The Recent Success of Touro Synagogue

Reform Judaism has struggled during the last couple decades. Synagogue dues revenues have fallen, seminary enrollment has dropped, and congregations are closing or merging to survive. Yet Touro Synagogue, a 198-year-old Reform congregation in New Orleans, has grown from about 570 member families to nearly 750 since 2019, with its religious school more than doubling in size. [Insert link to article here.]

A number of factors are cited as contributing to the congregation's strong growth:

• New Orleans experienced demographic changes, with many younger Jewish families moving into the city.
• The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans ran a program, through 2012, that covered moving costs, subsidized day-school tuition, and offered a free first year of synagogue membership for newcomers. According to the federation, hundreds of people took part, and about one in four ended up staying long-term.
• The congregation discontinued the standard Jewish practice of charging membership dues and replaced it with voluntary donations instead. It actually saw an increase in giving from many families.
• It continued many in-person operations (moved outdoors) during the COVID pandemic, rather than shifting everything online.
• Rabbi Katie Bauman took over as spiritual leader in 2019, and nearby Tulane University — where an estimated 25-30% of undergraduates are Jewish — has served as a steady pipeline of young adults into the community.

Notice how these factors sort into different economic categories. The demographic influx and the federation's incentive program are both demand-side forces: they increase the number of people who want to participate in Jewish congregational life, and lower the effective cost of doing so for newcomers. Staying open in person during COVID is a cleaner supply-side story: while many congregations effectively shut down their "product" during the pandemic, Touro kept its capacity available, just outdoors.

The switch from dues to voluntary giving is particularly interesting as it is a move that makes Touro Synagogue more like Christian congregations in which voluntary giving is typical. Having no dues means that those who cannot afford the dues can still attend, while those with the means and desire to give more can give much more than the dues asked them to give. This will increase the spread of giving across members of the congregation, but the average giving can actually increase.

Even as national Reform Judaism numbers decline, Touro's story shows that when the right demand, supply, and pricing align locally, a congregation can break with the broader trend.

Has the Percentage of Religious Nones in the USA Plateaued?

One of the most important trends in American religion over the past few decades is the rise of the "religious nones" — people who report "none" as their religious affiliation. Nones are not a single group. They include committed atheists and agnostics, but also many people who pray, believe in God, or even attend services occasionally, yet simply don't report an affiliation.

As reported by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in April 2026, this trend of increasing nones may not be continuing. According to their 2025 Census of American Religion:

[T]he percentage of religiously unaffiliated in America has plateaued: In 2025, 28% of Americans identify as having no religious tradition, similar to the previous year’s rate.

It will be several years before we know whether 2025 marks a genuine plateau or just a pause in a longer trend. But it's worth asking, in the meantime: if the nones really have hit their ceiling, why would that ceiling be where it is?

Before getting to that question, one nuance is worth flagging. The 28% figure is a national average, and averages can stay flat while the parts that make up the overall average move in opposite directions. PRRI's own data show this. Disaffiliation among young men (ages 18–29) has been essentially flat for over a decade, holding around 35% since 2013, but for young women the disaffiliation rate has continued to climb from 29% unaffiliated in 2013 to 43% in 2025. That's a useful reminder: a stable aggregate does not necessarily mean a stable equilibrium. It can also mean that offsetting forces are canceling out in the topline number.

In principle, 100% of Americans could become nones, but there are good reasons to believe that the percentage of nones should converge to a level well below 100%. It helps to frame these as demand-side reasons and supply-side reasons.

Consider first the demand side. Many people find real meaning in secular ideals, but for many others, the goods that religion provides do not have a close secular substitute. Religious traditions offer claims about an afterlife, a relationship with the divine, and a moral community organized around those claims. Meanwhile, secular alternatives simply do not attempt to replicate this package in a close way. An economist would way that religion is a distinct and differentiated good with few close substitutes. Demand for it can shrink at the margin, but it's unlikely to be competed away out of the market entirely because nothing else on the market does quite what it does.

Now consider the supply side. People who end their religious affiliation do not necessarily leave religion forever. Many leave because they are dissatisfied with the specific options available to them, not because they've rejected the underlying product. That means the size of the "leaving" pool responds to how well religious organizations innovate, adapt, and improve what they offer rather than just watching people go. This adjustment is not automatic: many mainline Protestant denominations have kept losing members for decades despite (or because of) efforts to modernize. But other strict groups have held their share, and some, like megachurches, have grown even as the nones have grown alongside them.

