In this unique text, Stark and Bainbridge begin with basic statements about human nature and, employing the principles of logic and philosophy, build toward increasingly complex propositions about societies and their religious institutions. They provide a rigorous yet flexible sociological theory of religion as well as a general sociological model for deriving macrolevel theory from microlevel evidence.

Rodney Stark is a professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington and co-author of The Churching of America: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (Rutgers University Press). William Sims Bainbridge is director of the sociology program at the National Science Foundation and author of Goals in Space: American Values and the Future of Technology.