David G. Bromley, is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. His primary area of teaching and research is sociology of religion, with a specialization in religious movements. He was also director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Hartford and chairman of Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Virginia.

Bromley is the editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, published by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion , and editor of Religion and the Social Order, an annual serial published by the Association for the Sociology of Religion .

He has been criticized by the anti-cult movement and labeled by them a "cult apologist."

Books

• Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. (Edited with J. Gordon Melton)
• The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998. (edited)
• Anticult Movements in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Garland Publishers, 1994 (edited with Anson Shupe).
• The Satanism Scare. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991. (edited with James Richardson and Joel Best).
• Krishna Consciousness in the West. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1988. 290pp. (edited with Larry Shinn).
• Falling from the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, 1988. (edited)
• The Future of New Religious Movements. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987. 278 pp. (edited with Phillip Hammond).
• New Christian Politics. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1984. 288 pp. (edited with Anson Shupe).
• The Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Historical, Sociological, Psychological and Legal Perspectives. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984. (edited with James T. Richardson).
• Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981 (with Anson Shupe)
• The New Vigilantes: Anti-Cultists, Deprogrammers and the New Religions. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications, 1980. (with Anson Shupe).
• Moonies" in America: Cult, Church and Crusade. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications, 1979. (with Anson Shupe).