Put together, the demand-side story explains why there should be a "none plateau" below 100%, while the supply-side story helps to determine exactly where that plateau might be at a particular time and place.

If the supply-side story has real force, we should be able to see it in the data over time: denominations and congregations that adapt fastest in worship style, community offerings, or missionary outreach should be the ones that hold or grow their share, even while the national plateau holds steady overall. That's a testable claim, and one worth returning to as more data come in over the next decade. Indeed, whether the 28% figure holds or resumes its climb is an interesting question, but perhaps the more interesting question is which organizations are gaining and losing share underneath it, and why.

Latest Megachurch Developments

Several Protestant denominations have been shrinking for decades. This includes many mainline denominations such as the Episcopalian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., and the United Church of Christ. It also includes some large, stricter denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention.

Working against this trend is the relative success of megachurches (congregations with more than 2000+ in weekly attendance), with a larger share of Protestant churchgoers participating in megachurches instead of smaller and more traditional congregations.

The latest developments in this trend are reported in the latest megachurch report put out by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research:

Megachurch Resurgence: How Big-Attendance Churches Rebounded After the Pandemic

The report is long, and you do not have to read it carefully in its entirety. But you should skim through parts of it to get a good sense of the findings. Remember: the trend of more Americans participating in religion via megachurches is one of the biggest developments in American religion of the last couple decades.

Quoting from the press release, the main findings are:

• "Two-thirds (67%) of megachurches now exceed their pre-pandemic attendance, while 84% report their congregation is stronger today than before COVID.
• "Eighty-six percent describe themselves as thriving and optimistic about their future.
• "Financial health has improved significantly, with giving increasing faster than both inflation and attendance.
• "Racial diversity continues to grow, with 66% of megachurches now qualifying as multiracial, compared to 56% five years ago.
• "Community engagement remains central, with nearly nine in ten churches actively serving their surrounding communities and most opening their facilities for nonprofit, educational, civic, or community use.
• "Leadership development has become increasingly intentional, as more than three-quarters operate ministry residency or leadership development programs."

We should not overstate the religious success of megachurches. For example, fewer people are attending church weekly in most denominations. In particular, megachurches have seen a large decline in the number of members who attend weekly, as many people shift to monthly attendance instead of weekly attendance. Nonetheless, the continued relative success of megachurches is one of the most important developments in American religion of the last few decades.

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.

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.

The Influencer Who Rates His Visits to Catholic Churches

Twenty-two year old social media influencer Anthony Gross has been posting videos in which he grades his experiences visiting Catholic churches (congregations). One of his videos received more than 1.5 million views.

Read the entire Religion News Service article. Here's a quote:

His review from his Jan. 11 visit to Our Lady of Pompeii earned the parish a “D” rating, with Gross warning other young adults that it might not be the church for them, calling it the “quickest Mass in the city” with limited music and the absence of a social scene that evening.

Gross explained that his video series seeks to get more people out to church, and that he's mainly trying to find the best Catholic churches for youth adults to attend. Some Catholic churches have noticed an increase in attendance after appearing in one of his videos.

Others are critical of Gross's video series. What can he really learn in one short visit? Can he really give an accurate description that is useful to a wide audience, or is he ultimately just judging these churches based on superficial aspects of his visit?

One woman was critical of his video about her own church because he gave it a "B" grade. A priest at another church says that his church was given an unfairly low grade because Gross randomly attended on a day that did not have community activities, though the priest admitted that his church might not be doing the best job promoting its activities. Contrast these with the top church on Gross's list, which has seen a 15-20% increase in attendance at Mass since appearing in one of Gross's videos. A lot of the growth is from young adults in particular.

This story demonstrates the role of marketing and promotion in religion because some individuals are clearly making decisions about attending church based on watching Gross's videos.

But the story also says something about religious competition. The priest mentioned earlier did admit that Gross's video series is creating "healthy competition" among different Catholic churches. We often think of churches competing with other churches of different denominations, but individual congregations within the same denomination can also compete with each other. One form of this competition might involve, for example, multiple congregations competing for the same young adults. 

