The Stark-B ainbridge Theory of Religion

Stark's and Bainbridge's A Theory of Religion was published in 1987 and was a companion volume to their Future of Religion published two years earlier. It was the intent of the authors to produce a wide-ranging volume with an empirical focus and a theory that, among other things, would account for their findings. For Stark and Bainbridge, theory is supposed to explain data and generate empirically testable hypotheses which, when assessed, either falsify or support theory. A theory in their view is a set of logically interrelated propositions deduced from axioms or underived assumptions. Stark and Bainbridge, then, follow the form of theorizing that, according to Ernest Nagel (1961) and certain other philosophers, constitutes the deductive mode of science. The Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion is in that sense a scientific theory of religion. It is, in fact, the only extensive formal deductive theory of religion that I know of.