Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion Summary

Stark and Finke explore the emergence of the social science of religion and the role of secularization throughout Judaism and Christianity.

They argue that, much like the biblical story of David and Goliath, religion has also shown that it is the underdog that is successful throughout history. They go on to highlight the struggles of the Jews but how eventually, they rose to prominence and became an “upstart-sect” that overcome the dominance of others.

Stark and Finke attempt to introduce a new paradigm that challenges the secularization theory – instead of arguing that secularization came as a direct result of empirical data, they suggest that it instead originated from liberal, free thinkers who were inherently against the concept of religion.