Muslim Matchmaking, Coordination, and Cultural Transmission

Here is another ClassChat-assisted blog post. I had to provide several prompts and then do significant editing on the final output.

This Associated Press article on Muslim matchmaking provides insight into how religious communities address fundamental economic challenges through their social institutions. Rather than focusing on a single principle from the Top 10 Economics-of-Religion Principles, this analysis examines two interconnected economic concepts that illuminate the matchmaking phenomenon: coordination problems and cultural transmission.

The matchmaking practices described in the article exemplify classic coordination problems that arise when individuals' success depends on aligning their expectations and actions with others. In the context of Muslim dating and marriage, potential partners face significant uncertainty about each other's religious commitment, lifestyle preferences, and long-term compatibility. Without mechanisms to coordinate these expectations, individuals struggle to find suitable matches, leading to coordination failure. The "halal-haram ratio" mentioned by matchmakers constitutes one possible way of confronting the coordination challenge because it provides a framework for thinking about compatibility and for finding possible matches.

Matchmaking itself is a practice by which members of religious communities invest in cultural transmission. When parents involve themselves in their children's partner selection, or when community members facilitate introductions, they are making strategic investments in cultural continuity. So, helping to make matches is not just a way to make the two sides of the match happy. It also promotes the overall community.

The diversity of matchmaking approaches—from traditional family arrangements to modern apps—demonstrates how religious communities adapt their coordination mechanisms while preserving core cultural transmission functions. Whether through "matchmaking aunties" or sophisticated algorithms, the underlying economic function remains consistent: helping community members find partners whose religious commitment and cultural values support successful cultural transmission to the next generation.

The matchmaking services and practices described in the article solve multiple economic problems simultaneously. They reduce search costs for individuals seeking religiously compatible partners, provide quality signals about potential matches' commitment levels, and create network effects that benefit the entire community. These matchmaking mechanisms are economic solutions to complex coordination problems within communities. and they help religious communities maintain their distinctive identities while adapting to contemporary social conditions

The Credibility and Authority of a Catholic AI

This Washington Post article describes a new AI application called Magisterium AI, a chatbot designed specifically for Catholics to answer questions related to Catholic policy and doctrine. Like the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot, which is trained specifically on course documents, Magisterium AI is a chatbot that is trained on 27,000 Catholic documents. That way, its responses are grounded solidly in Church writings, unlike a more general chatbot like ChatGPT, which will pull from a variety of sources both in and out of the Church when providing responses.

There are multiple aspects of Magisterium AI of interest to us in this class. First of all, it represents a new kind of religious good—namely, a chatbot trained specifically for the members of a particular religious denomination. Individuals looking for an official Catholic answer to a religious question will find it convenient to ask the chatbot at any time of day instead of finding the right time and place to ask a knowledgeable person. It is not actually the first AI designed for Catholics; an earlier attempt had some pretty serious flaws.

Second, the creators of the chatbot are very concerned about the credibility of the app and the authoritativeness of the answers that it provides. They want the chatbot's answers to be trustworthy reflections of actual church teachings and policies, so they enlisted the help of two priests and a number of others to decide what to include in the set of training documents. Knowing this about a chatbot is important for many users. If a user wants a general answer that is not necessarily from a devout Catholic perspective, then a general chatbot like ChatGPT is a potentially good source, but if a user wants an answer that is ensured to be from a devout Catholic perspective, then Magisterium AI is a much better source.

Finally, the article explains that sometimes people do not want to talk to a priest or other human, and they appreciate the relative anonymity when interacting with an online source. Magisterium AI provides an option for these people.

I expect more denomination-specific chatbots to be developed. Patrick Green, a professor who was interviewed for the article, considered this proliferation of religious chatbots to be concerning. Perhaps, but we are already in a diverse world, and having chatbots with some degree of authoritativeness is beneficial for people who want to get credible answers. That is true for non-Catholics and Magisterium AI as well. Even non-Catholic users may want to know how a credible Catholic source answers questions.

The platform also demonstrates how religious groups can adapt to technological change while maintaining their core mission of providing authoritative guidance to their members. As religious competition intensifies in our pluralistic society, tools like Magisterium AI may become increasingly important for denominations seeking to serve their members effectively while preserving doctrinal integrity. Rather than viewing this trend with concern, we might see it as a natural evolution of how religious authority adapts to meet the needs of believers in an increasingly digital world.

[Note: I gave the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot the first five paragraphs above that I wrote myself and asked it for a concluding paragraph. It gave me a two-paragraph conclusion. The first paragraph was not good, but the second one was. So, I used the second one here with only minor edits.]

