Marketplace of the gods : how economics explains religion /

Economists point out that all people face constraints and must make choices. Then they assume that people make self-interested choices by selecting the options for which benefits are likely to exceed costs. This economic approach has profound implications when applied to religion: religion is not irrational--it fulfills a range of deep, enduring desires, and its supply can be analyzed with the same tools used to examine other dynamic markets. This economic approach to explaining religion has taken sociology and economics by storm, and journalist Witham does a masterful job of explaining the key approaches, findings, and debates it has generated. Witham embraces the economic approach and clearly explains the complications that arise for "credence" goods, such as prescriptions for spiritual success. He argues that "the story of American religion is simply one long saga of product innovation" spurred by low barriers to entry and intense competition and that government-backed, supply-side restrictions have reduced religiosity in many other places, including Europe. This volume is a fine introduction to a burgeoning field, although it reflects the discipline's relative neglect of demand-side changes. Summing Up: Recommended. All collections and readership levels. R. M. Whaples Wake Forest University

A former religion reporter for the Washington Times, Witham turns his attention to the contemporary rise of economic theories to explain religion. Drawing on the works of Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and Laurence R. Iannaccone, among others, he explores how these academics use economic models of costs and benefits to explain the persistence of religious faith in an age of growing secularization. While Witham gets off to a slow start, his concluding chapters offer insight into the way economic theories try to explain some of modernity's most perplexing issues: why is the United States more religious than Europe? What are the cost-benefits of extreme faith, such as that of religiously inspired terrorists? Economic answers such as the widely embraced theory that religions thrive on competition and are stifled by state regulation are ultimately reductionist; Witham quotes influential religion sociologist Robert Wuthnow, who has said that an economic analysis "fails to illuminate about 90 percent of what I find interesting about religion." Many readers may agree. Yet in a world dominated by the marketplace, books such as this one are an important part of the conversation. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved