The Religious Marketplace

Religious Freedom Day, 2012

2012-01-17T14:10:00.001-08:00

... was yesterday, by a presidential proclamation given by President Obama. Read the short proclamation here. It occurs on the 226th anniversary of the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom.

Important Supreme Court Ruling on Ministerial Exceptions

2012-01-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

On January 11, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the Hosanna-Tabor Case that a "ministerial exception" is grounded in the First Amendment, and that a teacher fired at Lutheran school was lawfully fired according to that exception and that she cannot sue

Ministerial exceptions in hiring and firing illustrate one margin where religious and other rights can come into conflict. For example, hiring based on religious characteristics is certainly a form of discrimination, but the Supreme Court acknowledges that such discrimination is legitimate for ministerial positions. Importantly, this ministerial exception, as interpreted and articulated as part of this ruling, applies to religious institutions and their ability to provide religious services. The institution is free "to accept or retain an unwanted minister."

See some useful analysis from the Religion Clause blog here and here.

UN Human Rights Council Drops Condemnation of Defamation of Religion

2011-12-20T18:50:00.000-08:00

From this Reuters article:

For the first time in more than a decade, the U.N. General Assembly on Monday condemned religious intolerance without urging states to outlaw "defamation of religions," an appeal critics said opened the door to abusive "blasphemy" laws...

Earlier this year Western countries and their Latin American allies joined Muslim and African states in backing a new approach that switched the focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers. That new approach led to Monday's resolution.

Since 1998, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had won majority approval in U.N. rights bodies in Geneva and at the U.N. General Assembly for annual resolutions on "combating defamation of religions."

Critics said the concept ran against international law and free speech and left the way open for tough "blasphemy" laws like those in Pakistan that have been invoked this year by the killers of two moderate politicians there.

They argued that it also allowed states where one religion predominates to keep religious minorities under tight control or even leave them open to forced conversion or oppression.

USCIRF Reauthorized for Three Years

2011-12-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

This is good news for our class because we use USCIRF produced materials. You can read about the Congressional bill here.

USCIRF Taking Steps to Shut Down

2011-12-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

You can read about it here. This is sad news for our class because we used the information collected and disseminated by the USCIRF in learning about religious freedom around the world. Fortunately, the Commission is taking steps to archive all of its records.

Religious Smart Phone Apps from Class

2011-11-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

Well done to those who submitted information on religious smart phone apps. Here are the ones that were submitted:

iSalat
iRosary
iChurch
Ignio
The Inferno
Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism
Dhur Ki Bani
Religionpedia
GloBible
Catholic Sea Mobile
Not a Siddur

Pocket Prayer Pro
Granny's Bible Dojo

YouVersion
Daily Bible
Identify in Christ Daily Bible
Church App for 299
Religion Books
ChristianCafe.com Mobile
Divine Office - Audio Prayer - Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Catholic Church
God's Word
Ned's Bible Trivia
Bible Blocks
Mars Hill Church (5th app on page)
Ice Breakers Church
Zen Koan Study and Meditation Center
Islamic Compass

Religion Related Lobbying on the Rise in the U.S.

2011-11-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Pew Forum just released a very interesting study of religious lobbying in the U.S. The complete report is long (here), but definitely read the executive summary found here. Here are two paragraphs from the executive summary:

The number of organizations engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington, D.C., has increased roughly fivefold in the past four decades, from fewer than 40 in 1970 to more than 200 today. These groups collectively employ at least 1,000 people in the greater Washington area and spend at least $390 million a year on efforts to influence national public policy. As a whole, religious advocacy organizations work on about 300 policy issues. For most of the past century, religious advocacy groups in Washington focused mainly on domestic affairs. Today, however, roughly as many groups work only on international issues as work only on domestic issues, and nearly two-thirds of the groups work on both. These are among the key findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life that examines a total of 212 religion-related advocacy groups operating in the nation’s capital.
...
Previous studies indicate that lobbying in general has increased rapidly in recent decades. But the growth in the number of religion-related advocacy organizations appears to have kept pace with – or even exceeded – the growth in some other common types of advocacy organizations...

The dollars expended on this lobbying is large -- over $390 million -- but the expenditures did decline during the recession. The lobbying groups represent a wide range of religious groups, including Catholic, Protestant, other Christian, Jewish, Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and more. And the lobbying is aimed at a wide range of issues, from inherently religious ones such as the promotion of religious freedom to social and political issues such as HIV-AIDS.

Why do religious groups expend so much on lobbying? And why has it grown over time?

Book Club - God is Back #4 & #5 - Fall 2011

2011-11-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

One of the most interesting chapters in God is Back is the chapter on the "The Bible versus the Koran." From p. 282:

[T]he plain fact is that the Islamic world is a long way behind the Christian one in its engagement with modernity. Islam is coming to a succession of epochal religious debates--particularly about the relationship between faith and authority--much later than Christianity. Christianity, particularly in its American version, has resolved those debates in a way that has rendered it well equipped to thrive along with modernity.

For this and other reasons, the authors see Christianity as still ahead in the competition between Christianity and Islam.

In prior posts on the blog, I have raised doubts about this conclusion. Definitely check out these earlier posts here and here to see my doubts. Stephen Prothero, in his 2010 book God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World--and Why their Differences Matter, gives the nod to Islam in terms of impact on society today:

The case for Christianity's preeminence is compelling. In the United States, the most powerful country in the world, Christianity is the religion par excellence. . . . Nonetheless, Islam is the Muhammed Ali of the world's religions. Statistically, it is second to Christianity, but its numbers are growing far more rapidly. . . . Numbers aside, Islam is the leader of the pack in terms of contemporary impact.

So which is it? Is Christianity winning the battle? Does Islam have the bigger impact? Is it possible to have both?

Religion and the Rise of Civilization

2011-11-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Jean-Paul Carvalho, another UCI Department of Economics faculty member, sent me this great article from the National Geographic. It's too long for me to make it a required reading for the class, but it may be of interest to you.

Here's the basic story. Archaeologists have long understood that human society took a dramatic change when it developed agriculture. They have thought that it was the development of agriculture that allowed for more complex human societies to form. Yet they are now beginning to understand that it may have happened the other way around: agriculture arose as a response to humans settling first.

And why did settlement occur? Religion, according to the article. Read the article for the details. It is a fascinating piece on how religion may have been tightly integrated with the very origins of our modern human society.

Doing Church on Facebook

2011-11-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

That's what a pastor at Liberty University did last night. They usually meet in the on-campus arena, but because of a scheduling conflict, the pastor decided to just use Facebook.

I'd like to find out if it was successful. Of course, that begs the question of what would be considered a success. But assuming it was successful, would it be in the interest of the involved parties to just do church on Facebook everytime? Why even use the arena?

A Difficult-to-enforce Religious Regulation

2011-11-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

Today's Reuters religion blog FaithWorld has a short piece about a particular religious regulation in Saudi Arabia that is associated with the Hajj.

Here are the brief facts. The Saudi monarchy enforces a strict Wahhabi school of Islam. Praying at historic Islamic sites is, according to Wahhabi thought, a problematic practice that goes against the spirit of Islamic teachings. During the Hajj, many people come to Saudi Arabia to visit various sacred Islamic sites in the country. Religious police try to enforce a ban on praying at sites. Religious police patrol selected areas and warn visitors against certain practices.

The short blog post does not explain what punishment results from violating the rule. But it strikes me as a very difficult rule to enforce. Although the presence of the police may prohibit certain overt forms of prayer common, the police cannot stop more discreet forms of prayer. Moreover, the blog post mentions that even the belief that a site is sacred is something the police try to stop, and this strikes me as impossible.

Clearly, the religious police are confronted with a cost-benefit calculation. They could put police at every location and interrogate every visitor to ensure no praying happens. But doing so would involve a tremendous amount of resources, and it seems clear from the blog-post that the police are not committing the resources necessary for such an endeavor. Is this an indication that the Wahhabi scholars care only a limited amount about the rule, or is it more the cold hard reality about the cost of resources for enforcement?

Decline in Episcopal Church Membership

2011-11-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here's the news story mentioned in class today about the decline in membership in the Episcopal Church. As you read this story, look for clues about how the level of strictness (or lack thereof) of the Episcopal Church may be related to the decrease in membership.

Comic Strip Syncretism

2011-10-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

Some syncretism humor from xkcd.com.

Book Club - God is Back #2 & #3 - Fall 2011

2011-10-21T09:56:00.001-07:00

In Part I (Chapters 1-4) of their book, Micklethwait and Wooldrige contrast religion in the United States and Europe. They argue that the commitment by government to maintain a separation from church actually helped enhance religiosity in the United States. This claim is not intuitive for some people because it is thought that religion is in part a public good, and standard economic logic says that governments ought to provide public goods.

