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Rodney Stark

What Americans Really Believe Paperback – Illustrated, September 19, 2008

by Rodney Stark (Author)

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A shocking snapshot of the most current impulses in American religion. Rodney Stark reports the surprising findings of the 2007 Baylor Surveys of Religion, a follow up to the 2005 survey revealing most Americans believe in God or a higher power. This new volume highlights even more hot-button issues of religious life in our country. A must-read for anyone interested in Americans' religious beliefs and practices.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sociologist Stark has been surveying and observing American religious beliefs and practices for 40 years. This broad experience is reflected in the breadth of questions used to characterize contemporary American religious attitudes; from the Bible to Bigfoot, denomination to Da Vinci Code, beliefs are measured and correlated with oodles of demographics. Stark provides evidence for his overarching theme that some fundamental American religious practices and ideas have remained both stable and diverse as a result of religious competition. The book's numbers will spark lively discussion and questions about inferences drawn from statistics and the ways in which questions were posed. Why, for example, are Catholics not considered a strict church that makes demands of members? Why is belief in miraculous physical healing considered mystical and not paranormal? Some will say that snarky snipes (calling other researchers careless and disparaging National Public Radio) have no place in data-driven sociology; others will relish a statistics-slinging fight among academics. Regardless, all who find in statistics precise food for thought, as well as articles, more surveys and books, owe Stark and his colleagues at Baylor gratitude. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A worthy addition to the burgeoning survey data literature in the sociology of religion. Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.

― CHOICE

All who find in statistics precise food for thought owe Stark and his colleagues at Baylor gratitude.

― Publisher's Weekly

Publisher : Baylor University Press; illustrated edition (September 19, 2008)
Language : English
Paperback : 217 pages
ISBN-10 : 1602581789
ISBN-13 : 978-1602581784
Item Weight : 9.5 ounces
Dimensions : 6.36 x 0.55 x 9.06 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,363,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #796 in Social Sciences Reference
- #1,319 in Psychology & Religion
- #3,454 in Sociology & Religion

Customer Reviews:
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H. E. Price

This book is out of date

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017

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In this book, Stark is presenting the results of a national survey that he supervised in 2008. Readers of the book now, nearly ten years later, should be aware that American religion has changed significantly. In particular, the percentage of unbelievers has nearly doubled from ten years earlier. American atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, and humanists are now around ten percent of the population. It is really only because the book is largely out of date in this an other ways that I give it a mediocre rating. Readers should also know that Stark has been a consistent champion of Christianity throughout his career as a sociologist and historian and is not an impartial observer, albeit he is an honest, thorough, responsible, reliable, original social scientist and scholar who should always be read as telling the truth as he sees it, and whose arguments are always worth considering.

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F. Gwin

Worth your time

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2012

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I have checked out the other reviews (specifically the 2 star ones, which at time of writing consists of two reviews), and I can say that they are accurate. Stark presents great figures and research, but he does draw some of his own strange conclusions into the data with his remarks. However, this book IS worth your time. There are very interesting and thought provoking statistics that have left me intrigued and with an interesting outlook on this country.
I recommend it.

On a side note, I found this book made me look at my own beliefs as a Christian as I read the questions and found out where I fit into the data. That in itself was fairly interesting and eye opening in some ways. It definitely added to the experience of reading the book.

3 people found this helpful

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W Means

Good content. I was hoping for some more current ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2018

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Good content. I was hoping for some more current content to support Smith and Denton's "Soul Searching: The religious Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers."

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C. Gardner

Facinating information - easy read!

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2010

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For a book that has a lot of statistics, I found this book to be an easy read. The information is important because religion effects all of our lives. He presents statistics in short, easy to read chapters, then gives you his conclusions. This could almost be considered a spiritual book in that it covers the same topics of the spiritual books out today, but instead of drawing his conclusions for principles of spirituality on his personal experiences he uses statics to explain: why we tithe and why we don't, how religious people are hardwired for God, is the New Atheism getting anywhere?, why some people are attracted to New Age religions or the paranormal, what is the real difference between the word "spiritual" and "religious," or why we shouldn't worry that there is a secret plan by Evangelicals to take over the American government. This is a very interesting book that will open your mind.

