Stuart A. Wright

Stuart A. Wright is an American Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas who has served as a legal expert in several high profile trials in the United States.

Biography

Wright is a former National Institutes of Mental Health Research Fellow (Yale University), Rockefeller Foundation Scholar (Bellagio, Italy), and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study, part of the Norwegian Academy of Science & Letters, in Oslo. In 2000, Lamar recognized Wright with a career achievement award as University Scholar.

Wright has authored over fifty publications in scholarly books and journals. He is known internationally for his research on religious and political movements, conflict and violence. Wright has been working recently on a project involving the rise of Christian Nationalism, failed prophecy among self-proclaimed prophets tied to the New Apostolic Reformation movement, and the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol in 2021.

Wright has published seven books, including

• Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict (University of Chicago Press 1995)
• Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing (Cambridge University Press 2007)
• Saints under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (with James T. Richardson, New York University Press 2011).
• Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities (with Susan J. Palmer, Oxford University Press 2016)
• The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die or Dissipate (with Michael Stausberg and Carol M. Cusack, Bloomsbury Academic Publishers 2020).

Wright also serves as legal expert in his field. He has testified in Congressional hearings on state-sect conflict and served as an advisor to the FBI’s FBI Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG). Wright worked as an expert or consultant in the Branch Davidian criminal and civil trials, the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. and the trials of polygamists after the Texas raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints YFZ Ranch in 2008.

Dr. Wright has served on the Executive Councils of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), the Religious Research Association (RRA) and the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR). He has served on the Board of Directors for the Association for the Academic Study of New Religions (AASNR) since its inception in 2001.

Bibliography

• Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict, University Of Chicago Press (September 20, 1995), ISBN 0-226-90845-3.
• The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die or Dissipate , Bloomsbury Academic Publishers (December 2020), ISBN 978-1-3501-6291-4.
• Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics), Cambridge University Press (June 30, 2007), ISBN 0-521-69419-1.
• Saints under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (with James T. Richardson) (August 2011), New York University Press, ISBN 978-0-8147-9529-3.
• Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities (with Susan J. Palmer) (2016) Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-539890-8.