I don’t typically mention my publications on this blog, but this is one about which I am particularly proud. I think it is a significant contribution not only to the study of Mormonism but also to theory in the Sociology of Religion as well. I’m also proud of it because of the amount of time that went into it. I’m guessing that this article took me close to 1,000 hours to produce (that’s about 41 days). It started as a class project in graduate school, probably around 2003 or 2004. It then turned into a series of conference presentations, was submitted to three different journals, all of which rejected it but provided useful feedback. Eventually I decided that the article needed to aim larger than just Mormons, so I included Adventists and Witnesses and invited Ron Lawson to help me (he’s an expert on Adventists and Witnesses). Anyway, here’s a link to the article:
The Secular Transition: The Worldwide Growth of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-day Adventists
If you’re really geeky and want to read the article but don’t have access to the journal via a university subscription, let me know and I can send you a copy of the article.