In Part II (Chapters 5-7), the authors look more closely at religion in the U.S. The go so far as to claim that

The American religious marketplace is almost a study in perfect competition: there are no real barriers to entry, the domestic market is big enough to support a mind-boggling variety of religious producers, and new religious entrepreneurs are always rising up to challenge incumbents. (P. 174)

Think of this quote in light of my comments about Part I of the book. Remember from class that a public good is defined as a good that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable (a club good is non-rivalrous and excludable). If religion is a public good, why is it provided in such high supply by private suppliers? How can we have such a competitive religious marketplace for a public good? Is religion a public good? If so, how might religion be different from typical public goods that we think ought to be provided by government? If not, why not?

Hajj 2011

2011-10-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

The Hajj is the largest pilgrimage in the world. As one of the five pillars of Islam, it is a religious duty for each Muslim to undertake at least once in his or her lifetime given financial means and health. The Hajj will occur in the first or second week of November this year, so it is only weeks away.

Undertaking this pilgrimage involves traveling to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Some people must save their whole lives to pay for the trip, while others are able to do it multiple times. For more information, see this brief entry at CNN and this longer entry in wikipedia.

I think it is good for us to think of the Hajj in terms of our notion of religious capital. Notice how it is described in the CNN entry. One person refers to it is "spiritual boot camp," which suggests it is an enterprise that builds a person's religious capital. Yet, due to the high cost of going, we expect that participants are individuals with already fairly high religious capital. This is a great example of the chicken-and-egg problem mentioned in class. Oftentimes, religious participation results from religious capital and builds it at the same time.

Kazakhstan's President Signs the Restrictive Religion Law

2011-10-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

As reported by Forum 18. I have mentioned this before, most recently here. This is most strident law of its kind passed since I have been teaching this course.

Book Club - God is Back #1 - Fall 2011

2011-10-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

Micklethwait and Wooldridge open their book by presenting China as a surprising place for religious resurgence. The Marxist agenda in the mid-twentieth century took great measures to stamp religion out, yet "By 2050, China could well be the world's biggest Muslim nation as well as its biggest Christian one" (p. 5).

One of the main questions this book seeks to answer is how and why such a resurgence is happening. Part of the authors' answer is that modernity and religion are not as antithetical as many people have claimed. As you read, look for clues that support their claim.

A New Jewish News App

2011-10-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Designed with the iPad in mind, the Jewish Journal app provides up-to-date news and other content. See the story here. According to Rob Eshman, who is affiliated with the company that produced the app:

The first Jewish news came down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets. ... We believe the digital tablet will be the most important news delivery system of the future, so we committed to developing the best and first Jewish news app for it.

The app is available for free. A question for you: is this app an economic good?

More in Information on Kazakhstan's New Religious Restrictions

2011-09-23T10:22:00.001-07:00

As has been mentioned in earlier posts, a law has been proposed in Kazakhstan that would dramatically affect the operations of many religious groups. Among other things, the law would:

De-register all currently existing religious organizations and require a costly re-registration.
Require religious groups to have their religious writing and documents to be evaluated by the state.
Ban all religious activity for non-registered groups.
Impose censorship of religious literature.
Restrict distribution of religious literature to religious buildings...
But also require religious groups to obtain state approval to build or open religious buildings.

The Institute on Religion and Public Policy has recently released their own legislative analysis of the proposed law. The law is still under consideration by the Kazakhstan Parliament, but it was passed by the Parliament's Lower House on September 21.

This unfolding event is a great example for us of how religious markets exist within legal and institutional settings and that the nature of religion in a religious market can change due to changes in that setting. This will be a recurring theme in our course.

13th Annual Report on International Religious Freedom

2011-09-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

On September 13, the US State Department issued its 13th Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. This report, which is required by an act of Congress:

documents major developments with respect to religious freedom in 198 countries and territories from July-December 2010. The report reflects a broad understanding of universal religious freedom, one that includes the rights to hold private beliefs, including agnosticism or atheism, as well as the right to communal religious expression and education (quoted from the Executive Summary).

One of the most interesting things to look for whenever the report comes out is its identification of the most egregious violators of religious freedom. They are named in the Executive Summary, which is a good section to read to get a good sense of the entire report.

Drive-in Church

2011-08-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

As reported at WFAA.com out of Dallas:

Without ever getting outside of their cars, parishioners drive to their favorite spot and sit behind the wheel for a worship service that includes all the familiar music, prayers and a full sermon.

This is the third such church set up by the pastor.

Examples of the Ongoing Adjustments in Religious Regulations

2011-08-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

One theme of our class is that religious regulations vary widely around the world. It is also true that these regulations are in a continual process of adjustment. Here is a recent sampling.

The Pew Foundation recently released an important report showing that restrictions on religious practice have increased for a third of the world's population.
The Chinese government and Catholic leaders in the Vatican are currently disputing who has the right to ordain Catholic bishops.
A woman challenges Belgium's new burqa ban in court.
A woman in India is tortured after being branded a witch.
The USCIRF asked Secretary of State Clinton to identify Pakistan as a "country of particular concern."
Hungary adopted what one author called "Europe's Most Restrictive Religious Law" that strips three hundred religious organizations of their religious status. Only fourteen groups retained their status; all others must undertake a costly re-register process without guarantee of success.
A proposed law in Tajikistan would prevent many children from participating in religious activities until they are eighteen years of age.
Even the U.S. is not immune to the adjustment: a lawsuit alleges that a Dallas Church is really a sex club, causes the courts to determine just what sorts of organizations can claim to be religious.

Apple: A Twenty-first Century Religion?

2011-05-30T23:32:00.001-07:00

From the CNN Write-up (read the lengthier story at the BBC web site):

The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people...

Question: Does this finding improve the credibility of our economic approach to religion?

The Department of Secular Studies

2011-05-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

The formation of a Department of Secular Studies at Pitzer College shows how the very study of secularization can become institutionalized.

James Richardson on the Word "Cult"

2011-04-22T21:39:00.001-07:00

Professor Richardson has long studied new religious movements and offers some perspective on the word "cult."

France's Burka Ban Takes Effect

2011-04-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

France's new ban on Muslim women wearing the full body covering burka and the face covering niqab took effect earlier this month. Some women wearing veils in protest were arrested. The penalty is to pay up to $215 (US) or attend special citizenship classes. Here's a write-up on the first woman arrested.

Religion Apps from Lecture

2011-03-08T09:38:00.001-08:00

In case you wanted to learn more about the apps we discussed in class:

Confession: A Roman Catholic App. You can also read about it at CNN's Belief Blog here.
iChristian.
New Valley Church.
Catholic Mass Times Church Directory.
iPhone Bible App.
On The Ministry.
Religious Collection.
Dance Praise.
Zen Timer.

Not so Long Ago in Our Own Galaxy...

2011-02-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

Glen Watson, the Director for the 2011 Census in England and Wales, just said that it was "not acceptable" to give joke answers on the census but that people who want to declare themselves Jedis are free to do so. See here.

In fact, it was the British census ten years ago that led to the formation of the Church of Jediism. From the Church of Jediism's website:

An email petition was sent round in 2001 asking people to put 'Jedi' as their religion on the census. This petition saw some 390,000 people in Britain do just that. Yes, some may have done this as a joke, however the main outcome was it brought people together.

There are now eight chapters of the Church. The only U.S. chapter is in Florida, though the first marriage performed by an ordained Jedi minister took place in Utah in 2008.

The wikipedia entry lists a four examples of how Jedis have faced challenges in finding acceptance as a religious group.

In the drafting of the UK Racial and Religious Hatred Act, an amendment was proposed which specifically excluded Jedi Knights from any protection.
In September 17, 2009, Church of Jediism founder, Daniel Jones, was banned from a Tesco Supermarket in Bangor, North Wales for refusing to remove his hood on a religious basis.
On March 7, 2010, Jediism was excluded in a U.K. act protecting organizations such as the Church of Scientology from discrimination. A Times report referring to the decision said "beliefs had to be heartfelt."
On March 17, 2010, Chris Jarvis, a member of the Church of Jediism was thrown out of a Jobcentre in Southend, Essex, for refusing to remove his hood. He later received a formal apology from the Jobcentre. Story here.

UPDATE: Lest there be any confusion, there are different strands of Jediism. The Church of Jediism is just one of many. See the Jediism wikipedia entry for others.

Book Club - God is Back #5 Winter 2011

2011-02-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

Let's end our online book club with the final words of the conclusion:

Secularists need to recognize that the enemy that "poisons everything" is not religion but the union of religion and power--and believers need to recognize that religion flourishes best where it operates in a world of free choice...

This conclusion is surprising to many people. Secularists often want to suppress religion as a whole, while believers want to suppress religions other than their own. It turns out that either form of suppression causes problems.

