Religious Market Research Articles

Relationship between state-provided Islamic education and Islamism

Abstract This article examines the relationship between state-provided religious education and support for Islamists. It first provides a historical overview of this debate in the Egyptian context. It then examines a survey of young adults from post-Arab-Spring Egypt, the largest education market in the Middle East and North Africa region. The findings show that recipients of state-provided Islamic education, Azharites, are more likely to hold favorable views of Islamists. This is likely attributed to the ideological alignment between Azharites and Islamists, since both favor a bigger public role of religion and stricter adherence to conservative social norms. However, the analysis does not support the notion that Azharites view Islamists as competitors in the religious market for followers. These results inform policy debates on Islamic education in Muslim countries and illustrate the limitations of mass indoctrination in authoritarian settings.

Religiosity, Economic Growth and Development Dynamics: An International Perspective

This study examines the relationship between religiosity and economic growth as an indicator of modernization. It also examines the relationship between religiosity and various dimensions of development such as educational attainment, mortality rate, and urbanization. To this end, average country-level data from 6 different survey waves of the World Values Survey, spanning the period 1989-2022, and various data sources, including the World Christian Encyclopedia, Religion and State Project, Penn World Table, World Development Indicators are utilized. The analyses include a maximum of 108 countries. The ongoing secularization paradigm is experienced differently in each society, depending on the predominance of religious belief and societal characteristics, including the degree of cultural and social diversity. The Seemingly Unrelated Regression method is employed to address the potential problem of correlation between the error terms of the regressions utilizing different religiosity indicators. Estimates indicate that religiosity is negatively associated with economic growth, the presence of a state religion and religious pluralism, while it is positively associated with state regulation of the religious market. Education, which is one of the most fundamental indicators of development, is positively correlated with religiosity. Nevertheless, the most characteristic indicator of modernization and development, urbanization, is negatively related to religiosity.

Church Financial Demands and Christian Church Attendance in Kyeizooba Sub County, Bushenyi District of Uganda

Church financial demands has led to lack of trust among church leaders and their believers due to frequency of the financial demands from church members without accountability to the members. This has brought lack of trust among church leaders by followers hence reducing attendance of Christians in church and occasioned the creation of different churches by the members due to mistrust between each other. In the light of the above observations, the study calls for Church preachers to explicitly explain God’s word and bring their worshippers to knowledge of God. The church should start self-sustaining projects like rearing cattle, chicken and other agricultural projects so that its treasury can be increased. There is need for churches to form worship memberships’ care team that review the attendance of their worshipers. Finally, there is need for leaders of the church to constantly visit the homes of their Christian brothers, pray for them so that their investments can be blessed by God. Keywords: Christian church, Church financial demands, Membership, Religious market, Worshippers

종교시장의 상업주의 현상과 한국불교 수익사업의 정향(正向)

종교시장의 상업주의 현상과 한국불교 수익사업의 정향(正向)

The House of David: Adaptation, Marketing, and Millenarianism

ABSTRACT: While some religious groups emphasize separation from society at large, other groups prioritize understanding and utilizing mainstream cultural expressions. The House of David, one of America's most successful communal religious groups, drew on a wide variety of mainstream cultural influences to share the message that their founders Benjamin (1861-1927) and Mary (1862-1953) Purnell were the last in a long line of British millenarian prophets. Finding inspiration in popular evangelists, jazz music, and theme parks, the House of David would successfully adapt the distinctly British tradition of the Southcottian Israelitism to the needs of the American religious market, and gives us a clear example of the role innovation plays in the crowded religious marketplace.

Thoughts on China’s contemporary religious relationship: Discussion in view of current theories

How to deal with the ever more complex religious relationships is not only a significant issue for Chinese central government and the Communist Party but also a cutting-edge topic for the religious academy at home and abroad. Based on the review of the latest internationally acknowledged four theoretical orientations, namely religious market model, religious ecological model, religious compatibilism, and religious praxism, this article proposes an innovated framework, positive orientating theory of Chinese religious relations. The author intends to explore more active thoughts on theories and policies that would particularly reflect on and align with the typical characteristics of religious relationships in Chinese context.Contribution: Based on the review of the latest internationally acknowledged four theoretical orientations, namely religious market model, religious ecological model, religious compatibilism, and religious praxism, this article proposes an innovated framework, positive orientating theory of Chinese religious relations.

