Dr. Rodney Stark, Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor, "Early Christianity: 'Opium' of the Privileged?"

Stark received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Starks is the author of several books that have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including Cities of God; Discovering God; The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success; One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism; The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy; and The Rise of Christianity.