Gabi the AI Monk

On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, a four-foot-tall, humanoid robot named Gabi went through a special ordination to become what may be the world's first robotic monk. See this article at the Smithsonian Magazine. The ceremony, which was held at the (Buddhist) Jogyesa Temple in Seoul, South Korea, was adapted with Gabi's robotic nature in mind, with special vows to save energy by not overcharging and to not harm other robots.

You can see clips of the ordination ceremony here on YouTube.

The obvious context for this development is the adoption of AI and AI-related tools in more and more of our everyday lives. That AI spills over into religious life is not surprising at all, as has been noted here on this blog in many past blog posts (just scroll down in past months and you will see them). In fact, as mentioned in the article, there are also a small number of known cases of robots actively participating in religious rituals, providing religious instruction, performing spiritual care, or actively preaching. However, the ordination of a robotic monk seems to be a new step with some symbolic meaning. I hope we learn more about what functions Gabi will actually fulfill for the temple, and perhaps some of them will be more than perfunctory.

Other relevant context for this development context, which is noted in the article, is that Buddhism is the only major religious tradition that is losing followers worldwide (see this Pew Research article). I do not expect that the incorporation of robots into temple activities will not reverse this trend, but perhaps ift can still help Buddhist temples by lowering some of their operational costs.

That said, given the increased frequency of interactions with AI in many countries, I do expect that robots and other AI tools will find increasing use in religion worldwide. Although most religious practitioners will still prefer human interaction, the number who prefer an AI-mediated interaction with their religious group can only go up. And as AI technology improves, do not be surprised when more religious groups find ways to incorporate AI technology--be it robots or something else--when providing religious services. Some religious groups are always among the earliest adopters of new technologies when they believe that the new technology can help them in their religious missions.

And if you are worried that Gabi may feel alone as the only robotic monk at the Jogyesa Temple, then have no fear: the temple has already incorporated other robots into some of their activities.

2026 USCIRF Annual Report

The USCIRF released its 2026 report last week. Read the read the press release here, and find the full pdf of the report on their Annual Reports page.

This year's report classified 18 countries as Countries of Particular Concern:

• Afghanistan
• Burma
• China
• Cuba
• Eritrea
• India
• Iran
• Libya
• Nicaragua
• Nigeria
• North Korea
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Vietnam

This list includes all 16 countries classified as CPCs in the 2025 report, but further adds Libya and Syria.

Religious Minorities in Iran

The death of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the attacks by the U.S. and Israel has created profound uncertainty for the country's religious minorities. It also provides us in this class with a real-world case study in how government regulation shapes religious markets and the survival of minority religious groups.

Iran maintains a highly regulated religious market. Unlike the United States, where low barriers to entry allow diverse religious groups to compete freely, Iran maintains an official state religion with extreme government favoritism. The theocratic regime doesn't just prefer Shia Islam; it actively suppresses religious competitors through systematic persecution, property confiscation, and exclusion from education and employment.

This RNS article reveals the stark reality of this regulation and its effects on religious minorities. One of those groups are the followers of the Baha'i religion. Bahaʼis are systematically excluded from higher education and have their businesses shuttered, and crackdowns have intensified following the Israel-Iran conflict. These actions create a large barrier to entry for Baha'is because legal and social obstacles prevent religious entrepreneurs from starting new groups or minority religions from operating freely.

Yet, somehow, religious minorities can find ways to survive in such hostile regulatory environments. The article notes that Iran's religious minorities, particularly the 300,000 Bahaʼís, continue to exist despite decades of systematic oppression. This persistence relies in part on their ability to produce the club goods that comprise part of their religious communities. This includes the shared benefits of belonging—spiritual support, social networks, cultural identity—that create strong incentives for members to maintain their affiliation even when the costs are extremely high.

At the same time, economic theory also predicts that the intense regulation suppresses religious pluralism, and if the official state church fails to meet religious consumers' needs, then religious vitality can also decline. Indeed, the article notes growing secularization among Iran's Muslim majority, with surveys showing over 45% of respondents identifying as having no faith by 2020. This suggests that excessive religious regulation can backfire, reducing not just minority religions but overall religiosity in society.

As Iran faces this leadership transition, the fate of its religious minorities will depend largely on whether the new regime maintains the current highly regulated religious market or allows greater religious competition. For students of this class, Iran's situation demonstrates how government policies don't just shape political outcomes; they fundamentally determine whether diverse religious communities can survive and thrive.

(This article was written with the help of the Econ 17 ClassChat Chatbot.)

Global Religious Diversity Today

A report released last week from Pew Research Center, "Religious Diversity Around the World” (2026), provides a nice overview of religious diversity across 201 countries and territories. Using a modified version of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)—a measure economists typically use to assess market concentration—Pew constructs a Religious Diversity Index (RDI) ranging from 0 (complete religious homogeneity) to 10 (perfectly even distribution across seven religious categories).

