The strength of strict churches is neither a historical coincidence nor a statistical artifact. Strictness makes organizations stronger and more attractive because it reduces free riding. It screens out members who lack commitment and stimulates participation among those who remain. Rational choice theory thus explains the success of sects, cults, and conservative denominations without recourse to assumptions of irrationality, abnormality, or misinformation. The theory also predicts differences between strict and lenient groups, distinguishes between effective and counterproductive demands, and demonstrates the need to adapt strict demands in response to social change.In 1972 Dean Kelley published a remarkable book titled Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (Kelley 1986). In it he documented a striking shift in the fortunes of America's oldest and largest Protestant denominations. After two centuries of growth that culminated in the 1950s, virtually all mainline Protestant denominations had begun losing members. The losses, however, were far from uniform. Liberal denominations were declining much more rapidly than conservative denominations, and the most conservative were growing. The varying rates of growth and decline meant that the mainline denominations' misfortune could not be attributed to pervasive secularization. A valid explanation could only be rooted in traits or circumstances that differed from one denomination to the next. Kelley proposed such an explanation. He 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 ' I presented early drafts of this paper at the meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 1989, and of the Public Choice Society, Phoenix, March 1990, and at several department seminars. I thank many colleagues for their comments and suggestions, particularly

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By modeling religious activity as a product of rational choice and market forces, the economics of religion offers new insights concerning religious trends, the consequences of religious freedom, doctrinal innovation, and the enduring appeal of extremism. The work both complements and challenges that of sociologists, historians, and other religious scholars. Club‐theoretic models of sectarianism highlight the potential benefits of strictness and sacrifice, not only in religions, but also in communes, gangs, military units, social movements, political organizations, and even academic subfields.

We propose a theory of religious mobilization that accounts for variations in religious participation on the basis of variations in the degrw of regulation of religious economies and consequent variationa in their levels of religious competition. To account for the apparent 'secularization" of many Eurupesn nations, we stress supply-side weaknesees-inefficient religious organizations within highly regulated religious economies-rather than a lack of individual religious demand. We test the theory with both quantitative and historical data and. based on the results, suggest that the concept of secularization be dropped for lack of case8 to which it could apply. For years everyone has agreed that many nations in Europe are extremely secularizedthat few attend church services, that belief is on the wane, and that the power and presence of religion in public life has faded to a shadow of past glories. Or, to quote the most inIluential definition of secularization, Europe's "religious institutions, actions, and consciousness, [have lost] their social significance" (Wilson 1982:149). There also has been nearly universal agreement that Europe's secularization represented the future of all societies-that the spread of science and modernity doomed religion. As Anthony F. C. Wallace (1966:265) explained: The evolutionary future of religion is extinction. Belief in supernatural beings and supernatural forces that affect nature without obeying nature's laws will erode and become only an interesting historical memory.. Belief in aupematural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as the result of the increae ing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge. I! Not only has secularization been regarded as inevitable, the dominant view has been that secularization is an absorbing state-that once achieved it is irreversible, instilling mystical immunity. Frank Lechner (1991:llll) put it this way: Once progress has disconfirmed most general religious explanations, once alternative social and cultural systems are firmly inetitutionalized, once a pattern of h-ee and frequent disafiliation by individuals has be come accepted, it is hard to see how the process can be reversed. Low church attendance rates in many European nations are interpreted as supporting these views, but the enormous vigor of religion in the United States causes great difficulty for the secularization thesis. Despite the immense popularity of science and the prevalence of higher education here, religion shows no signs of decline (Greeley 1989). In fact, church membership rates are at an all-time high in the United States (Finke and Stark 1992). l We wish to thank Eua M. Hambeg of Lund University for her many important suggesttons about the section on religion in Sweden. We also thank Andrew M. Cm&y.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley-Blackwell and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.The rational choice approach attracts various criticisms, many of them iunfounded. This essay defends rational choice as a powerful paradigm for the scienttific study of religion. The paradigm unifies a wide range of empirical findings, generates new hypotheses to giuide fiutuire research, and proves relevant to both contemporary and historical settings.Rational choice theory has entered the study of religion, and with it come concerns about its nature and value. So far, a single application of rational choice -the "religious markets" alternative to secularization theory -has attracted the most attention, applause, and condemnation (Warner 1993). But some have questioned the entire approach, and more critiques are on the way (Bruce 1993; Robertson 1992; Young, in press). Questions are only natural given the tendency to view religion as "less rational" than other aspects of culture a sacred realm "set apart" from the profane, a realm walled off from the "calculation of utility" (Wuthnow 1991:273; Durkheim 1965:62; Parsons 1968:412). They are reinforced by an unfortunate but long-standing tradition that distinguishes economics from sociology on the basis of rational versus nonrational action, to say nothing of other traditions that view religion as outright irrationality, escapism, or psychopathology (Swedberg 1990:11,13; Freud [1927] 1961:88).This essay defends the rational choice approach to the study of religion.1 It seeks to complement, but not reiterate, an earlier review of specific models and applications (Iannaccone 1992a). The arguments are frankly utilitarian -promoting rational choice as an approach that has borne considerable fruit in the social sciences, an approach well suited to the task of building and testing formal models of human behavior, and above all an approach whose implications for religious behavior have yet to receive sufficient attention. Since there exists already a large body of scholarship debating the philosophical foundations and overall merits of rational choice, I will confine my attention to issues that have special *Direct all correspondence to Laurence R. Iannaccone. I thanzk David Bromley, Roger Finke, Dan Olson, Stephen Warner, and an anonymous referee for their suggestions and criticisms. t Laurence R. Iannaccone is an associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053. 1. The defense should not be construed as an attack on alternative approaches, but merely an attempt dispel misperceptions regarding rational choice and its applicat...

This paper challenges conventional views of violent religious extremism, particularly those that emphasize militant theology. We offer an alternative analysis that helps explain the persistent demand for religion, the different types of religious that naturally arise, and the special attributes of the "sectarian" type. Sects are adept at producing club goods -both spiritual and material. Where governments and economies function poorly, sects often become major suppliers of social services, political action, and coercive force. Their success as providers is much more due to the advantages of their organizational structure than it is to their theology. Religious militancy is most effectively controlled through a combination of policies that raise the direct costs of violence, foster religious competition, improve social services, and encourage private enterprise.

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