Without that suppression, we see that religious markets are becoming more and more like other markets in that religion more so than ever is becoming a matter of choice.

Do Churches and Charities Compete for Dollars?

2011-02-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

A recent study summarized here (also reported here) says "no." The study finds that individuals who contribute more to churches also contribute more to other charities, and this result is robust to different ways of slicing up the data. The interpretation given is that churches and charities do not compete for money but instead help foster more spending in the other.

My first complaint is that this interpretation misuses the word "competition." Any dollar given to church rather than charity is, at the margin, a dollar not given to charity. There is an opportunity cost, which connotes a kind of competition. Saying that they do not compete is problematic.

My second concern is more substantive. Suppose a person decides to donate $X of her income to what she perceives as good causes. Then the decision of interest is how she should allocate those $X. She might give $X/2 to church and $X/2 to charity, $X/4 to church and $3X/4 to charity, and so on. Also suppose that there is diminishing returns to donating to more than one organization so each person wants to spread out donations, and that there is a cost, e.g., due to increased time writing checks or filing a tax return, to donating to too many organizations. Then the observed pattern is due to different people have different Xs, and not due to a donation to one causing a donation in another. In true, then there is a strict competition between organizations for a portion of people's donations due to a strong substitution effect.

However, other plausible complications can exist, and these are more subtle. Suppose churches teach their adherents to donate to non-church charities. If committed churchgoers, who happen to donate a lot to their churches because of their high commitment, also internalize the message to donate to non-church charities, then they could also donate more to charities than less committed types. We then see people who donate more to church also donate more to charity, but it is not the donations to one that cause the other. Rather, it is a third facto--in this case commitment--that causes high donations to both churches and charities. Sorting this out will require additional study.

What do you think? Does donating to church cause donations in charities? Vice versa? Neither?

Recent Growth Trends in American Churches

2011-02-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

Every year the National Council of Churches produces their Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches. This publication includes various facts and figures about many different religious groups, and its release always leads to news stories about how different churches in the U.S. are growing at different rates.

This year is no different. See here and here, for example, concerning the very recent release of the 2011 yearbook (and you can save $5 when buying it from Amazon.com). Continuing the trend of recent years, the largest mainline churches continue to shrink while Pentecostal churches are growing fast. Here are the recent numbers for the ten largest Christian groups:

The Catholic Church: 68.5 million, up 0.57 percent.
Southern Baptist Convention: 16.1 million, down .42 percent.
The United Methodist Church: 7.8 million, down 1 percent.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 6 million, up 1.42 percent.
The Church of God in Christ: 5.5 million, no membership updates reported.
National Baptist Convention, USA: 5 million, no membership updates reported.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: 4.5 million, down 1.96 percent.
National Baptist Convention of America, 3.5 million, no membership updates reported.
Assemblies of God: 2.9 million, up .52 percent.
Presbyterian Church (USA): 2.7 million, down 2.61 percent.

Book Club - God is Back #4 Winter 2011

2011-02-10T12:36:00.000-08:00

Chapters 10-12 of God is Back are in a section called God's Wars. The authors consider various forms of religious conflict or competition, some of it violent and some of it non-violent.

Ch. 10 explores the "Battle of the Book." I expressed doubts about the authors' assessment of this "battle" in last year's post on this topic (here). In the last few weeks there has been some news about new growth projections of Muslim populations worldwide (here). In short, Muslims are growing at a much faster rate worldwide than non-Muslims. And if you're really interested, you can see the many resources here, though this last page would not be required reading.

I want to draw your attention to "The Great Clash" mentioned in Ch. 11. As the authors state:

[T]here is nothing inevitable about a clash between Islam and Christianity. ... As for the idea that Islam is stuck in a clash of civilizations with the West, this too seems unconvincing. Put simply, most of the fighting is not taking place in that arena. One great irony of the war on terror is that many of the people on George Bush's "enemies list" have devoted themselves to fighting people other than Americans. The jihadis' most important war is not against the West but against apostate Muslim regimes, notably Saudi Arabia; where they do battle with outsiders, it is mainly against what they regard as occupying powers. (pp. 305-306)

Here I think authors have more support for their claim. That we see practitioners of Islam coexist with non-Muslims in many Western countries suggests that any clash, should it exist, is not inevitable. Rather, many of the harshest clashes are in non-Western countries.

Do Religious Groups Compete in Canada?

2011-02-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Canadian sociologist of religion Reginald Bibby says that they do not, at least not as much as their American counterparts. See this National Post article.

His soon-to-be-released book (mentioned in the article) must surely elaborate on this claim, but the article does provides a glimpse of his reasoning. According to Bibby, Canadians are less inclined than Americans to make bold truth claims, and this hampers competition between groups. I think the implication we are supposed to infer is that if the groups are not distinguishing themselves according to their truth claims, then there is less product differentiation or less enthusiasm for religious services.

By my own application of the economic approach to religion, I find this logic incomplete. If all that is needed for religious competition is to have more religious entrepreneurs offering bold truth claims, then why are those entrepreneurs not entering the religious market? The article mentions the possibly that demand for religion is low in Canada. This is possible to be sure, but it is not clear why Canada would be so different in this regard from the United States. Is there another explanation?

Another place to look would be the supply side of Canadian religious markets. A quick visit to the ARDA reveals that the Canadian religious markets have a degree of unbalanced religious favoritism. Perhaps this favoritism hinders religious competition to some degree. (We will discuss the impact of religious regulations on religiosity in a couple lectures later in the course.) Can you think of a better explanation?

Links for HW 5 Question 4

2011-02-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

The links originally intended for use for question 4 are not working well, so let's just go with the wikipedia entries:

Please use these links to obtain information necessary to answer question 4. Pay particular attention to beliefs and practices.

Book Club - God is Back #3 Winter 2011

2011-02-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

In Ch. 8-9 of God is Back, the authors focus on the exporting of American religion, and Pentecostalism is identified in Ch. 8 as one prime example:

Pentecostalism is the great religious story of the twentieth century. (P. 217)

The success of Pentecostalism is a strange mixture of unflinching belief and pragmatism, raw emotion and self-improvement, improvisation and organization: it is as if somebody had distilled American-style religion down to its basic elements and the set about marketing it globally. (P. 218).

Many scholars trace the origins of Pentecostalism to early 20th Century Los Angeles (pp. 81-84), but its reach is now global. It is particularly successful in Latin America where it is challenging the long-standing religious monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church (p. 215).

The authors identify many reasons for Pentecostalism's success, and you should review what those are. One of those may be surprising to you:

Indeed, one of the things that attracts people around the world to Pentecostalism is its very Americanness. (p. 219)

If that is true, it would not be the first time that a highly influential nation or empire helped cause the spread, either deliberately or inadvertently, of a particular religious group. The existence of the Roman Empire helped Christianity spread, for example. In fact, you could ask if there has ever been a case of a religious group going global that did not have behind it some helpful connection to an influential nation.

Churches and Social Media

2011-01-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

As explained in this story and also here, churches are very active in online social media. About half of all churches actively use Facebook, and the percent is larger for larger congregations and for congregations in cities and suburbs. Online social media are used to do many things, including distributing news and fostering interaction among members. Nearly half of all pastors surveyed use Facebook.

Online social media enhance interpersonal connections, and in our terminology constitute a form of social capital. Because social capital is an important component of religious capital, it is no surprise, then, that churches would want to be engaged in social media. It does, however, raise questions about what is the proper way for churches and adherents to use social media. The Pope, for example, recently called for those participating online to adopt what he called a "Christian style presence" of honesty and responsibility and warned against false online profiles. See here and here.

Book Club - God is Back #2 Winter 2011

2011-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

In Part Two of the book (ch. 5-7), the authors look at religion in the United States. Here they see blending of other-worldly and this-worldly, and this is nowhere more evident in the competition between churches.

Across America churches now compete to provide "total service excellence." These pastorpreneurs don't just preach on Sundays. They don't just provide services for the great rituals of birth, death and marriage. They keep their buildings open seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, and provide a mind-boggling array of services: some megachurch complexes even contain banks, pharmacies, and schools. Counseling and guidance groups are routine. So are children's ministries. .... All this emphasis on customer service is producing a predictable result: growth. (pp. 185-186)

The trends identified by the authors can be viewed in many lights. Is it the secularization of churches? Or the sacralization of the secular? Yet, the authors claim that the rapid growth is "forcing churches to become yet more business-like and management-obsessed" (p. 187).

Overall, the authors identify how market forces are at play in many aspects of religious life, from the variety of religious choices available for religious consumers to the practices of religious leaders. Can you think of other ways that market forces are influencing religious life?

Interfaith Marriages

2011-01-27T13:14:00.001-08:00

The story that you must read as part of Homework 4.

We've Made it to Twitter!

