The Triumph of Faith ─ Why the World Is More Religious Than Ever

Think religious faith is dying? Think again.

Believe it or not, the world is more religious than ever before.

Everybody seems to take it for granted that the world is getting more secular—that faith is doomed by modernity. Scientists, secularists, and atheists applaud the change; religious believers lament it.

But here’s the thing: they’re all wrong—and acclaimed author Rodney Stark has the numbers to prove it.

The Triumph of Faith explodes the myth that people around the world are abandoning religion. Stark marshals an unprecedented body of data—surveys of more than a million people in 163 nations—to paint the full picture that both scholars and popular commentators have missed. And he explains why the astonishing growth of religion is happening and what it means for our future.

Stark’s lively, eye-opening book is full of insights that defy the conventional wisdom. He reveals:

• Why Islam is not overtaking Christianity
• How four out of five people worldwide now belong to an organized -religion
• How 50 percent have attended a worship service in the past week
• Why atheists remain few, anywhere—despite all the talk of the “New -Atheism”
• Why much-ballyhooed findings from the Pew Research Center and others get the religious landscape wrong

As Stark shows, secularists have been predicting the imminent demise of religion for centuries. It is their unshakable faith in secularization that may be the most -“irrational” of all beliefs.