The Marketplace of Christianity | 
| Authors: Robert B., Jr. Ekelund, Robert F. Hebert, Robert D. Tollison
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 410814
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 0262550717
Dewey Decimal Number: 270
EAN: 9780262550710
Publication Date: October 31, 2008
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Product Description
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 worshipers, it's natural to use a science that seeks to explain the behavior of organizationaeconomicsato 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 firmathe 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 consumersaworshipers.
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 issuesascience vs. religion, liberal vs. conservative, clerical celibacy, women and gay clergy, gay marriageaoffers a vivid illustration of the potential of economic analysis to contribute to our understanding of religion.
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| Customer Reviews:
 This book is a classic 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.
 Ekelund,et al ,still don't know the difference between risk and uncertainty May 28, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is the result of a continuing project of libertarian, anarchist economists to apply economic analysis,primarily microeconomic analysis based on the standard theory of the firm-industry(monopoly,oligopoly,pure(perfect)competition,monopolistic competition,product differentiation,rent seeking, strategy,game theory,etc.),to the Medieval-Counter Reformation Catholic Church and the various Protestant Sects that evolved out of the split that occurred early in the 16th century. There are a large number of errors of omission and commission contained in this book.I will concentrate on one of these-the author's theoretical treatment of usury and usury laws.None of the authors of this book accepts the fundamental point that uncertainty and risk are completely different environments facing decision makers who have to invest in the present in order to deal with their future need to obtain the most up to date physical capital goods that are subject to both decay and obsolescence due to technological advance and change.Both Adam Smith(1776,Wealth of Nations,Modern Library,Canaan edition,pp.338-340) and John Maynard Keynes (General Theory,1936,pp.351-352) realized the very important difference between uncertainty and risk.This distinction lies at the heart of the Catholic Church's approach to the rate of interest .Keynes gives a good summary of the Catholic Church's sound understanding of why conditions of uncertainty required usury laws if economic growth and advance were to be accomplished in an environment of uncertainty.The authors of this book still don't get it : " I was brought up to believe that the attitude of the Medieval Church to the rate of interest was inherently absurd...But I now read these discussions as an honest intellectual effort to keep separate what the classical theory has inextricably confused together,namely,the rate of interest and the marginal efficiency of capital"(Keynes,pp.351-52).
The authors apparently still don't realize that you can't assume that risk can be measured by the standard deviation of a normal probability distribution.The authors need to show that the investment environment or atmosphere facing decision makers in the Middle Ages was one of risk and not uncertainty.ALL of their microtheoretical analysis is based on certainty,certainty equivalence or risk.NONE of their analytic results are sound once it is realized that they are attempting to analyze a highly uncertain Middle Ages using technical analysis which assumes that there is no uncertainty but only risk.
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