Religious Institutions’ Stances towards Autocratization in the Post-Third Wave Period

AbstractWhile scholars have devoted significant attention to religious institutions’ role in democratization, less attention has been given to their role in autocratization. Moreover, religious economy approaches suggest that religious institutions are flexible to offer whatever is of interest to the marketplace, but here the role the institutions played in the third wave of democratization suggests a stable commitment. I test the impact of religious monopoly and the historical pro-democratizing role on 52 dominant religious institutions’ stances towards autocratic practices related to regime survival in the post-third wave period. Logistic regression models reveal that stronger religious monopolies decrease the probability of opposing regime survival, while the historical pro-democratizing role of the dominant religious groups in the third wave increases the probability. Furthermore, when the religious market is highly monopolized, the commitment to a democratic role in the third wave is weak, and it is strengthened when there is intense religious competition.

Failed secular revolutions: religious belief, competition, and extremism

All advanced economies have undergone secular revolutions in which religious belief and institutions have been subordinated to secular forms of authority. There are, however, numerous examples of failed secular transitions. To understand these failures, we present a religious club model with endogenous entry and cultural transmission of religious beliefs. A spike in the demand for religious belief, due for example to a negative economic shock, induces a new and more extreme organization to enter the religious market and exploit the dissatisfaction of highly religious types with the religious incumbent. The effect is larger where institutional secularization is more advanced, for example where the religious establishment has moderated itself or has been moderated by the political authority. The greater the moderation of the religious incumbent, the more extreme is the position chosen by the religious entrant, and the larger is the rise in religious participation. Hence, unanticipated shifts in religious demand can lead to the emergence of new and more extreme religious organizations and reverse previous trends toward secularization. Our model sheds light on the causes and consequences of failed secular revolutions and religious revivals in Latin America and Egypt.

Religion and Pluralism before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: From Individualizing Religious Freedom to Deregulating the Religious Market

Abstract With the rise of religious diversity within domestic societies, religion and religious pluralism have become increasingly important issues around the world. Therefore, it is important to examine the legal regulations governing religion and religious freedom, particularly in light of international human rights—the ultimate guarantee of individual rights. This article examines the regulation of religion, religious freedom, and religious pluralism by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court). Despite the central role religion plays in the social dynamics of the Americas, it has been largely absent from the Court’s jurisprudence. The latter discussed religion in a few cases only, thus making sporadic—but nevertheless key—findings regarding the regulation of religious freedom within its jurisdiction. Analysing these findings, as exposed in the corresponding judgments and advisory opinions, reveals the creative and progressive approach that the Court takes on religion, religious freedom, and religious pluralism.

Religion Market Abuses and Religious Conversion in Cameroon Urban Areas

This research note aims to examine the effect of religion market abuses on religious conversion, particularly on the non-transmission of religious preferences from parents to their offspring. Based on a field survey of 1,475 individuals in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé, this research note seeks to understand the dynamics of the socio-economic forces that lead to the abandonment of parents’ religions. The econometric results reveal that the explanatory factors for changes in religious preferences often vary from one religion to another. With the exception of Pentecostals, Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim believers who believe that the religious market is rife with abuse are less likely to change their religious preferences. Increased income can significantly induce a change in religious preferences among Protestants and Pentecostals.

Vernacular Modernism: Humanistic Buddhism from Below in Bade, Taiwan

The study of Humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan has typically focused on its largest, most elite representatives. These institutions are a smaller and less representative section of Buddhism in Taiwan than they might appear, however. This paper will take a different angle: looking at Humanistic Buddhism not from above, but from below; not through multinational monastic-led organizations, but through a local working-class lay community; not as a discreet tradition, but as part of a broader religious market. My subject will be the Maitreya Lay Buddhist Lodge, where we find a "vernacular modernism" in which core ideas and orientations of Buddhist modernism are articulated within a broader religious field marked by enduring dynamics and tensions identified in studies of late imperial Chinese religion.