2011-01-25T11:39:00.000-08:00

The first Twitter reference to our class is here! Many more to come, right? (Just don't tweet them in class.)

When is a Fee also a Tax?

2011-01-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

According to this story on the St. Louis Today web site, the city of Mission, Kansas, is now requiring churches to pay "transportation utility fees" to help pay for crumbling roads, and the churches are challenging the fees in court. Churches are non-profit organizations and usually have tax exempt status. City officials claim that these fees are not a form of taxation, but the churches filing suit disagree. When is a fee also a tax?

Book Club - God is Back #1 Winter 2011

2011-01-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Micklethwait and Wooldridge end the introductory chapter of God is Back with the following thoughts:

The Founding Fathers' clever compromise over religion not only allowed God to survive and prosper in America, it also provided a way of living with religion--of ensuring that different faiths can coexist, and of taming a passion that so often turns the religious beast to savagery. This was one of the Founders' greatest gifts to man: getting rid of the established church, establishing a firm distinction between public reason and private faith, and consigning theocracy to the past along with monarchy and aristocracy.

But later, in Chapter 3, they write:

By 2000, the country was split just as dramatically over religion as it had been in 1900--but this time the split was not between different denominations (Protestants for the Republican Party and Catholics for the Democrats) but between people who were hot for religion, whether they were Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and people who were cooler, whether they were atheists, modernists, or infrequent church attendees.

Understanding how these quotes can be reconciled will get you a good way to understanding the authors' main arguments. The key is understanding the connection between religious vitality. What is that connection?

You may also want to review my book club posts for the Introduction and Chapters 1-4 from last year.

President Obama Declares Religious Freedom Day

2011-01-19T16:55:00.001-08:00

Last week, President Barack Obama declared January 16, 2011 (last Sunday), to be Religious Freedom Day. You can read the entire Presidential Proclamation at the White House's web site.

Promoting religious freedom both in and outside the country is an official goal of the American government, a fact we will read about later in the quarter. For now, I am interested in knowing if you think these declarations amount to much. At the least, the press attention they get reminds the American public that religious freedom is a policy goal. It is also true that religious freedom is a goal for which people of all political persuasions agree, so it is good press for anyone. Any other benefits you see?

Larry Witham Podcast on the Economics of Religion

2011-01-11T12:15:00.001-08:00

The latest Research on Religion podcast is an interview with Larry Witham, author of a new book called Marketplace of the Gods: How Economics Explains Religion. I will not require you to listen to the podcast (approx. 60 minutes), but I recommend it as a way to review some key ideas. Maybe you could listen to it as part of your study for a midterm or the final exam. Yours truly even gets a shout out around minute 16.

For the record, I was asked to review this book for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (UCI access may be required). My review, which identifies both strengths and weaknesses of the book, will hopefully be published before the end of the quarter. Personally, I would have answered some of the questions asked in the podcast differently than Witham. But that is fine; getting a different perspective is a good thing.

Taxing Witches in Romania

2011-01-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

The Romanian government has identified a new source of revenue: taxing witches. Read this short BBC news story for some details.

Tax policy is also a way to regulate religion. Imposing taxes on witches, assuming that they pay them, will raise the cost of their operations. Basic supply and demand analysis from introductory economics suggests that this negative supply shock should lead to an increase in the prices of witches' services and a decline in the quantity of witches' services traded in the market. Of course, some witches could decide to not pay and move their services underground. Doing so is costly as well, so again the prediction is a drop in witches' services traded, all else equal. Whether reducing the consumption of witches' services is part of the government's motive is not addressed in the story.

But others see a positive angle to the development. By taxing the witches, the government is implicitly recognizing them as being engaged in a legitimate business activity. Should the government's earlier classification reduce any stigma associated with paying a witch, then this acts to decrease the cost of the the witch's services. This effect would obviously work in the opposite direction of the supply shock mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

Which effect will dominate? Will the quantity of witches' services sold in the market go up or down?

Roger Finke Podcast on Religious Persecution

2011-01-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

This week's Research on Religion podcast is an interview with Roger Finke about religious persecution. This topic is especially timely given the troubles Christians faced in Iraq this past holiday season (see this story). Later this quarter we will discuss and use the Grim-Finke religious regulation indices, as well as the ARDA website (link in sidebar).

The Festivus Miracle

2010-12-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

A prisoner gets nicer meals when Festivism, the made-up religion popularized in a Seinfeld episode, is claimed as his religion. Once found out, the means stopped. So it was a temporary Festivus miracle. Read about it here and here.

Why are Religious People Happier?

2010-12-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

It's their friends at church, according to the study just published in the American Journal of Sociology and reported here and here . People who report going to church more often also report higher happiness. And it is appears that the number of close friends at church explains this pattern. Moreover, individuals with a larger proportion of close friends at church report higher life satisfaction than those with the same number of close friends but where those friends are not at church. The authors conclude that it is a social mechanism for how religion improves happiness rather than a theological or spiritual one.

The Oklahoma Ban on use of Shariah Law

2010-12-04T21:51:00.000-08:00

In last month's election, Oklahoma voters approved an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution forbidding state courts from considering international and Shariah law. A federal court has now placed this amendment under preliminary injunction. See Religion Clause for additional information.

Islamic Ratings for Video Games

2010-12-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

See here for the explanation.

The Market for Organists

2010-12-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

There are various kinds of religious markets. We often mean the market for religious adherents when we talk about religious markets, but there are markets for other goods or services that are also religious. Consider this ABC News article about the market for organists. Both supply and demand have shrunk over time, and there is now a shortage.

Kosher Internet

2010-11-24T13:24:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right, I said Kosher Internet. Read here.

Reports on Hate Crimes

2010-11-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

The F.B.I.'s U.S. hate crime statistics for 2009 were just released, as was a report on hate crimes in Europe. Many acts classified as hate crimes involve religion; about 20% of reported hate crimes in the U.S. have a religious component.

2010 Report on International Religious Freedom

2010-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

The State Department recently released its 2010 Report on International Religious Freedom. The accompanying press releases are here and here. The Executive Summary reviews changes--both positive and negative--in various countries.

The purpose on of the report is to identify countries in which religious freedom is hindered. Not surprisingly, some people will disagree with how their countries are portrayed, e.g., disagreements with the report have come out of Egypt and Jordan.

Blasphemy Laws and Human Rights

2010-10-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

A new report titled Policing Beliefs: The Impact of Blasphemy on Human Rights by Freedom House examines how blasphemy laws in various countries are used "to legitimize crackdowns on minority groups, dissidents and other divergent views under the pretext of maintaining 'social harmony.'" Also see the press release here.

According to the introduction:

In countries with weak democracies, authoritarian systems, or compromised judiciaries, these laws have a particularly pernicious effect:

Governments have abused blasphemy laws to silence the political opposition, government critics, and other dissidents.
Individuals have fabricated charges of blasphemy against others in their communities to settle petty disputes.
Religious extremists have exploited blasphemy laws to justify attacks on religious minorities, thereby fostering an environment of intolerance where discrimination is effectively condoned by the state.
Religious institutions, often with official or unofficial government backing, have used blasphemy laws to impose the state-sanctioned interpretations of religious doctrine on members of minority sects that are deemed deviant or heretical.

While freedom of expression is always constrained by blasphemy laws, through direct enforcement as well as the self-censorship they engender, this report identifies a host of other human rights that are negatively affected by such laws:

The selective application of blasphemy laws gives rise to discrimination based on religion and belief, as religious minorities and heterodox sects are often targeted disproportionately.
In many cases, alleged blasphemers have been arbitrarily arrested based on false or unsubstantiated accusations of blasphemy, and reports of unfair trials, lax legal procedures, and prolonged periods of pretrial or administrative detention on blasphemy charges are plentiful.
Individuals accused of blasphemy have endured torture and ill-treatment in custody.
Blasphemy suspects, including those who have been acquitted, have experienced breaches of their right to security of the person in the form of death threats, mob beatings, and other violence by nonstate actors.

My Research on Religion Podcast Interview

2010-10-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Research on Religion Podcast, a weekly podcast series conducted by Tony Gill, Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, recently interviewed me about my research on religious free-riding and the Mormon Church. The podcast is now up; click here to listen.

The RoR series is a terrific resource for learning about much of the current work in the social science of religion. Thanks to Professor Gill for providing such a great public good!

French Burqa Ban to go into Effect

2010-10-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

It's official: the French Burqa ban will go into effect in Spring 2011. See CNN's story or Religion Clause's brief summary.

Druids in Great Britain

2010-10-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Druid Network, which just received official recognition as a charity in England and Wales, putting them on par with other mainstream denominations and granting them valuable tax breaks. See the Charity Commission's official statement here.

