J. Gordon Melton
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 is currently 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.
The Reverend J. Gordon Melton | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Gordon Melton September 19, 1942 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Birmingham Southern College, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Northwestern University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Methodist, Religion, New religious movements, American religious history |
| Institutions | Baylor University |
| Notable works | |
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 (popularly called occultism), and parapsychology, New Age, and Dracula and vampire studies.