The Rise of Multiple Church Attendance: An Economic Analysis (by the Econ 17 ClassChat Chatbot)

I asked the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot to write a blog post for me. I gave it this article from the Christian Post on June 18, 2025, about nearly half of American churchgoers attending more than one church, and the provided this prompt:

Consider an economics of religion blog that publishes blog posts for a general audience on current events in the world and how we can understand those blog posts using the economics of religion. Your task is to write a 400-500 word blog post for this economics of religion blog. In this blog post you must use the economics of religion to comment on the news article about churchgoers attending more than one congregation. The goal is to help readers understand how the economics of religion can be used to understand this phenomenon. The blog post should reference Top 10 Economics of Religion Principle 1 in making its presentation. It should also be factually correct and use correct economic reasoning as taught in the course.

Its output was too long, so I asked it to shorten the blog post, giving it some advice on what to cut. The end result is the following blog post.

The Rise of Multiple Church Attendance: An Economic Analysis

A recent study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research reveals a striking trend: 46% of American churchgoers now attend more than one church regularly. This phenomenon, accelerated by the pandemic's expansion of online worship, offers a fascinating case study in how technological change and market dynamics reshape religious participation patterns. 

Rational Religious Choice in Action 

Top 10 Economics-of-Religion Principle 1 states that "individuals act rationally when making religious choices." The multiple church attendance phenomenon perfectly illustrates this principle while revealing significant changes in the costs and benefits facing religious consumers. 

The Hartford Institute's findings demonstrate how technological innovation has fundamentally altered the economic calculus of religious participation. Previously, attending multiple churches involved substantial costs: additional travel time, scheduling conflicts, and potential social awkwardness from divided loyalties. These high transaction costs effectively limited most people to single-congregation participation. 

However, the pandemic's acceleration of online worship has dramatically reduced these costs. Virtual services eliminate travel time, remove scheduling constraints, and reduce social friction. The 24% of respondents who combine in-person and virtual attendance are leveraging technology to access diverse religious goods while minimizing traditional participation costs. 

From an economic perspective, these churchgoers are maximizing their utility by accessing diverse religious goods and services across multiple providers. One congregation might excel at inspiring worship music, while another offers superior children's programming or community outreach. The reduction in switching costs allows individuals to sample the best offerings from each, much like consumers who shop at different stores to find optimal products for their needs. 

The study reveals that this behavior represents rational portfolio diversification in the religious sphere. Just as financial advisors recommend diversifying investment portfolios to reduce risk, some religious consumers are diversifying their spiritual portfolios to hedge against uncertainty while exploring different theological perspectives and worship styles. 

The Economics of Religious Diversification

This trend reflects classic economic behavior under uncertainty. In a world where religious truth claims are difficult to verify—what economists call "credence goods"—attending multiple churches allows individuals to hedge their bets while exploring different theological perspectives and worship styles. 

The Hartford study's finding that "one in five people who regularly participate elsewhere are doing so with a congregation of a different denomination or faith tradition" suggests that some individuals are engaging in what economists call "religious syncretism"—rationally combining elements from different religious traditions to maximize their spiritual satisfaction. 

Implications for Religious Organizations 

The rise of multiple church attendance presents both opportunities and challenges for religious leaders. While it may reduce the intensity of commitment to any single congregation, it also expands the potential market for religious services. Churches that embrace this trend by offering high-quality, distinctive programming may attract participants from well beyond their traditional geographic boundaries. 

However, this shift also requires rethinking traditional models of religious membership, stewardship, and community building. Religious organizations may need to develop new strategies for fostering commitment and generating the resources necessary for their mission in an environment where loyalty is increasingly divided. 

The Hartford Institute's research reveals that American religious behavior is becoming more sophisticated and market-oriented. Rather than representing a decline in religious commitment, the trend toward multiple church attendance may signal the emergence of more discerning religious consumers who actively seek to maximize the value they receive from their spiritual investments.

The chatbot's focus on Principle 1 is excellent because the pattern of attending multiple churches is definitely something that can be understood as rational decision making. The rise in virtual services dramatically lowered the cost to attending multiple churches, and some simple economic reasoning suggests more people may then want to attend multiple churches. The last section also makes some good points about how the rise of virtual services is an opportunity for religious suppliers to reach new people while also posing challenges for community building.

The weakest part of the blog post is the discussion of risk diversification. Risk diversification can certainly be a motivation for attending multiple churches (as discussed in the MM book), and it may be a motivation in this instance. However, there was only limited evidence in the article that risk diversification was a motivation. Instead, the motivation was primarily driven by limited time, convenience, and a preference for virtual services.

Overall, the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot wrote a good blog post about an interesting topic of relevance to our class, and with some additional human editing, the blog post would have been even better. AI combined with the human editing is the way to get the blog post.

Is it Ethical to use AI when Writing a Sermon?

