Relevant to our discussion of how religious communities maintain...

October 1, 2012 at 1:21 PM  ·  Comment — Geoff Schmidt's post  ·  View on Facebook  ·  Markdown source

Relevant to our discussion of how religious communities maintain stability and grow over time, I recommend this paper by economist Laurence R. Iannaccone, Why Strict Churches Are Strong': http://majorsmatter.net/religion/Readings/RationalChoice.pdf "[Kelley] traced the success of conservative churches to their ability to attract and retain an active and committed membership, characteristics that he in turn attributed to their strict demands for complete loyalty, unwavering belief, and rigid adherence to a distinctive lifestyle. Twenty years have done nothing to weaken the force of Kelley's argument. The trends he identified continue unabated, so much so that "small sects" such as the Mormons and the Assemblies of God now outnumber "mainline" denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ. Statistical studies have confirmed that denominational growth rates correlate strongly with "strictness" and its concomitants (Hoge 1979), and new historical research has revealed that the mainline's share of the churchgoing population has been declining since the American Revolution."