One person found this helpful

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Gregory A. Salyer

A real surprise!

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2012

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I purchased this book to read for a class I'm taking, so I was not sure how enjoyable it would be. It was extremely readable and even pleasurable. The results of the survey were quite a surprise. Much of the information was different than what is generally shared by others. Some of the information was quite encouraging, such as the conclusions made about young people leaving the church. Every pastor in America needs to read this book, and I would encourage anyone to read it who has an interest in knowing what Americans really believe.

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Keith Ferguson

Lots of charts & data with fascinating conclusions...

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2009

Verified Purchase

I've reviewed one Rodney Stark book before on my blog - his amazing work on early Christianity called The Rise of Christianity. In this book, Stark continues his pattern of using great research to challenge the common misconceptions that people inside and outside the church have about the Christian faith. I really appreciated his insights in What Americans Really Believe because I hear all the wrong conclusions in the circles I run with all the time. Pastors tend to continue to spread summary statements like "We're losing this generation of young people" or "The church is shrinking in America" or "Mega-churches have low standards for their people" without any supporting data. This book is definitely not for everyone (hence the 4/5 rating) because it contains lots of data and lots of charts about American religious life. But for a pastor in the trenches, it was very helpful.

Here are my pick of the top ten points that Stark makes in this book...

(1) Weekly church attendance as percentage of American population has been consistent over the last 50 years. Now people may report that they attend weekly when they actually don't (called the Halo effect), but the data shows that the same percentage of Americans have reported they attend weekly over the last 50 years.

(2) Conservative, evangelical denominations have been growing rapidly over the last 50 years while more liberal denominations have been shrinking. While attendance has been consistent overall, it has not been consistent across denominations. Those who believe the Bible and teach the historical doctrines of the faith have been growing, while those who don't have been getting smaller.

(3) The percentage of Americans who belong to a local church (members) has increased from 17% in 1776 to 69% in 2005. Despite the common myth that America has gone from churched to unchurched over the course of our nation's history, the data shows the opposite. That separation of church from state (no government funding of churches) has helped churches become more competitive for members and thus increased the percentage of churched Americans.

(4) Across the board, mega-churches tend to be more conservative doctrinally and expect more of their members than small congregations. Despite the common belief that big is bad, larger churches seem to be growing because they are more committed to the gospel, not less, and because they ask more from their members.

(5) Most Americans believe in a real heaven and real hell, and that they will most likely be going to heaven. Americans are interesting in that they believe that God created hell, but that He won't be sending anyone there when they die.

(6) As Americans make more money, the percentage of what they give to their local church goes down. In other words, the poorest Americans give the highest percent of their income. People who make less than $20k a year give 6.2% on average, while those that make over $100k a year give 2.2% on average. I would think that this shows us that more wealth makes us more selfish and less generous.

(7) The percentage of Americans who don't believe in God has held steady at 4% from 1944 until 2007. Despite constant claims that more and more Americans are denying God's existance because of the increase of scientific knowledge, Stark's research shows that the same percentage of Americans are atheists today as were in 1944.

(8) Irreligious Americans are most likely unchurched but not atheists. Somewhat related to the last point, this insight helps those of us trying to reach people in our culture who are irreligious. The people who are irreligious are not necessarily hostile toward the idea of God, but more likely just turned off by the church.

(9) Level of education does not correlate with level of church involvement. This was one of my favorite findings in Stark's book because it puts to bed the myth that stupid, uneducated people are religious and highly educated people are irreligious. Instead, Stark's team found that the % of people involved in church varies little between those who did not complete high school and those with post-graduate education.

(10) People are 50% less likely to be divorced if they attend religious services at least twice a month. Despite all the research showing that Christians have the same divorce rate as non-Christians, Stark goes at the question not from the angle of what people believe, but what they actually do. Regular church-attenders are much less likely to get divorced.

36 people found this helpful

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