The Social Scientific Study of R

The second Summer Institute for the Social Scientific Study of Religion was held on July 11-23, 2005 at Renmin University of China, Beijing. More than 70 faculty members, graduate students and undergraduate students from over 20 provinces participated in it, and more than 40 people received certificates for fully participating in all the lectures and completing fieldwork practices.

The major lecturers were Roger Finke (first week) and Gordon Melton (second week):

                 Roger Finke is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. He has co-authored two award-winning books with Rodney Stark: Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (received the 2001 ASA Sociology of Religion Book Award) and The Churching of America, 1776-1990 (received the 1993 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion). Finke is the founder and Director of the Internet-based American Religion Data Archive (www.TheARDA.com) and served as the section chair of the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Religion Section

          J. Gordon Melton is founder and director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion. He has authored more than 40 books including the Encyclopedia of American Religions (1979; 7^th edition, 2002), now a standard reference book on North American religious bodies. His other books include Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha's School of Ancient Wisdom, The Cult Experience, Biographical Dictionary of Cult and Sect Leaders, The Encyclopedia Handbook of Cults in America, New Age Encyclopedia, and American Religion: An Illustrated History. Dr. Melton is also the senior editor of four different series of books on American religions. He is a research specialist at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. in History and Literature of Religions (1975) from Northwestern University

In addition, Professor Katherine Meyer of Ohio State University and Professor Min Zhou of University of California in Los Angeles gave a lecture each. Several renowned Chinese scholars also gave lectures, including Professor Fang Litian and Professor Yang Huilin of the Renmin University of China, Professor Feng Jinyuan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Professor Mou Zhongjian of the Central Nationalities University. Professor Fenggang Yang gave two lectures, one on “The Red, Black and Gray Markets of Religion in China,” and one on “The Chinese Protestant Ethic and Market Transition.”

In conjunction with the Summer Institute, the Symposium of the Social Scientific Study of Religion was held in Kunming, Yunnan on July 25-27, 2005.