1 of 13
In 1984, sociologist Rodney Stark startled the academic world with a claim that has kept religion-watchers scratching their heads ever since. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons," he predicted, "will soon achieve a worldwide following comparable to that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and the other dominant world faiths."1 Stark claimed that Mormonism had grown faster than any other new religion in American history. Between 1840 and 1980, it had averaged a growth rate of 44 percent per decade; in the four decades 1940 through 1980, growth zoomed to an astonishing 53 percent. If it maintained a 30 percent growth rate, Mormons would exceed 60 million by the year 2080; if 50 percent, then 265 million by 2080.2 "Today," he declared, "they stand on the threshold of becoming the first major faith to appear on earth since the Prophet Mohamed rode out of the desert."3
The Rise of |
In 1996, twelve years later, Stark reported that his high estimate of projected growth was too low: by 1995, there were one million more Mormons than even a growth rate of 50 percent had predicted. Therefore he was still holding to his earlier projection of 265 million by 2080.4 In 2001 he was saying the same: "By late in the twenty-first century the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be a major world religion."5
Rodney Stark is one of America's pre-eminent sociologists of religions. A onetime journalist who writes with a breezy and provocative style ("For much of its existence, the social scientific study of religion has been nothing of the sort," he deadpans in his new book on the Latter-day Saints), he has made a career out of debunking his discipline's cherished assumptions.6
Now University Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, Stark is unrepentant about his prediction of world-historical success for Mormonism. In The Rise of Mormonism, he continues to assert that the growth of this new American religion is "one of the great events in the history of religion," and, no less boldly, "the single most important case on the agenda of the social scientific study of religion." This volume updates his earlier articles, and also includes essays on conversion and secularization, arguing that Mormonism is proof positive that conversion is less about new beliefs than social connections (early Mormonism "spread mainly along family lines"), and that secularization is self-limiting because its spiritual emptiness stimulates the growth of new religions like Mormonism: "Empty Lutheran churches in Scandinavia are good news for LDS missionaries as well as for gurus."
Stark's book is the latest of a number of recent signs that Mormonism is becoming increasingly accepted as part of America's religious mainstream. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with 5.5 million members in 2003, is now the fifth largest American religious denomination, after Roman Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, and the Church of God in Christ.7 Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president. And Eerdmans, a respected Christian press, has poured significant marketing energy into a new book by a Mormon theologian on the identity of Jesus.8 This is therefore a good time to assess Stark's remarkable claims.
Is It New?In 1984, Stark insisted that, while Mormons "have retained cultural continuities with Christianity (just as Christianity retained continuities with Judaism and classical paganism)[,] … the Mormons are a new religion."9
share this page
RSS Feed
