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The Marketplace of Christianity Paperback – January 1, 2008

by Jr. Ekelund, Robert B. (Author), Robert F. Hebert (Author), Robert D. Tollison (Author)

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Economics can help us understand the evolution and development of religion, from the market penetration of the Reformation to an exploration of today's hot-button issues including evolution and gay marriage.

This startlingly original (and sure to be controversial) account of the evolution of Christianity shows that the economics of religion has little to do with counting the money in the collection basket and much to do with understanding the background of today's religious and political divisions. Since religion is a set of organized beliefs, and a church is an organized body of worshippers, it's natural to use a science that seeks to explain the behavior of organizationseconomicsto understand the development of organized religion. The Marketplace of Christianity applies the tools of economic theory to illuminate the emergence of Protestantism in the sixteenth century and to examine contemporary religion-influenced issues, including evolution and gay marriage.

The Protestant Reformation, the authors argue, can be seen as a successful penetration of a religious market dominated by a monopoly firmthe Catholic Church. The Ninety-five Theses nailed to the church door in Wittenberg by Martin Luther raised the level of competition within Christianity to a breaking point. The Counter-Reformation, the Catholic reaction, continued the competitive process, which came to include "product differentiation" in the form of doctrinal and organizational innovation. Economic theory shows us how Christianity evolved to satisfy the changing demands of consumersworshippers.

The authors of The Marketplace of Christianity avoid value judgments about religion. They take preferences for religion as given and analyze its observable effects on society and the individual. They provide the reader with clear and nontechnical background information on economics and the economics of religion before focusing on the Reformation and its aftermath. Their analysis of contemporary hot-button issuesscience vs. religion, liberal vs. conservative, clerical celibacy, women and gay clergy, gay marriageoffers a vivid illustration of the potential of economic analysis to contribute to our understanding of religion.

Print length

355 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Mit Pr
Publication date

January 1, 2008
Dimensions

5.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

0262550717
ISBN-13

978-0262550710
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Phil Gramm
269
Hardcover
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About the Author

Robert D. Tollison is Professor of Economics and BB&T Senior Fellow at Clemson University. Ekelund, Tollison, and Hébert are coauthors of Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mit Pr; 3rd edition (January 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 355 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262550717
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262550710
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,719,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,886 in Christian Business & Professional Growth
- #3,384 in Economic History (Books)
- #7,727 in History of Christianity (Books)

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Mark Thornton

This book is a classic

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2008

Brady's review is a hack job. Everything I know about the book and its authors are completely at odds with what the reviewer has to say. Anarchists??? The reviewer concentrates on one "flaw" in the book -- usury, but usury was addressed in the authors previous book /Sacred Trust/, not the /Marketplace for Christianity/.

I predict that Marketplace will be a classic in that it uses basic rationale behaviour to lend the reader understanding of religion and how it bears on current and historical religious phenomenon.

The book is being translated into Italian and I would not be surprised if that wasn't an idea that originated in the Vatican.

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Kevin

Novel take on Reformation

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017

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The 2005 bestseller Freakonomics, written by journalist Stephen J. Dubner in collaboration with economist Steven J. Levitt, showed the reading public how the tools of economics could be usefully applied to a wide range of issues. Religion is no exception, and this book gives some insights about Christianity in general, and the Reformation in particular, which are not found in either theology or sociology.

“Our goal is to explain institutional change using the tools of contemporary economics. Therefore, our analysis is firmly grounded in the neoclassical principle of self-interested behaviour,” write Ekelund, Hébert, and Tollison, asserting that “In the case of religion, rational choice leads, over time, in the face of changing constraints, to altered doctrine, dogma, forms of worship, and, most important, forms of the product demanded and supplied.”

Their book has nine chapters, which deal with Religious Markets and the Economics of the Protestant Revolt and The Competitive Revolution in Christianity. The book is somewhat technical in parts, but those pages can be safely skipped without losing the thread of the argument. The authors deal with many of the details of religion, noting that “Religion is in almost every case a complicated product that serves many different wants of demanders, including social services, political cohesion, access to business contacts, reduce information costs (eg, with respect to dating and marriage) and so on.”

Their position is that the supply-side of religion is more important to change than the demand side, since the latter is always constant. For example, they write “the core element of the demand for religion is assurances of salvation [which] means that the market for religion operates in some respects like the market for insurance.” But different kinds of Christianity will offer different methods to achieve salvation, and the authors argue that the individual will choose which sect best suits their particular situation.