Another form of competition involves different congregations specializing to appeal to different segments of the membership. I observed this type of competition in a town on the east coast where I knew one of the leaders at an Episcopalian church. He told me of how, at that time, different Episcopalian churches in the city differentiated themselves by appealing to different members, e.g., one congregation was more for young families, one had more traditional services, and so on. This specialization meant that the different congregations were not competing for the same Episcopalians but were instead trying to find their own niche in the Episcopalian landscape.

Religious competition takes many forms and is influenced by many factors. I guess that means that Gross really is an "influencer."

Understanding Religious Decline Using the Concept of Religious Capital

The following is a blog post written with the assistance of the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot. I uploaded a copy of the Pew Research Center piece and asked the chatbot to write a blog post that used the concept of religious capital to help us understand the patterns in the research study. I then made several edits and revisions to get the final product.

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Headlines about declining religious affiliation worldwide might seem to tell a straightforward story of secularization. However, applying economic analysis—particularly the concept of religious capital—reveals a far more nuanced picture of what's actually happening to religion around the globe.

We see this in a recent piece published by the Pew Research Center. This piece summarizes a recent academic research article that describes how religious decline follows a predictable three-stage pattern called the "Participation-Importance-Belonging" (P-I-B) sequence. First, people participate in worship services less frequently. Second, the importance of religion diminishes in their personal lives. Finally, formal religious belonging becomes less common. This pattern appears across 94 countries and territories studied, suggesting a universal mechanism of religious change.

Religious capital a key concept from economics of religion, refers to the accumulated knowledge, skills, social connections, and cultural familiarity that individuals develop through participation in religious activities. Like financial capital or human capital, religious capital is built through investment (time, effort, participation) and can depreciate without maintenance.

When we view the Pew Research Center's findings through this economic lens, the three-stage decline pattern makes perfect economic sense. People first reduce their investment in building religious capital by attending services less frequently. As their religious capital depreciates, religion becomes less important in their personal lives. Finally, formal religious belonging becomes less valuable as their accumulated religious capital diminishes.

The economic framework helps explain why religious decline isn't universal. In regions like Western Europe and parts of the Americas, several economic factors may be reducing the returns to religious capital investment. Increased opportunity costs mean that as secular alternatives become more attractive and accessible—better entertainment, social services, education—the opportunity cost of time spent in religious activities rises. Government crowd-out occurs when governments provide social safety nets, healthcare, and community services that religious groups traditionally offered, reducing the practical benefits of religious participation. Reduced network effects happen in societies where fewer people participate in religion, decreasing the social benefits of religious capital and creating a self-reinforcing cycle of decline.

Conversely, regions maintaining high religiosity—like parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia—often have economic conditions that maintain high returns to religious capital. Religious groups continue to provide essential social services, strong social networks make religious capital more valuable, economic insecurity increases demand for the insurance and support functions religion provides, and government restrictions may actually increase the value of religious identity and community.

Understanding religious decline through an economic lens suggests that simple demographic projections may miss important dynamics. If the economic returns to religious capital change—through shifts in government policy, social conditions, or the competitive landscape—religious participation patterns could shift more rapidly than linear projections suggest.

The global pattern of religious change isn't simply about belief or cultural evolution—it's also about changing economic incentives. Where religious capital provides valuable returns through social networks, services, meaning, and community, religion thrives. Where secular alternatives provide better returns on time and effort invested, religious participation declines.

This economic perspective doesn't diminish the spiritual or cultural significance of religion, but it does help us understand why religious change follows predictable patterns and why one-size-fits-all predictions about secularization often fail. As the global economy continues to evolve, so too will the economic landscape that shapes individual decisions about religious participation and the accumulation of religious capital.

The Credibility and Authority of a Catholic AI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rise of Multiple Church Attendance: An Economic Analysis

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

Rational Religious Choice in Action 

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

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

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

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

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

The Economics of Religious Diversification

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

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

Implications for Religious Organizations 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is it Ethical to use AI when Writing a Sermon?

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

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

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

The critical paragraph is this:

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

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

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

The Religious Liberty Commission

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trying to Understand American Religiosity

One of the main lessons that students should take away from this class is that religion is a robust phenomenon, but at the same time religion and religiosity are dynamic and always changing. It is the ability of religious groups to adapt that enables religion to stay robust as other conditions in the world change.