Religious leaders speak in church frequently, and it is a lot of work to come up with inspiring and informational sermons so often. Not surprisingly, many religious leaders have started using AI to help them write their sermons. However, as we read in this article from Religious News Service, there is disagreement about the ethics of having an AI write parts or all of a religious leader's sermon. While some believe that AI are an effective tool in the sermon-writing process, others disagree.

The telling story from the article is about Pastor Carriker who, in the midst of a busy week, gave ChatGPT a scriptural reading and some blog posts, and was then surprised at how good of a sermon ChatGPT gave her in 30 seconds. But at the same time, it felt wrong to her.

Most religious denominations do not have clear policies on AI usage in sermons, so religious leaders are left to figure out the appropriate AI usage for themselves. This allows for a wide variety of practices to emerge. As the article explains, a 2024 survey of Protestant clergy found that 12% were comfortable using AI to help write the sermon, while 43% believed AU was useful in doing research and other sermon preparation. Given the feelings people expressed, I would guess that AI usage was underreported, and that actual AI usage in writing sermons is well above 12%.

The critical paragraph is this:

Much of the debate involves grappling with the question of whether AI is being used as a replacement for a sacred human project or whether it’s a tool in the service of that project. 

I predict that the efficiency-improving value of using AI to write sermons will eventually win out, and that the stigma of using AI assistance when writing a sermon will diminish. Clergy will see the value in saving time on sermons, and that will allow them to devote more time to other activities that AI is not equipped to do well.

Whether this leads to an overall improvement in clergy performance is less clear. There is something to be said for laboring through difficult things, and clergy who reduce their time spent grappling with topics for their sermons may find that their capacity to perform their other functions is also diminished even if they have more time for those other activities. But this will be difficult to measure, and in the meantime, the clear benefits of using AI will lead to its increased usage among clergy.

The Religious Liberty Commission

In this class you will learn about the United States Commision on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The USCIRF was created by an Act of the U.S. Congress in 1998, its primary purpose being to monitor and analyze violations of religious freedom outside of the U.S.

A few weeks ago, on 1 May 2025, Pres. Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) by an executive order. The RLC has a similar purpose as the USCIRF but with a different domain. While the USCIRF focuses on religious freedom outside of the U.S., the RLC focuses on religious freedom inside of the U.S.

You can read the actual executive order creating the RLC on the White House's website. It's not too long. That same day, Pres. Trump appointed several members to server on the commission, and just a few days ago he also appointed more people to serve on advisory boards.

An interesting difference between the USCIRF and the RLC is that the USCIRF was created by an Act of Congress, while the RLC was created by an executive order. This means that the USCIRF is more permanent because it can only be disbanded by another Act of Congress or a court ruling. The RLC, on the other hand, can be disbanded by another executive order or a court ruling. For example, if the next president does not want the RLC to continue, then new president can just disband it, but if the next president does not want the USCIRF to continue, then they must work through Congress with no guarantee of success.

It will take some time to determine the value of the RLC and if it even continues past Pres. Trump. Like the USCIRF, the RLC will provide reports on religious freedom and advise the president on matters related to religious freedom. It is then a question of whether the president or others will take that advice.

However, even if the advice of the RLC is completely ignored, the RLC might provide interesting data. Reports created by the USCIRF were used to create measures of religious regulation in different countries for use in quantitative social scientific research (see p. 37 of the MM book). Maybe future scholars will find similar ways to create new data from RLC reports that they can use to do research on the U.S.

The creation of the RLC is something that you can remember from this quarter. In fact, it's a fun coincidence that it happened while you are taking Econ 17, which makes it good timing for you! It is a current event related directly to key ideas and concepts in our class, including Top Ten Principles 7-10.

The New Pope and the Existence of God

Many people were surprised when Robert Prevost was elected as the new pope of the Catholic Church on May 8. He is highly qualified and by all accounts an exceptional person, but he was not one of the betting favorites. He was also born in the U.S., making him the first American-born pope in the church's history. By taking the name Leo XIV, he also signaled a connection to prior popes of that name, including Pope Leo XII who led the church in the late 1800s and is known for his contributions to Catholic social teaching.

Pope Leo XIV has already made headlines with his first address to Catholic leadership in which he laid out his vision for the Catholic Church and expressed his thoughts about what he considers the most pressing issues facing humanity. Interestingly, among those are the rise of artificial intelligence.

But I want to draw your attention to something he wrote long before he was elected as pope. He majored in mathematics in college and undertook extensive theological training, and it is this combination of the mathematical and theological that caught my eye.

In 1990 he published a book called Probabilistic and Theistic Explanation that brings together his mathematical, theological, and philosophical interests.

As soon as I learned about this book, I looked to see if the UCI Library had it, and it did! So, I rushed  over to Langson, eventually got the book (after getting a library worker to reset the rolling shelf that wasn't working properly), checked it out, and read it over the next several days.