Pew Religious Knowledge Survey

2010-09-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Pew Forum just released results from its Religious Knowledge Survey. See here for details. It's getting a lot of buzz in newspapers and online media sources because atheists and agnostics scored highest on average overall, thus suggesting that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than religious people.

But this way of summarizing the data is very misleading because it implicitly places specific weights on different types of religious knowledge, and people may disagree on how these weights are placed. The simple average gives each question equal weight, but the distribution of questions is certainly arbitrary. Thus, an overall score is an arbitrary measure of religious knowledge and not very insightful. Think about it. What if you removed a couple questions about the Bible? How would that change the overall scores? What if you added a couple questions about the Bible?

A better way to look at the data is to look at topic specific questions. Look at Bible questions, then world religion questions, then public policy and religion questions. Check the scores for the people in different religious groups by type of question. This is more informative. Alas, when you do this you find that that the results are not that surprising if you already know something about the people in these religious groups.

P.S. You can test your own knowledge on this reduced version of the survey. I got 15 out of 15 correct. How many did you get correct?

How Churches Invest their Money

2010-05-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

That's the title of this little story. It briefly discusses how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church allocate their funds. The information is, unfortunately, not too detailed. Each church does generate income from its assets and pays taxes on the profit-making ventures according to U.S. tax policy.

Church is for the Dogs

2010-05-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

It is not enough to have a special church service for pet owners as mentioned in an earlier post,
there must also be a special church service for the pets! How widespread will this practice become?

More Religious Regulation in the News

2010-05-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

The 2010 USCIRF Annual Report on Religious Freedom was released last week. The Countries of Particular Concern are Burma, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. The Watch List consists of Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Belgium moves closer to banning burqas in public places, and the Workplace Religious Freedom Act is getting renewed attention in the U.S.

Islam and Christianity in Africa

2010-04-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Pew just released a study on these two religious traditions in Africa. Some nice figures.

Belgium Considering Burqa Ban

2010-04-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Read about it in the New York Times.

More on the Recession and Church Finances

2010-03-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

From the Kansas City Star on 26 February.

New Reports on Religious Freedom and the Religious Blogosphere

2010-02-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

Two reports of interest appeared on the Internet recently.

The first is a report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs called "Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy." It is a bit long, so you might want to just read the executive summary at the beginning.

The second is a report called "The New Landscape of the Religion Blogosphere" by the Social Science Research Council. Unfortunately, this blog did not make it into the report. What an oversight!

Many Recent Events

2010-02-20T21:23:00.000-08:00

Too many to say too much:

The USCIRF is accused of an anti-Muslim bias in the Washington Post.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a U.S. group that seek increased separation of church and state, is lobbying the federal government to end tax breaks for ministers.
A church that mixes Eastern Orthodoxy with Evangelical Christianity.
Pew releases a study on the religious attitudes of the millennials.
A group unhappy with current trends in the Lutheran Church has unveiled plans to form a rival, the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which will promote traditional teachings.

A New Religion in India?

2010-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

You can read about it here. Of course, not everyone is in favor of its forming.

French Parliamentary Report Recommends Burqa Ban in Public Places

2010-01-28T08:02:00.000-08:00

Here is CNN's summary of this story.

Religious Regulation in the News

2010-01-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

Religious regulation has been big in the news lately.

The transcript for a discussion of the Pew Report on Global Restrictions on Religion has been posted online. The transcript is long but gives some excellent context for the report.
Open Doors released its World Watch List, which ranks countries where persecution of Christians is the worst.
The Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University released a document that explores 35 questions related to religion in politics and public life. It is titled Religious Expression in American Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law.
The December 2009 Newsletter of the Association of American Law Schools included a 35-page bibliography of articles, books, and websites on law and religion from 2009.
Following his recent predecessors, President Obama declared January 16th Religious Freedom Day.

Wrapping up 2009 and Looking Toward 2010

2009-12-28T16:14:00.000-08:00

Time to wrap up the 2009 year with some big religion stories.

The Pew Forum released this month a big study on religious regulations around the world. Here is the executive summary. The big item was that an estimated 70% of the world's population live under high or very high religious regulations.
For the fifth year in a row, the United Nations passed a resolution against religious defamation, yet support for this is declining each year. The main criticism of the resolution is that it can be used to support the suppression of some minority religious groups whose members speak out against persecutions enacted by member of other religious groups.
These two stories are mentioned in this Economist Magazine article.
Another Pew Forum study on trends in American's religiosity. In short, there is a lot of switching and mixing. Here's a Wall Street Journal article on it.

Putting the year in perspective is Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, which posted online their annual roundtable on the major religion stories during the past year, and Howard Friedman of ReligionClause.blogspot.com, who gives his Top-10 Religious Liberty Developments of 2009.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly also gives a look ahead to 2010.

End-of-quarter Thoughts on the Blog

2009-12-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

I welcome your feedback on the value of the blog. Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions.

Which one or two blog posts did you like the most?
What did you like about the blog? What did you not like about it?
In what ways did the blog contribute to the class, if any?
Would you come back to visit this blog later even though you will not be a student in the class?

Any other comments are appreciated as well. If there is interest, I can continue to post stories even though the class has ended. I have enjoyed our interaction on the blog, and I hope it has contributed to your understanding of the economics of religion.

Sikhs and the Possibility of Religious Freedom

2009-12-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sikh-Americans are small in number: there are only 211 Sikh congregations in the U.S.A. in the year 2000 according to the ARDA web site. Yet Sikhs stand out because of their many distinctive practices. The Pew Forum just published online a short but nice Q&A about the difficulties Sikh-Americans face in practicing their religion in the U.S.A. Much of this has to do with some of the particular requirements of Sikhism, e.g., men must wear head coverings, believers must carry a kirpan (a small curved sword), and more.

The Q&A examines the difficulty in balancing our ideal of religious freedom with other ideals in our society. For example: Should Sikh students be allowed to bring kirpans to school when the swords could become dangerous weapons? Should Sikhs be allowed to wear head coverings when it violates the uniform code required at a place of employment? Should imprisoned Sikhs be forced to shave their beards to comply with prison dress standards?

These questions are often resolved in the courtroom, where judges must perform a balancing act in trying to weigh a person's right to act in line with religious beliefs with another person or group's rights to set rules for behavior. In general, the courts rule in favor of the religious person unless there is a reason compelling enough to overrule that person's right to religious practice. For example, a 1984 ruling went in favor of an employer who required his Sikh employee to shave his beard because the beard hair hindered the operation of a gas mask that must be worn by employees for safety.

But we see here the difficulty in putting into practice our basic notion of religious freedom. Religious freedom often comes into conflict with other freedoms and responsibilities, and this means that religious freedom, even in the U.S.A., is not a right that trumps all other rights at all times and in all places in the eyes of the courts. This conclusion has even led at least one person to conclude that religious freedom is impossible.

It is true that religious freedom in the fullest sense of the term will never be realized because in a pluralistic society there will frequently arise conflicting claims and rights. Yet, saying that religious freedom is impossible can be misleading. Religious freedom is better thought of as existing in a matter of degrees rather than as an either-or condition. There is no doubt that people are more free to practice their religions in some countries than in others. Thus, the notion of religious freedom is still useful even if it can never be experienced in totality. Unfortunately, it also means that some people, like Sikhs in the U.S., will give up some religious practices even in relatively free religious environments.

Update: Coincidently, a Sikh man's is currently suing a transportation company claiming it did not hire him because of his beard and turban. Story here.

The Market for Martyrs

2009-12-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

Our thanks go to Larry Iannaccone of Chapman University for his terrific guest lecture on religious extremism and suicide bombings. Students in the class can go to the class dropbox for access to his paper "The Market for Martyrs." He also mentioned the following books (obviously not required reading for the final exam):

Eli Berman, Radical, Religious, and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism.
Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks.

Berman is an economist, and Sageman is a psychologist. Another book of interest is by a political scientist:

Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

Sunday Shopping Restrictions Upheld by German Court

2009-12-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

From this article about a ruling earlier today by the German Constitutional Court:

The court said the German capital could no longer allow stores to open on the four Sundays prior to Christmas, but permitted shopkeepers keep their doors open this Advent season one last time.

With the least restricted shopping hours in Germany, Berlin’s 2006 decision to allow stores to open on ten Sundays and holidays a year sparked a constitutional challenge by the Protestant and Catholic churches afraid the sanctity of their holy day was being unduly impinged.

After allowing the liberalisation of opening hours on every day of the week except Sunday a few years ago, the high court justices agreed there could be no further weakening of Germany’s Ladenschluss [German store closing] laws.

“A simple economic interest of merchants and the daily shopping interest of potential consumers are not fundamentally enough to justify exceptions for opening stores on these days,” said the court’s president, Judge Hans-Jürgen Papier.

Well, I guess December church attendance in Berlin should increase a little.