Keep this big picture in mind as you read this RNS article written by Cornell sociologist Landon Schnabel. Scholars of religion are very interested in understanding how American religion has changed how it continues to change. Of course, one of the biggest changes is the large drop in recent decades in the proportion of Americans who report having a religious affiliation.

As Schnabel writes:

We’re witnessing not simple secularization, but transformation and polarization — a sorting process in which those uncomfortable with religious institutions have largely already left, while those who remain are more committed. 

Our new research, based on the National Study of Youth and Religion, reveals that many of those who left, however, aren’t abandoning faith. Instead they’re rejecting religious organizations they find too rigid, judgmental or politicized.

He also offers a helpful interpretation:

This religious transformation we found stems from what we call individualization, a phenomenon in which people increasingly craft their spiritual lives according to personal values, rather than institutional dictates. Once this sorting process reaches a certain point, with most of those experiencing tension between personal values and institutional demands having already departed, the statistical decline naturally levels off.

And his conclusion:

America isn’t becoming less spiritual — it’s becoming differently spiritual.

Read the article in its entirety; it's not that long! As you read, think about the dynamism of religious markets and how religious groups may be able to adapt in the face of this individualization. Can these "differently spiritual" individuals find their way back to affiliation with organized religion? Will changes in their life -- like marriage or parenthood -- bring them back into organized religion? Or will it be adaptations by the religious groups that draw them back? What kinds of adaptations would be able to bring them back?

The Wrestling Church

Not all religious groups actively court new members, but those that do will often get very creative in reaching new audiences. Such is the case with St. Peter's Anglican Church in Shipley, England. Dubbed the "Wrestling Church," this congregation is hosting wrestling matches in their church to raise interest and attendance. See this article published by the AP.

Here's a good passage from the article:

“You’ve got to take a few risks,” said the Rev. Natasha Thomas, the priest in charge at St. Peter’s. She acknowledged that she “wasn’t entirely sure what it was I was letting myself in for” when she agreed to host wrestling events.

“It’s not church as you would know it. It’s certainly not for everyone,” she said. “But it’s bringing in a different group of people, a different community, than we would normally get.”

At a recent Wrestling Church evening, almost 200 people — older couples, teenagers, pierced and tattooed wrestling fans, parents with excited young children — packed into chairs around a ring erected under the vaulted ceiling of the century-old church.

After a short homily and prayer from Thomas, it was time for two hours of smackdowns, body slams and flying headbutts. The atmosphere grew cheerfully raucous, as fans waved giant foam fingers and hollered “knock him out!” at participants.

Skim the article quickly but take more time examining the pictures. Here are three things that caught my eye:

• The striking visual of the wrestling ring in the middle of the high-arched sanctuary.
• The written message on the shirt of the body-slamming wrestler.
• The looks on the faces of the attendees as they look at the wrestlers who took their match outside the ring.

Real-time AI Translation at Church

From the adoption of the printing press to print religious tracts and books centuries ago to the creation of ebooks, smart phone apps, podcasts and more in the 21st century, many religious groups have been at the forefront of technology adoption. This is particularly true for religious groups that actively seek new members.

It with that background that you should read this article about how some churches are now using AI technologies in real-time to translate sermons for visitors whose primarily language differs from the language of the sermon.

Some basic economics helps us to evaluate this development.

First, think of the demand side. The benefits of attending a church will be lower, all else equal, for people who attend if they cannot understand what is being said or done during the service. The real-time translation thus raises the benefits to attending for those persons even if the sermon is in a different language than their own. The availability of real-time AI translation thus raises demand for church attendance.

Next, think of the supply side. Real-time translation has traditionally been very costly. Translators are expensive to hire, and even if you have someone in your congregation who is willing to do the translation voluntarily, you still must have some technological equipment to enable listeners to hear the translation, e.g., a microphone for the translator, a radio transmitter, some headsets for those who listen. And if your congregation's translator is away on vacation one week, you might be out of luck even if you have the equipment. That means that a real-time AI translator provides some security, and the less expensive the AI translation service, the more attractive the AI option becomes. Improvements in AI translation thus lower the cost to improving the quality of religious supply.

