organization in bankruptcy.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: What would your opinion be?
DR. STARK: Yes, of course. Let's put it this way. I could peddle this. I could raise funds.
Devastating Effect On Witness Lee & The "Local Church" As Seen in Christianity Today's Misinformed Story
MR. MORGAN: Let me finish it now. What in your opinion has been the effect of this book, this manuscript on Witness Lee and the `'Local Church''?
DR. STARK: Well, I think it's been devastating, and I will give you as evidence an article in an extraordinarily influential publication a week or two ago called Christianity Today. It is the centerpiece of the evangelical world. They covered the fact that the trial didn't take place when it was supposed to, and the fact of the bankruptcy, and whatnot.
It was exceedingly unsympathetic, skirting very close structurally to some of the issues here with us today, and I am sure that these are not bad people sitting out there in Illinois. I think they are very misinformed people who still think that
(A) The God-Men was right, it was an accurate book, and
(B) the terrible problem that the evangelical world is facing, we are about to lose our `'Consumer Guide,'' our consumer research agency, because these people are taking them to court and punishing them as an attempt to silence them.
That was the way this was reported, and I was prompted to write to the editor a long letter to try to clarify the moral issue of a day in court. But without the book, of course, there wouldn't have been the story. But without the book, I don't imagine that Christianity Today would be bothering much with the `'Local Church'' one way or the other. Gordon Melton is one of the few people on earth who had heard of them in my world until this book came out, and Gordon Melton has heard of everyone.
MR. MORGAN: Thank you. I have no further questions, Your Honor.
JUDGE SEYRANIAN: Thank you.
Copyright © 1995 Living Stream, Anaheim, CA, USA. All rights reserved
BEFORE YOU TRY AND REMOVE THE STICK FROM MY ARSE, REMOVE THE TELEPHONE POLE FROM YOUR OWN ARSE.
Alan,
thanks for the response! How did you find this out, that his research is/has been funded by the Scientologist? How much of his research?
I think if I were going to email him, my one question would be, "Were you paid by the Watchtower for the clip that appears on their website or for anything else?"
-Lisa
The question I would like to ask is, who the F*** is DR. Stark??? I is it the same as Mr. Spock?? I like how they think they can throw around some guys name with a Doctoral title and we have to take what he said as gospel truth. It’s like the ads on TV that show some guy in a white coat selling medicine. Anyway he couldn't be raised as a Dub other wise he would be mopping floors somewhere.
Will
"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
Mark Twain