The most religiously diverse country in the world is Singapore, with an RDI score of 9.3. No single religious tradition dominates: Buddhists (31%), religiously unaffiliated (20%), Christians (19%), Muslims (16%), Hindus (5%), and others (9%) all have significant presence. Suriname ranks second.

At the opposite end are Yemen and Afghanistan, where Muslims account for more than 99% of the population, yielding RDI scores close to 0.

A striking finding is that a single religious tradition forms a majority in 194 out of 201 countries. On the one hand, that makes it sound like religious pluralism is not quite so prevalent as might be supposed. Indeed, pluralism where no group exceeds 50% is rare, occurring in only seven countries. On the other hand, just looking at religious tradition can be misleading because there can be quite a lot of diversity in religious teaching and practices within a particular religious tradition. Just think of the Unitarian Universalists and the Amish, who both are rooted in Christianity (see the discussion on these groups in the book).

This last point is particularly relevant for the United States, whose RDI of 5.8 ties it with Nigeria as the most religiously diverse among the world's most populous countries. Although the U.S. is majority Christian (64%), nearly 30% are religiously unaffiliated, and smaller shares belong to other traditions. But keep in mind, too, that there is also tremendous diversity within Christianity in the United States, something that the RDI will not accurately account for.

The RDI is a good example of how a measurement concept that came from economics—namely the HHI—has found its way into the study of religion. However, you may be interested to know that the RDI is actually not the first time the HHI has been used to study religion, and it just takes a little internet sleuthing to find the earlier applications.

Overall, I suggest that you take away a two main lessons from this research report by Pew.

First, most of the world’s population lives in moderately diverse countries. Only 1% live in “very high” diversity contexts. This suggests that there are strong forces that drive both a degree of pluralism as well as a degree of concentration within a country. Can you think of some concepts from the book that would help to explain this fact?

Second, there is much to be gained by applying concepts from other disciplines to the study of religion. In this case, the RDI is an application of the HHI from economics, but of course there are many ideas that have come from sociology, psychology, and other fields. It is good to keep an open mind and an interdisciplinary view when studying religion.

Why Are There No Non-Christian Megachurches?

Megachurches—those congregations drawing 2,000 or more people each week—are almost entirely Christian, and usually Protestant, and it is natural to ask: "Why don’t we see megachurches in non-Christian religious traditions?"

At first glance, the pattern seems puzzling, especially because there are large gatherings in other religions traditions. For example, major mosques can host tens of thousands of persons for Friday prayers, and Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines attract massive crowds during festivals and pilgrimages. Yet, these gatherings do not resemble the megachurches as typically conceived by social scientist of religion: a single congregation, meeting weekly, under centralized leadership, offering a wide array of programs, and supported by voluntary attendance and donations.

From an economics-of-religion perspective, the explanation lies less in theology, which is where our attention might be instinctively drawn, and lies more in organization, incentives, and scale economies.

Let's first start with how religious “production” works. Christianity is unusually well suited to mass production. In a typical Christian congregation, the weekly gathering is sermon-centered with a preacher and an audience, and this setup scales efficiently. Once the fixed costs of buildings, technology, and staff are paid, adding more attendees is relatively cheap. That creates a potential incentive to grow large.

Contrast this with other kinds of religious activities that do not scale as easily. Small groups which focus on scriptural learning do not scale in the same way as a weekly religious service, and the building of strong social ties as in an Amish community also do not scale. Hinduism centers on household rituals and temple offerings rather than weekly congregational worship, so there is no scope for scaling up. Similarly, Buddhism often prioritizes meditation, monastic authority, and individualized practice. These modes of religious production generate fewer economies of scale, so there’s less payoff to building a single massive congregation.

Second, consider authority structures. Megachurches typically revolve around entrepreneurial leaders—charismatic pastors with significant autonomy over doctrine, programming, and branding. Indeed, about 40% of megachurches are non-denominational, which provides them with more flexibility in what they teach and how they operate. This governance structure works well in competitive religious markets like in the United States where religious groups compete with each other. In contrast, religions with strong centralized hierarchies (Catholicism, Shi’a Islam) or dispersed authority (many forms of Hinduism) limit the ability of any one local leader to grow a congregation unchecked.

Third, megachurches thrive in religious markets characterized by competition and choice. In the U.S., individuals can easily switch congregations, denominations, or opt out altogether. Under these conditions, growth-oriented groups can... well... grow! And growth-oriented groups, especially evangelical Christian groups, are also internally motivated to adapt their style of religion to appeal to segments of the population who are dissatisfied with other options. Other traditions, especially those tied to ethnicity, family, or inherited identity, face weaker incentives to compete for marginal attendees.

Thus, the absence of non-Christian megachurches is about the underlying economics of religious production, authority, and competition, and that also means that megachurches in other religious traditions are possible. It is really a question of whether the congregation's leaders prioritize growth and are willing to design religious services in a way to accommodate that growth, and whether there is demand for it by religious consumers. Remember, there's a supply side and a demand side. As proof of this concept, there are in fact some large, non-Christian congregations. One example is Temple Emanu-El in New York, which is reported (though I cannot confirm) to have over 2000 families in its membership.