Between needs, goods and services: Ukrainian immigrants on the Polish religious market

This article seeks to address the intersection of migration and religion/religious affiliation of migrants in Central Europe. Increase in immigration from Ukraine to Poland observed since around 2015 has been challenging and remodeling religious relations in the relatively homogeneous country. Drawing on the qualitative research conducted in 2020 in Krakow, one of the key Polish destinations for the migrants, this article explores the strategies and choices of immigrants in relation to the religious market, and consequences of their decisions. Our research, embedded in the theoretical perspective of the economics of religion, shows the fluidity of religiosity in migration processes as well as inconsistencies in religious affiliations in the context of migration. We propose a concept of non-religious incentive for participation/church affiliation and argue that identified inconsistencies stem largely from the non-religious motivations related to the attractiveness of the goods and services offered by some religious communities.

The religious economics with the rational choice theory: effectiveness and limitations

In the history of religious research, there have been many theories born to explain the maintenance and development of religion in the modern society, in which the most prominent and controversial ones are the secularization theory, functional differentiation theory, pluralist theory, and etc. When these theories have become outdated, religious researchers must seek new theories that are more suitable to analyze religious phenomena in the contemporary society. Hence, the religious economics emerges as a new alternative to the less convincing and old approaches. Based on the rational choice theory mostly applied in the field of economics, the main content of the religious economics is to consider religion as a real economic market in which religious believers choose to join religious organizations just as consumers select goods and services in the market. As a result, the theory of the religious economics predicts the development of religion in the contemporary society based on the performance of religious bodies and their connection with believers’ needs and desires in the religious market. By exploring the relations between religion and economy, as well as the basic arguments of the theory of the religious economics, this paper aims to scrutinize the effectiveness and limitations of this new theory.

Közgazdaságtani modellek a valláskutatásban

The economics of religion has entered the social science mainstream in recent decades, mainly through the work of Roger Finke, Laurance Iannaccone and Rodney Stark. In these works, the authors sought to lay down a new theoretical framework for explaining religious phenomena that could be used to provide a new context for the empirical data sets of sociology of religion by applying approaches to rational choice theory and the concept of the market. In doing so, they have sought to overcome the secularisation thesis (Iannacone 1998, Finke and Stark, 2000) and the view that the religious dimension is primitive or at least irrational (Stark, Iannaccone and Finke, 1996). The first half of the following paper focuses on this economic approach, reflecting in this context on the changing nature of religiosity in modern times, the challenges of religious identity formation, and the issue of religious markets resulting from contemporary pluralism, including the spiritual offer in Hungary. In the second part, relevant parts of our data collected over several years at the Everness festival, which provides a platform for the display of a broad spectrum of Hungarian spiritual offerings, are briefly presented, along with religious market supply trends.

Fo Guang Shan’s Expansion in the Religious Market of Thailand

As one of the prominent Mahayana Buddhist institutions from Taiwan, Fo Guang Shan (FGS) entered the religious market of Thailand as early as the 1990s. Its influence has grown tremendously among the local Chinese communities and Thai society. Despite this, there is a dearth of scholarship dedicated to FGS’s market expansion in Theravada-dominated Thailand. Through a SWOT analysis, this paper explores FGS’s marketing strategy for the Thai religious market. The findings suggest that FGS bears certain strengths, such as its appealing humanistic Buddhist doctrine, gift-giving networking skills and its strong emotional bonds with the Chinese communities in Thailand. These strengths have brought and will continuously provide FGS with opportunities for further expansion. However, FGS’s weakness is always there and obvious, given its foreign and non-mainstream nature and questionable legitimacy of existing as a Buddhist institution (or temple) in Thailand. All this has already caused threats to FGS’s missionary clergies and sanctuaries, mainly based in the Bangkok area, not to mention the growingly fierce competition from its Thai Theravada and local-born Mahayana counterparts.

Of Movements and Markets: Religious Competition and the Problem of Black Church Relevance

Why do cross-denominational public religious movements such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference appear, despite the market-like competitive behavior of churches? Religious economy theory offers one set of explanations, based on a supply-side approach to the dynamics of numeric religious growth and decline. Namely, ecumenical movements are engaged by denominations, or religious firms, in membership decline. The history of national Black ecumenical movements, however, points to ways that religious economic theorizing fails to account for the multiple modes of social consciousness regarding church survival that motivate institutional religious activity. Black churches have existed not merely as a market but as a field where market consciousness transforms into movement consciousness at historic moments of perceived political opportunity. At such moments, unified public religious action on behalf of “the people” is understood as more important than the competitive dominance of individual firms in a private religious market.

