Rodney Stark

Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations.

America is an unusually religious nation.

There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did.

You have the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Wesleyans, represented in each school, and they are each to take alternate days.

They were two very religious people. My father was a foundry worker and was a daily Mass attender, as was my mother.

Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.