The Swiss Minaret Ban

2009-11-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

Following up on an earlier post, you might have heard by now that Switzerland passed yesterday by a margin of 57.5% to 42.5% a law to ban the construction of minarets. Here is the NY Times write-up.

Update (December 1, 2009): See ReligionClause for information about reactions to the ban.

Update (December 2, 2009): See IslamOnline about the possibility of additional regulations on Muslim practices in Switzerland, including bans on hijab and burqas. Meanwhile, the U.N. calls the ban "clearly discriminatory."

Religious hate crimes in the U.S. in 2008

2009-11-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

Today the FBI released its hate crime statistics for 2008 (thanks to ReligionClause for the heads-up on this). Religious hate crimes would be an extreme type of "social regulation" that we discussed in class last week. Many statistics are reported by the FBI, and I will mention just a few.

Of the 7780 incidents that had a single bias in 2008, 19.5% were religious hate-crimes. Thus is much less than the racially motivated crimes (51.3%), but more more than the sexual-orientation motivated crimes (16.7%), ethnicity/nationality motivated crimes (11.5%), and disability motivated crimes (1%).

There were 1606 religiously motivated hate crimes in 2008: nearly two-thirds were anti-Jewish, 13% were "anti-other religion," 8% were anti-Islamic, 5% were anti-Catholic, 4% were anti-multiple groups, 4% were anti-Protestant, and 1% were anti-agnostic/anti-atheist.

It would be interesting to compare these with religious hate crime rates in other countries. It is not surprising that the anti-Protestant hate crime rate is very low given that Protestants are not a minority in the country. It is also not surprising that anti-Jewish is the most common type of religious hate crime. I was surprised that "anti-other" was not bigger. Most new religious movements would fall into category.

A Lutheran Break-off in Process

2009-11-20T21:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in class we discussed sect-to-church transitions, including sect break-off formation. Though we discussed why this cycle is not a natural evolution for all religious groups, we also discussed how some religious groups do follow such a trajectory.

Well, some big news broke yesterday: a coalition of Lutherans upset with the direction the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA) has taken has decided to break-off and form their own religious group. Here is the write-up from the Washington Times. They are breaking off for similar reasons why a similar split is occurring in the Episcopal Church: disagreement over interpretation of scripture and Church policy. As we discussed in class, those unhappy with the direction of the Church break off to form a new group that better matches what they consider to be the more original and true teachings.

Such splits happen periodically but not everyday events, so we are witnessing American religious history in the making.

The 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom

2009-11-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

Just a couple weeks ago on October 26, the U.S. State Department submitted to Congress its annual Report on International Freedom. The USCIRF,which was mentioned in our recent book club reading and which we will discuss more in our class, issued a press release with their reaction to the report.

The report is too long to read in its entirety in one sitting. However, take a look at the entry for France. Click here for the full entry, but here is an expert:

The [French] Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and other laws and policies contributed to the generally free practice of religion; however, discriminatory treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists remained a concern. Some religious groups voiced opposition to legislation passed in 2001 and 2004, which provides for the dissolution of groups under certain circumstances and bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by public school employees and students...

The Government generally respected religious freedom in practice, but there continued to be concerns about the treatment of some minority religious groups. ... A 2004 law prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools by employees and students continued to be implemented during the reporting period. ... Discrimination against Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, and other groups considered dangerous sects or cults remained a concern and may have contributed to acts of vandalism against these groups...

There were reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice; however, prominent societal leaders took positive steps to promote religious freedom. ... There were 36 violent acts and 99 threats (down from 256 in 2007) directed against individuals of North African origin in 2008. ...

Book Club - God is Back #5

2009-11-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

At the close of their book, God is Back, the authors point us to the future of religion. I want to highlight two particular points made in their conclusion.

The first is that religion is not inconsistent with modernity:

The great forces of modernity--technology and democracy, choice and freedom--are all strengthening religious rather than undermining it. Give people the freedom to control their lives and, for better or worse, they frequently choose to give religion more power... The triumph of pluralism means that all religious beliefs (and indeed all secular beliefs) become competitors in the marketplace. (Pp. 355-356)

This discussion fits in well with the economic approach to religion. Many religious goods do not have close substitutes, and the fact that religion has persisted for so long ought to clue us to the fact that religion provides something valuable to many of people's daily challenges.

A second point of the authors is that America has failed to appreciate "the ability of religion to solve problems as well as create them" (p. 362). They consider the USCIRF, which we will study more in this class, to fall short in this respect because it is focused too much on American policy and "does not make a robust intellectual case for religious freedom as a fundamental building block of a civilized and successful liberal society" (p. 362). On the second point, I think the authors expect more from the USCIRF than it was designed to accomplish. Its policy focus is intentional, and a government agency should not be expected to make intellectual arguments--intellectuals and academics should.

But here, then, is the challenge for you: can you make a case for why religious freedom is a fundamental building block of a free society? Or can you make a case for why religious freedom is a stumbling block for a free society?

Religious Regulation in Recent News

2009-11-09T03:25:00.000-08:00

If you want to get a glimpse of how religion is regulated in the real world, just follow the news. In the past two weeks, I have seen dozens of stories that illustrate how the rules of the religious game are currently being negotiated. Here are a bunch of them, some from in the U.S. and some from out of the U.S. You do not need to read all of these; just get a sense of the variety of ways that religion is regulated.

From the Baltimore Sun: Missouri says Yoga centers must pay sales tax despite the practitioners' claims that it is religion that should not be taxed.
From Florida Today: the self-titled "pot pastor" is found guilty in a Florida court of illegally growing marijuana, though he claims it is used for religious purposes.
From Religion Clause here and here: a West Virgina court ruled that requiring students to get immunizations does not violate religious freedoms, while a teacher sues her school claiming that forcing her to submit fingerprints violates her religious freedom.
From the NY Times: a British court must confront how to define who is and who is not a Jew.
From the Wall Street Journal: a debate in Switzerland centers on whether Muslim buildings can have certain external features.
From The Globe and Mall: a French court finds Scientology guilty of "organized fraud."
From Forum 18: Jehovah's Witnesses are denied legal status in Nagorno-Karabakh (an internationally unrecognized region in Azerbaijan).
From WorldWide Religion News: there is a proposed law to place restrictions on evangelizing in Russia.

Book Club - God is Back #4

2009-11-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

In Ch. 10-12 of God is Back, the authors look more to the future and lay out where they see rising tensions between religious and secular and between religion and religion. Ch. 10 is quite provocative in pitting Muslims and Christians against each other in a battle for world domination, or so the book seems to read. The authors claim that Christians will win out in the long run, and let me list some of their argument in my words.

Muslims are less willing to translate the Koran than Christians are the Bible. This fosters more adaptation in Christian groups, thus suggesting that they might be amenable to competition with substitutes. (P. 273)
Christians are more willing to combine religion with commercial enterprises in disseminating the Bible, again suggesting greater flexibility in competition with substitutes as different versions of the Bible can appeal to different market niches. (P. 275)
The Christian population is wealthier overall and has more resources to devote to spreading its message. (P. 277)
Christianity and its various denomination forms has proven adept at competing in open religious markets, while Islam's strongest manifestations are in state-supported nations. If religious freedoms are trending upward around the world, then Christianity has a leg up in succeeding. (P. 277)
Islam has not confronted modernity and pluralism to the extent that Christianity has, and this hinders the spread of Islam in an increasingly modern and pluralistic world. (P. 278)

I wish the authors included some numbers to support their overall argument. I certainly agree with their points that Christianity has proved adept at facing various religious and secular challenges. However, consider these points. (See this Pew Forum Report for more information on the first two points, but this is not required reading.)

Islam is the fastest growing religion tradition (as distinguished from denomination) in Europe, due to both immigration and high birth rates. Muslims comprise about 5% of the European population today, but are predicted to comprise 10% by 2020. This suggests Muslims can compete with Christians on their own turf.
The rise of Muslim populations in Europe has led to increased persecution and restrictions--sometimes even state sponsored--on Muslims in Europe. Those on the European political right disagree religiously with Islam, while those on the political left disagree with Muslim culture. Many Christians fear Muslim competition enough to start changing the rules of the game.
Muslims often try to use democratic methods to enact policies in line with their teachings, which suggests that Muslims are more adept at operating in pluralistic societies than the authors give credit.

Maybe the authors are right that the Bible will win the "Battle of the Books," but with Islam on the rise in many parts of the world, we should be careful to not underestimate the ability of Islamic entrepreneurs to compete with their Christian counterparts.

Who do you think has the edge in this "Battle of the Books," and why? Does one have a competitive advantage in the religious marketplace?

A reincarnated monk as a challenge to the economics of religion

2009-11-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Every so often we come across something in the world of religion which seems beyond the scope of the economic approach to religion. Consider excerpts from this Telegraph article from last week:

Jigme Wangchuk, an 11-year-old boy based in Boston, was today enthroned near Darjeeling [in India] as the reincarnation of Gyalwa Lorepa, a monk who passed away in 1250 AD. . .