A restauração da adoração e do louvor

The New Apostolic Reformation (NRA) is a contemporary Christian movement that has a global reach. Thousands of churches are counted among its many, intricate and growing networks. This article aims to show that there are theological and liturgical reasons, contained within the genetic code of contemporary apostolic churches, which constitute a formidable unifying element characteristic of their globalizing culture. One of these influences, constantly mentioned but little formally studied, is the area of ​​praise and worship music (P&W), and its liturgical use in neo-Apostolic churches. For this reason, the article presents briefly the evolution of several theological currents that came together to form the NRA. The following two sections describe how the current characteristics of praise and worship music were developed within the NRA. Finally, five dimensions are proposed that allow us to characterize the praise and worship movement today: the presence of God or P&W sacramentality as inspiration, revival as motivation, technology as an instrument, cultural transformation as mission, and dominion as end goal. It is concluded that, although there is no monolithic doctrinal and liturgical uniformity, it is possible to speak of a culture, theology of worship, ritual language, and practices that unify the NRA worldwide, which facilitates the dissemination of ideas and religious goods within. a highly expansive religious market.

Squeezed out by the market, seeking strength in the network: Makeshift temples and the spatio‐affective logics of survival in Singapore

AbstractThis paper offers an understanding of the spatio‐affective workings of religious organisations – and the marketplaces they operate in and through – that go beyond capitalist logics. We do so by examining how makeshift temples representing various forms of ‘Chinese religion’ survive in Singapore. Capitalist logics fail to explain how such marginal and precarious religious organisations, which might be ‘squeezed out’ by the market, nonetheless manage to survive amid competition. Moreover, scarce attention has been paid to how religion as a social‐affective system might mediate the functioning of a religious market. This paper fills the lacuna by bringing an understanding of the affective resonances of Chinese religious practices into conversation with religious market theory. Rather than treating the market as a universal mechanism that moderates patterns of competition, growth, and decline, we focus instead on the spatio‐affective conditions through which a plurality of ‘actually existing’ religious marketplaces is made possible. We argue that makeshift temples in Singapore create an alternative order of the religious market that is organised by the affective economies and interpersonal relationships within which different ritual service providers compete, cohabit, and cooperate. These temples dismiss the spatio‐religious boundaries and regulation that define the neoliberal religious marketplace of Singapore by carving out sacred niches instead.

Pentecostalized and Pillarized. Neo-Dhimmitude and the Religious Market in Kuwait

Abstract This article uses a qualified religious market model to first describe and then analyze the context and shifts of significant Christian populations in Kuwait. It argues that due to neo-dhimmitude, the religious market is pillarized and maintains that the shift towards pentecostalized Christianity indicates a rise in demand for embodied spirituality and religious narratives that justify the sacrifices and burdens of transnational migration. It concludes that pentecostalized Christianity is a significant element within the pillarized religious market of Kuwait while demonstrating how the religious market model may be adapted for non-Western contexts.

It’s Not Just All About the Money: The Effects of Scandals on Organizational Affiliation and Competition

This paper investigates the effects of scandals on organizational affiliation and competition. We introduce a novel framework that links the conceptual origin of a scandal, i.e., individual-caused vs. institutional-caused, with its impact on an organization or its competition, i.e., a scandal-stricken organization vs. the scandal- stricken organization’s competitors. In our analysis, we exploit the changes in diocese-level and regional church-level indicators of church affiliation that followed numerous scandals that occurred in German Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches between 2002 and 2016. We find that both individual-caused and institutional-caused scandals are associated with a local decline in affiliation with a scandal-stricken organization. However, individual-caused scandals have a significantly larger effect on affiliation with a scandal- stricken organization than institutional-caused scandals. We also find evidence for a scandal’s local interorganizational spillover effects to the scandal-stricken organization’s competitors, but only for institutional-caused scandals. Our results thus contribute to the emerging field of studies on the effects of scandals on organizations and their stakeholders. Moreover, due to the economic character of religious organizations, i.e., they compete in a religious market to provide pastoral care, our results can be generalized beyond our empirical setting to secular organizations and their stakeholders.