Top 15 Rodney Stark Quotes

Every minister knows it’s harder to get the guys to church than the women. We ought to be asking why this is.

For one, thing, the media are dominated by the irreligious. So are universities.

Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations.

There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did.

Mormons are an extraordinarily educated and professional population. They have all these virtues: They work hard, don’t skip school, have no scandals. Consequently, you find them in a lot of consequential places.

A whole lot of Americans have never met a Mormon.

High testosterone levels have been proven to make men more likely to commit crimes. The tendency in men toward risky behaviour keeps turning up even where socialization is different, and so does crime and delinquency.

Most churches are run by preachers who went to seminaries, who decided to be preachers when they were 18, 19, 20 years old. These preachers never met a payroll. They don’t know how the world works.

The more members of the clergy that are out there working to expand their congregations, the more people will go to church.

Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism.

It can be demonstrated that in any society there is a distribution of religious tastes and concerns.

Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most of you would not have learned to read, and the rest of you would be reading from hand-copied scrolls.

There are many critics who think the megachurches thrive on people who enjoy dramatic Sunday services with fine music but don’t wish to become very ‘religious’ on a day-to-day basis – that the megachurch appeal is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Regular church-goers are substantially more likely than non-attenders to read, to take newspapers and magazines, to listen to classical music, to attend symphony concerts, operas, and stage plays.

Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs.