Homage to Ozymandias: A Rejoinder to Bainbridge and Stark

Abstract

In our critical appraisal of the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion (Wallis and Bruce, 1984), we emphasised among other things the intellectual challenge we had found in the recent theoretical work of these authors, and the illustrious company of grand theorists in which such an endeavour placed them. While we sought to show their reductionistic approach to be fundamentally misconceived, we attempted to do so in an appropriately respectful fashion. S a d l y -a n d somewhat surprisingly given the exchange theoretic schema which they espouse-we were to be accorded little reciprocity in this respect. Rudeness may pass for plain speaking in certain circles with which we all have to deal, but in academic life it is a poor substitute for cogency of argument.And new argument of a cogent kind is precisely what we do not find in the recent rejoinder, "Formal explanation of religion: a progress report" by Bainbridge and Stark (1984). Rather we find a series of assertions to the effect that these two authors are right, principally it would seem because a computer simulation of"a small human society" has modelled predictions of their theory. This is meant to show that the concept of"reward" and "compensator" are meaningful and discriminable. Since we are told nothing further about how these concepts are defined in terms of the particular program, nor any of the other parameters of the simulation, such a claim can carry no appreciable persuasive weight.A second reason why Stark and Bainbridge must be right it seems is because they have conducted many test of hypotheses derived from their theory. The status of these studies as tests which will discriminate between one theoretical explanation and another is, of course, precisely one of the claims which we dispute. S & B assert that their theory predicts that new religions will arise where conventional faiths are weak. So does ours. Indeed, we know of no serious contemporary thinker on secularisation who has argued otherwise.Bainbridge and Stark also refer to a study of religion and suicide as supportive of their theory. The conclusion of that study is that their "data reveal a strong religious effect on suicide independent of social integration" (Stark, Doyle and Rushing, 1983:129). This effect may well be a result of the value of religion as "a potent compensator in the face of adversity and suffering", as the authors argue (1983:123), but given that we only have aggregate data we can conclude no more (even were we to accept that the correlations represent what people who do or do not kill themselves think about the world, rather than merely what coroners and others involved in the definition of suicide think about the circumstances surrounding different types of death) than that where there are a lot of church members there is less suicide. We remain no more enlightened about rewards and compensators than we were before the case study. We have not even eliminated the possibility that being a church member is a sign of maturity or even of divine 73

Education and Fundamentalism

“…Our results suggest that historical Fundamentalism in the lower class included Christian Rightism and populism. At present, there is no adequate empirical justification for the suggestion that liberal churches have become completely secular, in the sense meant by Stark and Bainbridge. [The debate between Stark and Bainbridge, on one hand, and Wallis and Bruce, on the other, is contained in Wallis and Bruce, 1984;Bainbridge and Stark, 1984;Bruce and Wallis, 1985. [The latter finding is consistent with results obtained in an earlier Middletown study; see Johnson, Tamney, and Halebsky, 1986.…”

Differential Ecological Receptivity of Conversionist and Revolutionist Sects: A Reconsideration of Stark and Bainbridge

“…Some of these include Martin (1983), Wallis and Bruce (1984), Bruce and Wallis (1985), Bibby and Weaver (1985), and Wallis (1986). All of this is worth reading, but whatever the shortcomings of Stark and Bainbridge's particular work, support for an oppositional definition of"cult" is still impressive (Richardson, 1978).…”