J. Gordon Melton

The Reverend J. Gordon Melton
Born	John Gordon Melton (1942-09-19) September 19, 1942 (age 82) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Academic background
Education	Birmingham Southern College Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Thesis	The Shape and Structure of the American Religious Experience: A Definition and Classification of Primary Religious Bodies in the United States (1975)
Academic work
Discipline	Methodist, Religion, New religious movements, American religious history
Institutions	Baylor University
Notable works	The Encyclopedia of American Religions

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^[1] 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.^[2] 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 (popularly called occultism), and parapsychology, New Age, and Dracula and vampire studies.