There can still be problems, however. For example, as mentioned in the article, religious sermons often use special religious words and expressions, and if your AI translator is not sufficiently trained on religious language, then its translation may be inaccurate and less useful.

Nonetheless, I expect that real-time AI translation becomes more common in religious settings over time for two reasons.

First, there is underlying demand for translation services by many religious groups.  Even if a congregation has not translated their sermons in the past, it doesn't mean that they don't want to. It might just mean that it has been too costly to do so.

Second, AI technology should continue to improve. Don't be surprised if real-time AI translation becomes a standard part of religious worship for many religious groups in upcoming years.

Inviting Someone to Church

How religious beliefs and preferences form is an important question in the academic and scientific study of religion. In this class we have talked about several ways to think about the formation of beliefs and preferences, and one of the most prominent is cultural transmission that occurs along multiple dimensions. You are most familiar with vertical transmission (parent-to-child), but for many religious groups horizontal transmission (peer-to-peer) is just as important or even more important.

One way to study horizontal transmission is to measure how often people invite someone to attend a religious meeting with them. A recent article in Christianity today discusses one study of American Protestants propensity to invite others to church.

According to this study, about 60% of American Protestants who attend church have invited at least one person to attend with them during the six months prior to the survey. About 20% made two invitations during that time, and 20% also made three or more invitations.

Read the article to learn who are the people most likely to extend invitations, how the extending of invitations varies across age groups, and more.

These invitations generate create potential for a lot of horizontal cultural transmission! Of course, not all invitations are accepted, so this is very much a numbers game. The larger the number of invitations extended, the larger the number of invitations accepted even if the percentage of acceptances is low. This is all the more reason why a religious group that wants to grow should encourage its members to extend invitations.

Religious Publishing in the U.S.

The world of religion has competition at many margins. The most recent post on this blog was about how religious activities compete with other activities for people's time. This post is about a recent opinion piece at Religion News Service about competition in the religious publishing industry in the U.S. The author is Anna Piela, an American Baptist Church minister and scholar.

As the article explains, religious publishing has a long history in the U.S. The first Bible printed in the U.S. was actually a translation into a Native American language in 1663! Christian publishing grew tremendously in the latter part of the 20th century, and even though it has declined in recent decades, it is still an $820 million/year industry.

Religious books are published by large publishing companies but also--and this is what makes religious publishing unique--by religious denominations themselves. Denominational publishing houses print religious materials for religious instruction, music, and other topics and, depending on the denomination, provide for free or sell them to congregations or to church members directly. Having printed materials is vital for religious groups because they are a key tool in the promotion of religious teachings among children and youth and for proselytizing.

But it seems that the rise of Amazon has brought new challenges for the publishing industry. For example, Amazon has made it more difficult for brick-and-mortar bookstores to succeed. That reduces opportunities for religious groups to advertise and promote their books, not just because secular bookstores with a little space for religious book have closed but also because many religiously-themed bookstores have also closed.

Read the article to see other challenges faced by religious publishers identified by the author.

Religious publishers will need to find ways to adapt so that they can stay competitive, but do not doubt that they will. Religious groups in a competitive setting like the U.S. have always needed to adapt to stay competitive, so that is not new.

Religion and the Allocation of Time in America

Every year the U.S. Census Bureau conducts a national survey, called the American Time Use Survey, in which they collect data on how people spend their time throughout the day. It is an important survey for researchers in economics and other social sciences because its unique data allows them to study a large variety of research questions.

The most recent Time Use Survey (2023) reveals some interesting facts. For example, on average Americans spend:

• 9.84 hours/day on personal care and sleep.
• 1.20 hours/day and drinking.
• 1.92 hours/day doing household activities.
• 0.66 hours/day shopping.

You can see some summary charts here, but more better details are in some published tables here. It is there that you can get specific information about time spent in religious activities.

The civilian population 15 years and older spend, on average, about 0.11 hours/day on "religious activities." That is about 6.6 minutes per day. About 60% of that time is spent "attending religious services," and the other 40% is spent "participating in religious practices."

The average time spent on religious activities per day is higher for women (0.14 hours) than men (0.09 hours), which is consistent with the standard finding that women are more religious than men in the U.S.

Though of course there is some variance across people with some spending a lot of time and others spending no time on religious activities. For those who participate in religious activities, the average amount of time spent in religious activities is 1.50 hours/day.