Remember Pascal's decision from way back in the first chapter and lectures of our class? Well, I think that the simplest way to describe Prevost's book to you is that in it he is confronting philosophical issues related to what variable p should be, i.e., what probability should be assigned to the existence of God. But the book is not about what specific value p should take. Instead, the book is about how people should think about how to determine what p is. What different types of logical and philosophical arguments can be used, what are the pros and cons of different types of arguments and evidence, and so on.

The main point he makes is two-fold. First, deductive arguments in which a person assumes a premise about the world and then deduces Gods' existence are less compelling for deciding what p is. Second, the most appropriate kind of argument is an inductive one in which a person considers a large body of evidence holistically and concludes that the existence of God best explains the evidence.

You do not need to read this book for our class, but you should know at the least that people continue to think deeply about key ideas that you've been taught. What probability should a person assign to the existence of God? How should a person even go about thinking about how to assign that probability? Are some ways of thinking about the existence of God more appropriate than others? These are questions that people--both religious and not religious--have been taking seriously for hundreds of years. And will take seriously for hundreds of years more.

Evidence that Gen Z is Getting More (not Less) Religious

The world is getting less religious, right? You've probably heard this before, and it is true that religiosity has been declining for years in many (but not all) parts of the world. That is why it is always interesting to learn if that trend is continuing or not.

Well, a recent survey from the United Kingdom has found that religiosity actually appears to be increasing with Generation Z. Remember that Gen Z includes those born roughly between 1997 and 2012 (that likely includes you!).

The survey, which was conducted at the end of 2024, found that almost half of 18-24 year-olds in the U.K. report that they "definitely or probably" believe in a God, which is much higher than the reported 29% for people in that age group in 2018.

See this Newsweek article for more details.

Can these new results be explained? Here's a quote from the article:

The question of what motivates the turn toward faith documented in the latest data remains open. Some researchers have pointed to global instability, the isolating effects of digital life and the yearning for meaning in a post-pandemic world as possible drivers. 

Others credit the accessibility of religious content through social media and influencers, some like [Giavanna] Desantis—who has over 220K followers and 4.4M likes on TikTok alone—speak directly to a generation navigating complex identity issues. The creator's own experience illustrates the role personal testimony and online communities can play.

Perhaps a better question is whether these survey results reflect a real change in a long trend in religiosity in the U.K. or whether it is just a temporary blip. What do you think? Are there some experiences that Gen Z has gone through that others have not that will impact their religiosity? Or is this survey evidence signaling a reversal—or at least a stoppage—of declining religiosity in some parts of the world?

A New Pope: What are the Odds?

The death of the pope is a world event. As the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics, the pope holds a unique position of both moral authority and diplomatic influence. The death of Pope Francis on April 20, is notable for even more reasons. He was a beloved figure who emphasized humility, justice, and interfaith dialogue in a church that now has a larger presence in the global south than in the global north.

The new pope will be elected through a papal conclave in which over 100 cardinals (who are senior members of the Catholic clergy) will meet together in closed-door deliberations inside the Vatican. It is dramatic viewing as the crowd outside waits for smoke to float out through a chimney indicating that a round of voting has finished. Black smoke indicates that no individual has enough votes to be elected, but white smoke means that the new pope has been chosen.

Papal conclaves capture our imagination because of the potential for drama and internal politics (see the recent Conclave movie for example). Yet, despite the secretive nature of what happens inside the papal conclave, people outside of the conclave have their opinions about who will be the next pope.

In fact, it is even possible to place a bet on who will be the new pope! See this Newsweek article.

To economists, a betting market is a method for aggregating information about uncertain future events. Unlike an opinion poll or an expert's forecast, a betting market incentivizes participants to put their money where their mouth is. This creates an incentive to act on genuine beliefs rather than wishful thinking. When many individuals place bets based on their own knowledge or research, the market odds reflect a collective estimate of the probability of an outcome. In fact, betting markets have been shown to outperform polls in predicting election results, sports outcomes, and even policy decisions.

So, what do the betting markets say? According to one betting venue, the betting favorite is Pietro Parolin, an Italian who has been serving as the Vatican's secretary of state since 2013, while the second favorite is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from the Philippines. According to a different betting venue, Tagle is the favorite. Information is still being aggregated, and it is not clear where the betting lines will be when the conclave begins on May 6.

But be careful. A betting market's ability to predict is only as good as the information and beliefs of the people who place bets. If bettors are primarily betting for entertainment purposes and lack credible information, then the betting odds will not be accurate. For example, bettors might enjoy picking long shots, as if they are trying to win a lottery rather than betting their genuine beliefs. So, betting markets are not perfect aggregators of information, just like surveys and expert predictions are not perfect.

But what if you really want to place a bet? Online gambling is illegal in California, and sports books in Nevada are not taking bets on the new pope. So, if you want to place a bet, you'll have to do it in another country. Many countries in Europe, for example, allow betting on the new pope.