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 a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author of more tha... more

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 a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including several encyclopedias, handbooks, and almanacs on American religion and new religious movements. He lives in Santa Barbara, California. His areas of research include major religious traditions, new religions and alternative religions, Occultism and Parapsychology, New Age, and vampirology. Melton has been criticized by several scholars for what they see as conflicts of interest in his reporting of some of the groups he studies. Melton was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Burnum Edgar Melton and Inez Parker... less