Abstract
In The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People, economist Paul Seabright has produced an expansive and thoroughgoing analysis of worldwide religious dynamics across centuries of history. Seabright roots his examination in an eclectic blend of social scientific theory about religion; and while rooted in economic theory, it transcends prior works in the economics of religion by pointing to how religious institutions, practices, and even beliefs are embedded in broader social relations. In contrast to most economic models of religion that extol the virtues of supply-side theories, Seabright forges a flexible economic model that amplifies both supply and demand—along with factors that reside outside the narrow religious marketplace, such as the economy, politics, and the family.
Seabright’s most important contribution is breaking the mold of the economics of religion, which has been dominated by supply-side theories emanating from the works of Rodney Stark, Laurence Iannaccone, and Roger Finke. From the supply side, religious value is produced by adept individuals using their religious human capital. Collectively, supply-side theorists focus on how religious production in congregations is enhanced by reducing free-riding. At the macro level, the supply-siders tout the importance of pluralistic competition for sustaining a vibrant religious marketplace that better satisfies religious demand.
In contrast, Seabright provides a supple and novel perspective viewing religious firms as platforms for the production of a variety of religious and secular goods. Seabright acknowledges the power of supply-side theories in many circumstances, but he works beyond their rigid assumptions of voluntarism, religious production, and competition. What individuals want from religious activity is often not exclusively religious, nor is what congregations provide limited to the sacred and spiritual. Indeed, at the macro level, large religious firms like the Catholic Church or traditions like Hindu or Islam may have less interest in selling gods than in procuring social dominance.
The Divine Economy is a masterful work of social science research, combining qualitative interview and observational data from varied religious traditions with quantitative analyses from survey research, and mixing in a healthy dose of religious history. Seabright's ethnographic and observational research is fascinating and illuminating. His subject “Grace” is a young woman from Ghana devoted to a prosperity gospel Pentecostal church. Seabright's interactions and observations of Grace and her church help illuminate the ways in which the church acts as a platform for connecting individuals not just to the gods, but also to one another in a way that generates trust, compassion, and dignity. While Grace spends more of her income on church than on all commodities except for food, her religious community is a refuge from her life of toiling for meager gain. Seabright notes that Grace may also find a husband through her ties in the church, and likely a better and more trustworthy partner than she might find on secular platforms like nightclubs or dating apps.
Grace’s situation fits what Seabright identifies as the most important insight of the platform model, that although “platforms facilitate relationships that could not form so easily without them, the terms under which the platform allows its members to participate have an impact on the types of relationships that form” (p. 96). The platform of Grace's congregation requires commitment and stability, and the type of relationships that might develop will reflect that enduring commitment. Of course, commitment to a particular platform enables dependencies to develop that can facilitate abuse—a topic Seabright deals with at length, including an anecdote about a personal brush with an abusive religious leader when he was a youth.
Seabright also takes on secularization theory, which has once again become fashionable in the sociology of religion. Seabright explains that a truly historical and global view of the salience of religion in human societies cannot proclaim a simple unidirectional trajectory. Seabright convincingly demonstrates that the most useful characterization of the trajectory of religion is the demise of “immanent” this-worldly religions and the rise of “transcendent” faiths that place the gods outside this world and can offer what Stark and Bainbridge called supernatural compensators—and demand considerable commitment. The rise of non-religion is limited to particular periods in the developed West and also contributes to the myth that Christianity is in decline. Seabright explains that simple population processes can account for this (heavily Christian nations have low birth rates and aging populations), and he shows that over the last century Christianity and Islam made gains in market share at the expense of the diverse set of immanent religious traditions. Seabright notes, “The platforms that Christian and Muslim communities have been able to construct help their members to navigate the challenges of the modern world, with its increased migration . . . loosening of family ties, and its hazards of sickness, unemployment, and loneliness against which the traditional institutions of family, village, and folk religion can no longer help protect them” (p. 50). Notably, Seabright also shows that the market share of atheism peaked before the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
The Divine Economy also explores the origins and trajectories of religions. It is an expansive take reminiscent of Max Weber and Robert Bellah on the evolution of religion. Key in these trajectories is the human need for understanding as well as the importance of narratives for making meaning of circumstances and realities in this world, and potentially transcendent explanations. Throughout the book, Seabright points to how religion meets basic human desires for worldly and otherworldly goods and explanations, but it is not until Chapter Eight (of a 14-chapter book) that he details his view of the evolutionary origins of a desire for supernatural explanations. When I use the book in classes, I will reorder the chapters.
Many sociologists will be drawn to Seabright's take on religion and politics and on gender and religion. In line with his flexible perspective on platforms, the relationship between religion and politics varies depending on the religious and political platforms present in a particular time and place. There is no grand theory of the connection between religion and politics. Political elites may seek religious legitimation and engage religious narratives (and this may help them retain power), or seeking religious imprimatur may diminish their political capital or create division in the polity. The dominant western Christian view that women are more religious than men is also taken to task as being geographically and historically limited. The only general finding is that women tend to be excluded from wielding power in religious organizations, perhaps especially in transcendent religious traditions.
Seabright also takes up the question of the social organization of religious traditions and denominations. He specifies that the Catholic Church has a relatively flat hierarchy (Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, laity), which allows a great deal of flexibility for lower-level units across its global operation. In contrast, Islam and Judaism have almost no hierarchies, which enables rapid expansion and entrepreneurship but also increases potential conflict. This structural perspective on the dynamics of religious organizations merits more attention by scholars interested in the social scientific study of religion.
Seabright took on a monumental task of providing a new framework for analyzing how religions operate in the social world across time and space, and he has delivered an exceptional work. The Divine Economy should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the development and trajectory of world religions. It is exceptionally well written and well produced, and nonspecialists can follow it with ease.