Here's a table with a few comparisons:

Activity	Avg hrs/day, entire population	Avg hrs/day, participants only
Religious and spiritual activities	0.11	1.50
Volunteering	0.10	2.11
Socializing and communicating	0.57	1.96
Relaxing and leisure	4.00 (TV= 2.67)	4.51 (TV = 3.62)
Sports, exercise, and recreation	0.34	1.57
Telephone (calls, mail, email)	0.16	0.90

On the surface, the numbers for religious and spiritual activities seem small compared to the other non-work, not-sleep categories in the table. But keep in mind that a lot volunteering may be religiously-motivated or organized through religious groups, some time spent socializing or playing sports may be with members of one's congregation, and communication may also be with other religious group members. So even if time spent on direct religious practice seems small, there are many activities that have a religious dimension even if not labelled as such in the survey.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of activities that vie for people's limited time, and religious groups are always competing not just with other religious groups but also the many other non-religious "distractions" in life. In fact, it might be the little decisions about religion that people face every day that really determine the value and impact of religion in their lives.

Here are some questions for you to think about:

• Which non-religious activities pose the largest threats to religious activities?
• How do you think the cost and benefits of these non-religious activities has changed in recent years?
• How do you think the answer to the above question might depend on your age?

Resolution of a Long-standing Conflict in the United Methodist Church

For the last several years, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has been dealing with internal divisions over several matters of church policy, particularly on issues related to same-sex marriage and gay clergy. Resolving the internal conflict was delayed due the COVID-19 pandemic, but a process was put in place for congregations dissatisfied with the removal of restrictions against same-sex marriage and gay clergy to officially leave the church. During the last three years, a quarter of the UMC's congregations left the denomination, some joining a new denomination (the Global Methodist Church), some joining other Methodist denominations, and some staying independent. This resulted in a dramatic loss in the number of members in the UMC during the last few years, and it contributed to decades-long trend in UMC membership decline.

With the departures of those who opposed same-sex marriage and gay clergy, the remaining individuals and leaders faced little opposition to make official changes to church policy, and these changes were officially voted in earlier this month at their General Conference. (see here and here). This resolves a long-standing conflict in the UMC that has been touched on in several posts on this blog since 2020 (see here, here, here, and here).

This latest development was expected because so many of its opponents had left and were no longer present to prevent it, but it is still a historic development for the UMC. The removal of restrictions against same-sex marriage and gay clergy was hailed as a giant victory by some in the church but criticized as the most recent instance of straying farther from scriptural guidance for others. But whichever side of the issue a person finds themselves, it was a big change for what was once one of the largest denominations in the U.S.A.

This change is a clear reduction in the strictness of the UMC, and our economic approach predicts that this change will not help the UMC to reverse it long-run membership decline. Removing restrictions against same-sex marriage and gay clergy removes one of the remaining differences between the UMC and other mainline denominations that had already made similar accommodations. AS a result, the UMC is as similar to the other mainline denominations than it has ever been in its history, and that means that it will be more difficult than before to convince potential members of the UMC's uniqueness and value.

People inside and out of the UMC can debate whether the development was right or wrong, and that is a matter for which our economic approach cannot directly help. However, our economic approach does suggest that it will now be more difficult than ever for the UMC to claim any advantages over other mainline churches when competing for members. We should expect that the UMC's membership decline will continue apace and that what was once one of the largest denominations in the U.S.A. will not regain its once-dominant position in the American religious marketplace.

"None" but Not "Atheist"

The percent of the American population that reports no religious affiliation has increased dramatically over the last few decades--from about 5% to almost 30% today. These individuals, who are referred to as the "nones" because they select "none" on surveys when asked for their religious affiliation, now outnumber the Catholics in the U.S.A., which is America's largest denomination.

But who are the nones? And exactly how religious are they?

This has been the topic of a lot of research in recent years, and this article on Religion Unplugged provides an excellent look at why the increase in Nones has not meant an increase in atheism.

As you read this article, ask yourself:

• What is the difference between being a none and being an atheist?
• What are the characteristics of nones, and how do those differ from atheists?
• What people are likely to become nones, and which people are more likely to become atheists?
• What might it take for the people who are nones today to switch into something other than none in the future?