John Gordon Melton (born September 19, 1942) is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and was the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas where he resides. He is also an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.
Melton is the author of more than forty-five books, including several encyclopedias, handbooks, and scholarly textbooks on American religious history, Methodism, world religions, and new religious movements (NRMs). His areas of research include major religious traditions, American Methodism, new and alternative religions, Western Esotericism and occultism, and parapsychology, New Age, and Dracula and vampire studies.
Early life and education
Melton was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Burnum Edgar Melton and Inez Parker. During his senior year in high school, he came across The Small Sects in America by Elmer T. Clark; he became interested in reading as much as possible on alternative religions.
In 1964, he graduated from Birmingham Southern College with an A.B. degree in geology. After completing his undergraduate education he matriculated into Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to study theology and ancient church history, graduating first in his class with a Master of Divinity in 1968. He completed doctoral studies at Northwestern University with a Ph.D. in He married Dorothea Dudley in 1966, who had one daughter, Melanie. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979. His second wife is named Suzie.
Melton has authored several encyclopedic works on American religion. He authored the Encyclopedia of American Religions, first published by Gale in 1979, which he revised in several editions every few years. The book was a success. This distinction has been subsequently acknowledged by sociologists such as Douglas E. Cowan and Eileen Barker. As of 2006, he had edited 17 and written 30 books. When Sony was accused of copyright infringement over a story involving vampires and werewolves in 2003, the company contacted Melton, who testified that stories about conflicts between the two sets of creatures had been present since the 1950s. The case was settled. Lewis recruited Melton, human rights lawyer Barry Fisher, and chemical expert Thomas Banigan. They flew to Japan, with their travel expenses paid by Aum, and announced that they would investigate and report through press conferences at the end of their trip.
In the press conferences, Fisher and Lewis announced that Aum could not have produced the sarin with which the attacks had been committed. They had determined this with their technical expert, Lewis said, based on photos and documents provided by the group. British scholar of Japanese religions Ian Reader, in a detailed account of the incident, reported that Melton "had few doubts by the end of his visit to Japan of Aum's complicity" and eventually "concluded that Aum had in fact been involved in the attack and other crimes";
Reception
The Los Angeles Times described Melton as "one of the nation's foremost authorities on religion (and vampires [...])". Stephen A. Kent and Theresa Krebs, for example, characterized Gordon Melton, James R. Lewis, and Anson D. Shupe as biased towards the groups they study.
Similarly, Perry Bulwer, B.A, LLB. has called Melton's research into The Family International "unreliable" and alleges bias and support for the NRM.
Publications
Books
See also
- List of new religious movement and cult researchers
- Sociological classifications of religious movements