The megachurch is ultimately an institutional solution that some congregations have adopted, and although Christian congregations are well-suited to this solution, Christianity is not the only religious tradition that can leverage this institutional arrangement.

Acknowledgement: ChatGPT 5 assisted in the writing of this post.

Where Religious Traditions are Concentrated

Last month, the Pew Research Center posted a short article about where members of different religious traditions are concentrated around the world.

It's best to read the entire short article; it's not very long and it provides more details. But their main graphic has been pasted here:

Going from the top left to the bottom right, we go from the most concentrated—95% of Hindus are in India—to the least concentrated—the Christians who are much more spread out around the world.

By the end of the quarter, you should be able to apply the economic concepts taught in the class (along with some basic knowledge of world history) to help answer the following questions:

• Why are Hindus much more concentrated than Christians?
• Why are two-thirds of the world's unaffiliated people in China?
• Why are 85% of the worlds Jews in the U.S.?

But go ahead and test yourself now... and then test yourself again at the end of the quarter.

The Religious Rights of Krishna Prisoners

[Note: I asked the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot to help draft this blog post, but severe editing was still needed.]

A significant religious freedom case is developing in Florida, where the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is preparing to file a lawsuit against the state's prison system over the ban of a Hindu holy text.

As explained in this Religion News Service article, since April 2022, The Bhagavad Gita As It Is—an English translation and commentary of the central Hindu scripture—has been prohibited from all Florida prisons, affecting inmates like Rakesh Patel at Jefferson Correctional Institution. Prison officials justified the ban by claiming the text was "written in code" and not easily interpretable by staff, despite it being a straightforward English translation with commentary.

Florida prisoners do have access to other religious materials like the Koran and the Bible, so this ban on the Krishna text appears at face value to be targeting one particular religious group.

This case highlights how religious rights and regulations are always being negotiated. ISKCON argues that denying access to sacred texts violates inmates' ability to practice their faith and maintain their religious identity while incarcerated, while the prison argues that there the text raises security concerns. ISKCON is preparing to file a religious discrimination lawsuit, and the impact of the lawsuit can extend beyond Patel to other Krishna prisoners.

As discussed in class, regulations can take various forms—from official policies to informal restrictions—and can significantly impact individuals' ability to engage in religious activities.  Florida's prison ban is an example of government regulation that creates a barrier to religious practice. It doesn't just affect individual religiosity; it can also impact the broader religious marketplace by setting precedents for how religious freedom is interpreted in institutional settings.

Exactly what will be the result of the lawsuit is unclear right now, and it will take time for it to be resolved. However, in the meantime for us, this case is a good example of how religious rights are neither automatic nor given. In some cases, a group—especially a minority group—will have to pursue legal means to get the same kind of protections for their religious rights that other larger and well-known groups already have. And these legal pursuits do not always work in the minority group's favor.

2025 Becket Religious Freedom Index

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which describes itself as "a non-profit, public-interest legal and educational institute with a mission to protect the free expression of all faiths," just released its Religious Freedom Index for 2025, which is summarized at that link.

An index is a composite measure that takes a bunch of data and condenses it into a single number. Becket's Religious Freedom Index takes a variety of evidence on opinions about religious freedom in the U.S. to create a single measure of those opinions in the U.S. Indices like this one are useful in the study of religion because they help to identify general trends, and these trends become objects of study for social scientists.

Here's how Becket summarizes the main findings for its 2025 index:

The seventh edition of the Religious Freedom Index marks another milestone, with the Index overall reaching its highest cumulative score yet (71). It also shows rising scores in several dimensions, most notably Religious Sharing, which measures Americans’ acceptance of the right to express faith beliefs and preach religious doctrines to others.

1. Faith in the public square is on the rise: This year’s Index shows that Americans – and especially younger generations – increasingly share a vigorous vision of religious liberty, one that is not confined to churches and private homes but expressed openly in the public square.

2. Religious freedom unifies Americans: This year, religious freedom made several trips to the Supreme Court – and many more to newspaper headlines. Litigation and newsworthiness can create the perception that religious liberty is a flashpoint in American culture. But our findings suggest the opposite is true: religious liberty is something that Americans can rally around, despite their other disagreements.

3. Americans support religious parents’ right to faithfully educate their children:  2025 saw a landmark Supreme Court decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor, that protected the right of parents to opt their children out of age-inappropriate school material that violates their sincere religious beliefs. This year’s Index finds that not only do Americans support the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud, they broadly support public funds following children to the school of their parent’s choice, even if that school is religious.

For reference, the Religious Freedom Index has increased over the time in which Becket has created it:

• 2025: 71
• 2024: 70
• 2023: 69
• 2022: 68
• 2021: 68
• 2020: 66
• 2019: 67

Read the Executive Summary at the top of this page, and then skim the rest to get a sense of the variety of survey results that factor into the Religious Freedom Index. See how closely your own opinions and the opinions of your friends compare with those of the American population.