Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture
Moore, R. Laurence. 1995. Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
8
Summary:
Interesting idea concerning how religions are now more like businesses than classical ‘religions’
The book is a historical analysis of the transition of religions from their earlier form in which they generally were monopolistic and had no need to compete over adherents to their current form in which they are engaged in selling religion and increasing their ‘market share’. The book focuses on the U.S., where this phenomenon occurred. The author rightly argues that this phenomenon is characteristic of the U.S. due to the constitutional separation of church and state, which led to religious pluralism early on. The book focuses on the period between the early 19th and early 20th centuries, the time the author argues when the above outlined transition took place. The focus of the discussion tends to revolve around religious innovators or other individuals who made explicit advances in promoting the advertisement of religion.
Review:
I think the author makes a good point with this book – I believe many religions are better understood these days as entertainers and capitalists hawking wares than as religious educators or drab gatekeepers to heaven. That said, there are a few problems with this book. First, the author could have easily made this point in half the space. Admittedly, this book brings loads of evidence to bear on this issue, which means other researchers should not have to do much more to make this point in the future. But it also means the book gets a bit repetitive in substance if not in content – the same point is made over and over using different historical data.
It should also be noted that while religions in the U.S. do tend to function something like a religious market, the rational choice approach to religion needs to be limited to the religions and not the adherents. Religions may compete for adherents, but the choice to belong to a religion is not understood, at present, to be identical to the choice of buying a car or a refrigerator. Some people are born into specific religions and never question their adherence. Others have powerful emotional conversions that are beyond the explanatory power of rational choice theory. In short, it’s fine to argue that religions are now peddling religion like Hollywood peddles moves, but ‘religious consumers’ don’t behave in the same ways movie consumers do. This point is currently being debated in the sociological study of religion and it may turn out that religious consumers are increasingly approximating the behavior of other consumers, but that debate is far from settled.
My final criticism of the book is that it doesn’t really push theoretical boundaries. The market explanation of high levels of religiosity in the U.S. was being advocated by Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and others (Iannaccone) in the 1980s (and Peter Berger in the 1960s). While the distinction between religious marketing and religious consumption is an important one, I don’t know that many people would argue against the idea that religious pluralism in the U.S. – leading to religions turning into capitalism-like enterprises – has maintained relatively high levels of religiosity. Perhaps the author’s intent was simply to provide additional evidence toward this end. If that is the case, then he has certainly accomplished his goal. If, however, he was intending to somehow present an alternative or novel approach to understanding religious pluralism in the U.S., I failed to see it.
Overall, this is an engaging book in part because the author writes well but also because he has clearly illustrated instances of religious entrepreneurs developing marketing for religions. The book is a bit too long to keep one’s attention since the primary point is restated in each chapter, but it is hard to argue with the pile of evidence. It is also worth noting that the author does not hide his personal views on religion – he is secular and makes that clear to curb accusations of hidden biases (see p. 3). All in all, this is an excellent treatment of how religions converted to the ideology of capitalism and capitalist marketing to peddle their supernatural goods. Or, to quote Veblen, who is quoted in the book, this work clearly illustrates how religions one-upped other capitalists, “What they [secular capitalists] had not quite mastered was the final untroubled skill with which religious merchants promised much and delivered nothing. Secular advertisers handicapped themselves by feeling it necessary to pass a visible product over the counter” (p. 218).