Organized religions are businesses to a degree. Like your local Starbucks or McDonalds, your local church has to raise funds to pay a minister and staff, plus manage a facility (or rent a space), and get a message out to attract followers. Unlike most businesses, churches are theoretically not supposed to be a profit-seeking venture (although some ministers have really forgotten this point).
Whether you belong to a major organized denomination within Christianity or any other major world religion, there’s a degree of business savvy that is needed to maintain the organization of that religion. Paul Seabright’s book The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People discusses organized religion in the 21st Century using business as a parallel.
Much has been made of the decline of organized religion in Western Europe and North America. In the United States, mainstream denominations are declining in attendance as Americans are either forgoing church altogether or shifting away from one denomination to a non-denominational movement of some sort. While this decline is happening for many reasons, one concept that Seabright misses is the movement in some evangelical circles of what I’ll call franchise churches (think “Journey” or “Epic” as two examples). These are churches that are non-denominational, generally similar from one city to another, and in some cases with a pastor beamed in throughout the chain of churches to deliver the Sunday sermon. These churches have grown at the expense of denominations that have either suffered through scandal or political issues that have driven wedges between churches and between its membership.
Seabright correctly mentions that organized religion isn’t dying everywhere - Latin America, Asia, Africa are seeing some of its strongest growth globally at the expense of traditional belief systems. This is partly due to missionary efforts but also growing economic strength. With more money comes more options to spend. And giving ten percent of your pay or even “two mites” to your local congregation means there are plenty of opportunities for religion to make gains in these communities as a place to follow a belief system and be in a community.
The Divine Economy is an interesting book that accurately captures big picture trends with organized religion; however, it missed the mark somewhat in not mentioning where in the West gains are being made at the expense of mainstream denominational decline.
MY RATING: 3.5