The fifth-grader from Boston’s St Peter’s School will now have to spend the rest of his life at the Druk-Sa-Ngag Choeling monastery at Dali, 3km from Darjeeling. He can visit Boston later in his life but to deliver discourses. If he badly misses his friends back in the US — he is an American citizen now — he can speak to them but the conversation cannot be as carefree as what 11-year-olds usually indulge in. . .
The reincarnate touched upon some things he has left behind. “It is a big transition, and yes, I do miss being a joyful schoolboy and my friends, my home, my grandparents, aunts and uncles.”

The rinpoche added later: “In fact, I already miss them” but took solace in the fact that his parents had moved to Darjeeling to serve him.

I mentioned at the start of the quarter that there has been little effort in the economics of religion to study eastern religions. Anyone want to take a stab at this one? Can you give a good economics explanation for this practice of identifying reincarnated monks? Other comments are welcome, too.

Religious innovations in finance

2009-10-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

A German bank is soon to begin offering financial services that comply with Islamic Sharia law. See these earlier posts here and here for some background info. Such financial services have existed in other countries, and actually did pretty well during the recent financial crisis. This news is another indication of the continued growth of Islam in Germany and Europe. And in case you were wondering, yes, financial services also cater to people of other faiths. Overall, this is just another way in which religion and other aspects of life intersect.

Book Club - God is Back #3

2009-10-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

In chapters 5-7 of their book God is Back, the authors explore why and in what ways religion is thriving in America. One argument they make is that religion provides something that is without close substitutes and that is demanded just as much in today's modern world as in the past. Another claim is that Evangelicals, which form one of largest categories of highly engaged religious persons, have ramped up their intellectual credibility. But it is another claim that I want to explore here:

The American religious marketplace is almost a study in perfect competition: there are no real barriers to entry, the domestic market is big enough to support a mind-boggling variety of religious producers, and new religious entrepreneurs are always rising up to challenge incumbents. (P. 174)

I agree with their conclusion, yet their discussion misses a glaring issue. How is it that the religious marketplace is so competitive when there are such strong network effects that work in favor of religious monopoly?

Network effects, also called network externalities, arise when one person's consumption of a good influences another's consumption of that good. For example, my benefits from using Facebook are more enjoyable if all of my friends also use Facebook. A similar effect arises with religion: if all of my friends belong to religion X, then I would enjoy religion X more than if they were not in religion X.

Economists have long recognized that network effects often result in natural monopolies, which arise when a single-supplier is the most efficient industry structure. That religion exhibits network effects but has not led to a natural monopoly in the U.S. may be due to the other characteristics of religion that are not found with other natural monopoly settings, such as low barriers to entry.

What other reasons help explain why religion in the U.S. is quite competitive despite the network effects that work in favor of natural monopoly?

Religious capital and the Vatican

2009-10-21T13:32:00.001-07:00

What a coincidence that on the same day (yesterday) as our lecture on religious capital the Vatican announced a new policy that makes it easier for dissatisfied Anglicans to switch to Roman Catholicism. The key background to the story is that Anglicans disagree about what should be the Anglican Communion's policy on same-sex marriage and the ordination of gays and women.

From the third paragraph of the AP news article:

The change means conservative Anglicans from around the world will be able to join the Catholic Church while retaining aspects of their Anglican liturgy and identity...

In our language, the Vatican is deliberately reducing the costs of switching from Anglicanism (Episcopalianism in the U.S.) to Roman Catholicism by making it possible for Anglican switchers to retain more of their religious capital.

A simple prediction is that this new Vatican policy should lead to more switching from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. I expect this will be the case, however, there are mitigating factors. An important one is the perceived trajectory and timing of changes in Anglican policy. If policy is expected to change in the direction of supporting, say, same-sex marriages, then there would be more switching today than there would be without such expectations. Moreover, some people may seek to remain Anglican until policy changes actually occur, staying in the meantime with the hope that the policies will not change. The bottom line is that the exact number of switchers might not be very large initially, and the total number of switchers over the course of the next years will depend on the timing of the changes, if any, in Anglican policy.

Donating money to church during the recession

2009-10-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

A recent USA Today/Gallop poll finds that, relative to twelve months ago, the number of American donating money to churches has not changed and the number of Americans volunteering at churches has increased.

This second finding is intuitive: if people out of work have a lower opportunity cost of time, they may devote it to religious volunteering. The article does not specify what type of volunteering is done, and that would be informative. Perhaps some volunteering may also serve indirectly to help networking for job opportunities.

The first finding may seem counter intuitive, but later in the article you read that people are donating less money rather than not donating at all. If incomes take hit, this is not surprising. The benefits associated with religious giving may not have changed dramatically during the recession, but the cost of giving up part of your now lower income may be higher than before. People reduce the amounts they give but not down to nothing.

Seems like our simple economics logic does pretty well explaining this pattern found in the poll.

Book Club - God is Back #2

2009-10-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

In chapters 1-4 of God is Back, the authors offer an explanation for why religion is so different in the United States than in Europe. One of the biggest factors they cite is the American First Amendment. In the authors' words:

[The First Amendment] created tolerance in its fullest sense: not just the top-down tolerance involved in allowing dissent but the bottom-up tolerance that recognizes that individuals have a right to choose their own religious opinions. And it introduced competition: churches had to get people in through the door. (P. 62)

Why did this make lead to religious vitality in the U.S. while religiosity declined in Europe?

Adam Smith gave the best answer to this question more than two centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations: a free market in religion forces clergy to compete for market share. (P. 64)

By drawing lines between churches and the state, religion was actually, and perhaps surprisingly, strengthened. This is less surprising if we imagine that government, should it intrude into churches, would undermine churches' innovation in the face of competition, just as government intrusions into other markets could undermine innovation. In fact, religion might be one of the best examples of this.

Government involvement in religious markets can be justified by arguments similar to those used to justify other government interventions. For example, if religion is a public good that is under-supplied in open markets, then government intervention would be warranted according to standard economic theory. The fact that religion thrives in places like the U.S. where it is not provided by government raises questions. Is there something about religion that makes it different from other goods that we believe ought to be supplied by government? What exactly makes it different? What are the economics behind any difference?

Religion and the Nobel Winners

2009-10-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

With all economists say about markets in which products are bought and sold, you might want to stop and think about all your interactions that are outside of such traditionally conceived markets. The two 2009 Nobel Prize winners in Economics Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson made their careers exploring the boundaries of markets. But do their insights have any bearing on the economics of religion?

Elinor Ostrom is best known for her work on common property resources. Think of the overfishing of lakes or overgrazing of pastures. Her work shows that, although people usually cannot enforce the most efficient consumption of common resources, they often are able to coordinate efforts to do better than what simple theory predicts they would do. Some of her insights into how people work within communities to detect and punish free-riders are directly relevant to our study of how religious groups coordinate their own actions. Groups devise internal ways to enforce good behavior, and they are very creative in doing so. We will talk about religious groups in this way, i.e., as institutions that have developed ingenious ways of solving collective action problems.

Oliver Williamson's work focuses on the boundaries of the firm. His ideas confront why it is that firms even exist, why some exchanges occur at prices, and why some exchanges occur within hierarchies, like boss-to-underling. Firms often must decide which decisions to make via the price mechanism and which to make through hierarchies, and his work argues that the cost of engaging in transactions--the so-called transactions cost--determines, in part, which method is used. Churches face similar problems in deciding how best to structure their congregational activities, which goods to produce themselves, and which to have group members get from outside markets, and so on.

Though I see connections between the Nobel winners' work and the economics of religion, I know of no systematic attempt to tie their work more directly to religion. Maybe the announcement of their prize will help spark such work. I would love to see it.

Book Club - God is Back #1

2009-10-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

In the introduction to their book, God is Back, Micklethwait and Wooldridge set up a number of arguments of interest to us. Instead of summarizing them all here, let me highlight one of their claims that they will attempt to establish during the course of the book.

They explore the distinction between what they call the American and European views of the relationship between religion and modernity. They say that whereas Europeans (and non-European intellectuals) tend to view modernity as undermining religion, Americans have believed that religion can thrive in the face of modernity. With this in mind, they notice a trend:

It now seems that the American model is spreading around the world: religion and modernity are going hand in hand... The very things that were supposed to destroy religion--democracy and markets, technology and reason--are combining to make it stronger. (P. 12)

More specifically:

The biggest problem for the prophets of secularization is that the surge of religion is being driven by the same two things that have driven the success of market capitalism: competition and choice. (P. 21)

Here's the big question for us to chew on: How might competition and choice, as they increase, actually lead to a surge in religion?

One simple explanation is that religious goods are like other goods in an important way: competition breeds innovation, which increases the choice and quality of goods available in the market, and leads to an increase in amount of goods consumed by market participants.

But this answer needs more. Innovations are also occurring in the markets of substitutes for religion, so how is religion keeping up? Will religion eventually reach a saturation point once previously closed countries have been open a sufficiently long time? Does an increased awareness of religious choice imply that religious groups are catering to satisfying what people want rather than trying to convince people to change what they value and therefore imply less staying power as people religious tastes change?

So back to the big question: If the authors are correct that God has surged back into people's lives, can we attribute any credit to increased competition and choice, and if so, how much?

Selling your house the supernatural way

2009-10-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Supernatural methods are available for many things including selling your house according to this NY Times article. It is really quite simple. St. Joseph is a Catholic saint who intercedes on behalf of many people for many various concerns, including help for families, expectant mothers, selling a house, and more. To enlist his help in selling your house, you can purchase a St. Joseph statue (see here), and bury it in your yard. Some prayer may needed as well.

Many things pop out from the article. First, sales of St. Joseph statues appear to be countercyclical. That is, they sell better during bad economic times. See this earlier post for another countercyclical religious good and a simple supply-demand explanation. Can you think of other countercyclical religious goods? Any evidence for your claim?

Second, about tw0-thirds down, the writer seems to confuse magic and religion. I would classify this as religion because, as I understand it, St. Joseph himself is to be involved and not just the statue.

Third, notice that people report different experiences. Some believe the supernatural appeal worked; others do not. But we can understand that the practice can persist because, first, it is not falsifiable, and second, it is not very costly to do.

Finally, at the bottom we learn that non-Catholics as well as Catholics to use the St. Joseph statue for help selling a home. We often see that people mix practices from multiple religious traditions. One question is why we do not observe more mixing than we do.

Second Annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday

2009-09-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative Christian organization that promotes the expansion of certain privileges to religious groups, announced yesterday that its annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday will be this Sunday, September 27. What is this all about?

Current IRS tax law states that a church that endorses a political candidate will lose its tax-exempt status. (See this earlier post for more background information.) The ADF and others argue that this is an infringement on freedom of speech. The IRS says that churches that act like political organizations should be taxed like those other organizations. Groups with agendas opposite the ADF, like the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, take it upon themselves to report religious leaders who speak out about candidates.

To be clear, it is not illegal for a church to endorse a candidate; it just means that the church will have to pay a bunch of taxes if it does. Also, a church can endorse stances on political issues and retain its tax-exempt status; it is endorsing candidates that is the problem.

Which brings us to Pulpit Freedom Sunday. On Pulpit Freedom Sunday, religious leaders around the country will protest the current IRS policy by intentionally endorsing candidates from their pulpits during their sermons.

I think it is easy to understand where the ADF is coming from in disputing the rule. It is less obvious why a religious leader would favor the current restriction. One explanation is that those leaders who want to endorse candidates would be better able than other leaders to have influence over their respective church members. As we will discuss later in the quarter, stricter churches, which tend to be right-of-center, have denser social networks, and this may allow them to operate more effectively in collective efforts, including mobilizing before an election. Less-strict churches, which tend to be left-of-center, would then have more difficultly in fostering this type of collective action. Thus, we have an economic explanation for why those in favor of endorsing candidates would be the ones who would benefit more from a change in the regulation, while those who prefer the status quo benefit more as is.

Can you think of another reason why a religious leader would prefer the status quo? And what do you think of this policy? Should religious leaders be allowed to endorse political candidates? Why or why not?

Book club rules and information

2009-09-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

This quarter for our ECON 17 book club, we will be reading God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World, Penguin Press 2009, by Micklethwait and Woolridge, two writers for The Economist Magazine.

The book is required reading; exam questions will address ideas from the book. Please obtain your copy ASAP via amazon.com if you have not already.

We will read the book during weeks 2-7 of the quarter. Here is the schedule (also on syllabus):

Oct 8 - Introduction.
Oct 15 - Ch. 1-4.
Oct 22 - Ch. 5-7.
Oct 29 - Ch. 8-9.
Nov 5 - Ch. 10-12.
Nov 12 - Conclusion.

On each of the six dates above, I will post on the blog some thoughts and discussion questions based on the assigned reading for that day. You are encouraged to participate in an online discussion when each post goes up. Online participation is not mandatory, yet a comment I consider to be of very high quality result in extra credit (maximum five extra credit points during the quarter for good blog comments). So that we may properly assign extra credit, please use your first name and last initial when making the comment. (If you do not use both, we cannot guarantee the extra credit.)

ECON/RELSTD 17 Course Information Fall 2009

2009-09-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

This blog will act as our course's web site for the ECON 17 course in the Fall 2009 quarter at UCI. Please bookmark this page in your browser and visit it daily.

Relevant course materials (syllabus, lecture notes, homework assignments and solutions, etc.) will be available for you to download via links in the sidebar.

You can also participate in online blog discussions. Once or twice a week I will publish a post on some topic related to our course that is inspired by current events or lecture material. Everybody is encouraged to make comments.

Finally, this web site will also serve as the hub for our book club with God is Back by Micklethwait and Wooldrige, with more details to follow.

The Church of Starbucks

2008-12-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

Check out this YouTube video that finds humor in the marketing strategies used by churches. Many churches use marketing strategies similar to those used by secular businesses, such as offering certain goods and services to first-time visitors or advertising through newspapers and the internet. This video hypothesizes an opposite direction of influence, i.e., that a secular business could look to a church for marketing ideas. Part of the humor in the video is that it takes this direction of influence to an extreme level. I suspect many of the jokes will make more sense viewers who have attended certain types of churches, but any viewer can use his/her imagination and still get a good laugh.

Though it might not be the intent of the video's creators, the video is ultimately saying something about secularization. As discussed in class, we have observed secularization at the (meso-) level of religious organizations. In fact, the marketing strategies can sometimes be so similar between churches and secular businesses that the churches do seem like a type of business. Or businesses can seem like a type of church.

In one sense, this should not be surprising because both churches and secular businesses, at least in the U.S., are supplying goods and services in competitive market environments. Yet, the key difference lies in the types of goods and services being offered. Religious groups specialize in the production of clubs goods, which means religious groups must confront challenges in production not faced by some other firms. Religious goods also have a certain type of "habit-forming" property because of the role of religious capital. One of the important aspects of a church's strategy in gaining new adherents is getting people "addicted" to the religious goods and services, either because they develop a "taste" for it or because the social component of consumption has increased. One funny thing about the Starbucks example in the video is that both of these components are at work with coffee. Coffee is addictive, and drinking coffee can be a very social activity.

Bundling religion and pets

2008-12-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

That's exactly what some religious groups are doing these days, according to this Examiner article. As discussed in class, churches can compete in the marketplace by bundling various products. Instead of going one place for religious services, another place for social support, another place for friendships, and so on, a person can go to church to obtain many different goods and services and at a lower opportunity cost. In fact, it seems religious groups have always bundled other-worldly and this-worldly goods. By bundling various goods and services together, a religious group not only competes with other religious groups, it competes with secular alternatives. As churches increase the scope of what they bundle, they can potentially improve their positions in the market.

The churches in this article are expanding the scope of their bundles by holding religious services meant specifically for pet owners who want to spend time with their pets. By combining the more standard religious services with something that seems very secular--taking your dog to the dog park--the religious group can potentially reach out to niche in the marketplace. If some people previously had to choose between going to church or going to the dog park, now they can do both.

More on the new sect

2008-12-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

This Christian Science Monitor article discusses the latest developments in the new break-off Episcopal church. Also see this earlier post.

Updated 7:50pm: There's a CNN article, too.

A recession-proof religious business?

2008-12-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

"There are very few recession-proof businesses left in the world, but the Cavanagh family of Rhode Island thinks they may have one - they make Communion wafers for millions of churchgoers each week.

"... [S]ales of the company's altar breads are up as much as 5 percent this year, a possible indicator of the national mood. Sales spiked 10 percent after the Sept. 11 attacks."

So begins this Boston Globe article. This is simple supply and demand at work. If the demand for church attendance increases during a recession, then the demand for certain supplies used during religious group meetings may also go up. Thus, their business is not just recession-proof; it is probably countercyclical: sales are highest during a recession and lowest during economic expansion.

But other factors not associated with a recession can also affect demand:

"The company noticed a dip in Catholic Church attendance reflected in lower sales in the early part of this decade after the church sex abuse scandal broke."

Again, this is basic supply and demand at work. The scandal decreased demand for church attendance, thus lessening the demand for wafers.

One of the more surprising things is that the Cavanagh Co. has an 80% market share in the U.S. I do not have a good explanation for why they maintain such a dominant market position. Any ideas?