The centrepiece of their analysis is the Protestant Reformation, which began with Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses in Germany in 1517. The authors analyse how the Roman Catholic church functioned as a monopoly before the Reformation, and how that event changed its approach, as well as the economic factors that underpinned the Reformation itself. They define the Catholic Church as a rent-seeking institution, writing, “Auricular confession was one of the several concomitant product developments introduced by the church in the 12th and 13th centuries, including the invention of purgatory and the distinction between mortal and venial sin – a distinction that paved the way for commerce in indulgences.”

Confession, they argue, was created to provide information to priests so they could charge the appropriate prices for their absolutions, penances and so on. The medieval church even practised price discrimination, the authors point out, since they charged wealthy people more than poor people for the same services.

The Reformation, however, introduced the element of competition into the marketplace for Christianity, hence creating the several thousand Christian sects today. That revolution was successful, the authors argue, because the Catholic Church had basically begun overcharging and the Protestant churches offered the same services at lower costs. Their reformulation of Weber’s thesis on the Protestant ethic and capitalism alone is worth the read.

Christians may be offended by this book; persons of other faiths or no faith will get a deeper understanding of how Christianity works.

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Christopher Hartwell

90% excellent... and then rigor disappears

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2012

As a PhD economist specializing in institutional economics (and a Catholic), I found this book's take on the economic roots of the Protestant Reformation, especially when viewed in an explicitly economic framework, to be incredibly interesting. All throughout my reading, I was impressed with the rigor by which the authors approached their subject, and their dispassionate approach to religion itself and religious doctrine in favor of economic analysis. Indeed, I didn't want this book to end, it was such a breath of fresh air. Particulars highlights for me included the wholesale/retail distinction on the Counter-reformation, as well as really setting the Catholic Church into the framework of both a monopolist and an ossified bureaucracy, and how that affected outputs. If anything, I really wished the book had gone more into an institutional analysis of the Catholic Church (although this may be done in their other books) and how large and complex bureaucracies tend towards stifling freedom and focusing on self-preservation rather than fostering innovation. The first chapters of this book are a delight to read.

Until you get to the last chapter. Then, the economic analysis that the authors have carefully and methodically built up gets tossed out the window and all their anti-Catholic biases are revealed. While the last chapter purports to show how their economic framework could be applied to various issues affecting Christian denominations today, the chapter instead settles into a series of glib and flippant remarks about the apparent neanderthal attributes of religion vis a vis science, with a dash of low education = high religiosity correlation thrown in. The rigor to data that was shown in earlier chapters, where they were able to piece together some data from the historical record to support their hypotheses, seems to go out the window, ironically, when referring to an era where data is plenty. Their assertion on stem-cell research (that it will cure all known diseases), if not for pesky religion, seems rather ill-informed, or at least an area where people can disagree on both moral and scientific grounds. Hogwash, says the authors, who seem to have stripped the moral dimension in the last chapter, ignoring their own analysis for the "product" that religion offers.

Other issues in the final chapter are egregious, showing little knowledge of their subject in modern times - asserting that Vatican II's changes were mostly "cosmetic" in charging that the Catholic Church has become more authoritarian (and their thinly-hidden vitriol for both the current pope and his predecessor) shows little grasp of the liturgical changes within the Church and the response of Catholics worldwide to these changes. While their premise that there can be further splintering in Catholicism based on changing preferences is intriguing and follows from their previous analysis,they clearly seem to take a side on which way it would go... again asserting that low levels of education must mean high levels of religiosity. As economists, they also seem to have entirely ignored endogeneity issues - is history an inexorable march towards progress that drags religion along? Or does the evolution of religious institutions internally contribute to societal changes? Or is it both? They ignore this issue. Finally, and perhaps most annoying, in the context of science rules all... the only sentence where science is given a modicum of doubt from explaining "origin and destination" is in the section on proliferation of New Age religions. Thus, in their eyes, science can explain all and should be given ultimate deference in regards to evolution, homosexuality, abortion, stem-cell research, and ordainment of women, but science can be fallible in regards to spinning a yarn on the ultimate beginning and ending of life, and thus for this we should give credibility to New Age explanations. This inconsistency rankles to no end.

In sum, a fantastic book that appears to have a political tract appended to the end. If that last chapter were to be removed, this book would be five stars. The last chapter leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. Worse still, the prior chapters are ground-breaking and fresh... this last chapter is stale, re-hashed, and, perhaps worst of all, poorly reasoned. Remove that last chapter and we have a fabulous book.

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The Marketplace of Christianity Paperback – January 1, 2008

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