Bryan R. Wilson

Bryan Ronald Wilson, (25 June 1926 – 9 October 2004), was Reader Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Oxford and President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (1971–75). He became a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1963.

Wilson was the author of several influential books on new religious movements, including Sects and Society: A Sociological Study of the Elim Tabernacle, Christian Science, and Christadelphians (1961), Magic and the Millennium (1973), and The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism (1990).

Wilson was born in Leeds. He spent his undergraduate years at University College, Leicester, obtaining an External BSc (Econ) with First Class Honours from the University of London in 1952. He continued his studies under the supervision of Donald MacRae at the London School of Economics, where he was awarded his PhD in 1955 for a thesis entitled Social aspects of religious sects: A study of some contemporary groups in Great Britain with special reference to a Midland city. His thesis formed the basis of his first book, Sects and Society (1961).

He took up a lecturing post at the University of Leeds, a position he held until 1962 when he became Reader in Sociology at Oxford. A year later he became a Fellow of All Souls, and returned there after each of his many sojourns in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, or Australia as a researcher or Visiting Professor. In 1984 the University of Oxford conferred upon him a DLitt. In 1992 the Catholic University of Leuven, Louvain, Belgium, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sociology of religion.

Wilson was a founding member of the University Association for the Sociology of Religion. From 1971 to 1975, he was President of the CISR (now known as the International Society for the Sociology of Religion or SISR). At the 1991 conference he became the first scholar to receive an honorary presidency from the Society. He was European editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, sitting on the editorial board of the Annual Review of the Social Science of Religion, and sharing responsibility for the English-language papers of SISR issues of Social Compass.

Wilson exercised a formative influence on the sociology of religion in Britain. His 1959 paper, "An Analysis of Sect Development" in the American Sociological Review, and his book Sects and Society (1961) – a study of the Elim Churches, the Christadelphians, and Christian Science – may be regarded as representing the beginning of contemporary academic study of new religious movements.

Wilson created a sociological typology to analyse new religious movements:

Wilson made further contributions with his influential The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism: Sects and New Religious Movements in Contemporary Society (1990). He was also a pioneer of studies of millennialism, many years before this field achieved its present visibility, in Magic and the Millennium (1973).

The book Secularization, Rationalism, and Sectarianism: Essays in Honour of Bryan R. Wilson (1993) was published in his honour.