David Martin

David Alfred Martin, FBA (30 June 1929 – 8 March 2019) was a British sociologist and Anglican priest who studied and wrote extensively about the sociology of religion.

Early life and education David Martin was born on 30 June 1929 in Mortlake. He was the son of a "between-maid" from Dorset and a groom from Hertfordshire who became a chauffeur and then a black cab driver in London and preached regularly at Hyde Park. He was brought up in a revivalist family and attended Barnes Methodist Church. for a London external degree in Sociology. He won the University Postgraduate Scholarship after gaining a first-class degree in 1959. This enabled him to study for a PhD at the London School of Economics (LSE) with Professor Donald MacRae. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1964 and it was published as Pacifism: a Historical and Sociological Study in 1965. He spent 1961 to 1962 as Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Sociological Studies in Sheffield University. and the first comparative empirical theory of secularisation in "Notes for a General Theory of Secularisation" (1969). This early work was extended and published in book form as A General Theory of Secularisation (1978), a landmark text in the history of secularization studies. He has continued to contribute to the conversation about secularization and the resilience of religion to the present.

As part of his interest in the various routes different societies take to the modern, Martin was also a major pioneer of the comparative study of Pentecostalism, beginning with a path-breaking study of Latin America and extending globally. He has made crucial contributions on the connections between violence and religion, anticipating again much future scholarship; the relations between sociology and theology; and on music and religion (2002). He has also published widely on the condition of the contemporary university, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., 'Trends and Standards in British Higher Education' in The Western University on Trial, edited by John W Chapman [University of California Press, 1983], 167-83).

David Martin was professor of sociology at the LSE from 1971 until his retirement in 1989. In 2015, American (Baylor University Press) and Chinese (Renmin University Press) versions of A David Martin Reader were published.

In 1953 he married Daphne Sylvia Treherne at Barnes Methodist Church; they had two sons and divorced in 1957. In 1962 he married Bernice Thompson, herself a distinguished sociologist at London University (Bedford College). They had a daughter and two sons.

Martin died at his home in Woking on 8 March 2019, at the age of 89.

Major publications "Towards Eliminating the Concept of Secularization", Penguin Journal of the Social Sciences 1965, edited by Julius Gould (Penguin, 1965). Pacifism: A Historical and Sociological Study (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965). A Sociology of English Religion, (SCM, 1967) "Towards a General Theory of Secularization", European Journal of Sociology, vol. 10 (December 1969). The Religious and the Secular, (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) Tracts against the Times, (Lutterworth, 1973) A General Theory of Secularization (Blackwell, 1978) The Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion, (Blackwell, 1978) The Breaking of the Image: A Sociology of Christian Theory and Practice (Blackwell, 1980). Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Blackwell, 1990). Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin American and Catholicism in Eastern Europe (SPCK, 1996). Reflections on Sociology and Theology (Clarendon, 1997). Does Christianity Cause War? (Clarendon, 1997). Christian Language and Its Mutations: Essays in Sociological Understanding (Ashgate, 2002). Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Blackwell, 2002). Christian Language in the Secular City (Ashgate 2002). On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory (Ashgate, 2005). Sacred History and Sacred Geography: Spiritual Journeys in Time and Space (Regent College, 2008). The Future of Christianity: Reflections on Violence and Democracy, Religion and Secularization (Ashgate, 2011). The Education of David Martin: The Making of an Unlikely Sociologist (SPCK, 2013) Religion and Power: No Logos without Mythos (Ashgate, 2014)