A Critical Overview of Religious Market Theory
Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi - Year 2017, Vol 58, Issue 2
Abstract
The secularization thesis expects the decline of religion as a result of the modernization process. However, with modernization the effect of religion is not diminished in many societies and in some modern societies such as the United States, there are high religiousness rates. For these reasons, in recent years the classical secularization thesis has been questioned in the academic world. Therefore, alternative approaches to the secularization thesis have begun to develop. Religious Market Theory has emerged as a new approach attempting to apply the basic principles of classical economics to the social scientific study of religion. In this article, my aim is to examine the basic premises of Religious Market Theory and its application to the United States and European countries. After that I critique it and show that it is also as misleading as the secularization thesis to understand the phenomenon of religion in societies. While the secularization thesis is based on Europe’s experience to understand the place of religion in modern societies and universalizes it, Religious Market Theory theorizes and universalizes the American experience of religion
Authors and Affiliations
Fatih VAROL
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP606384
- DOI 10.1501/Ilhfak_0000001474
- Views 103
- Downloads 0
Qiyās Ghayr Mutaʿāraf against the Backdrop of Definition of Syllogism: ʿOs̱ mān b. Muṣṭafā al-Ṭarsūsī’s Risāle-i Istidlāliyye
Many logicians, starting with Aristotle’s ancient commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, exclude the syllogism of equivalence (qiyās al-musāwāt) and the like from the extension of syllo- gism and consider them in...
Houari Touati. Ortaçağ’da İslam ve Seyahat: Bir Âlim Uğraşının Tarihi ve Antropolojisi. Terc. Ali Berktay. 2. baskı. İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2016. 253 s. ISBN 978-975-08-0803-7.
-
Shīʿī Scholar Hāshim Maʿrūf al-Ḥasanī’s Use of Textual Criticism in Identifying
Fabricated Traditions One of the most significant Shīʿī authors of the 20th century in Lebanon, Hāshim Maʿrūf alḤasanī is known for his critical approach towards Shīʿa thought. Al-Mawḍūʿāt, one of his masterworks, enable...
Love, Law and Equilibrium
Allah, the Omnipotent, states in the Qur’an: a) “Every soul shall taste of death; unto us you shal be returned” (29/al-Ankabūt:/57); b) “…God being well-pleased with them and they well-pleased with Him. That is the migty...
Tariq Jaffer. Rāzī Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation and Theological Reasoning. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 244 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-066351-3.
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d.606/1210) is one of the few Muslim thinkers whose significance, reputation and influence on later generations in different fields of learning are acknowledged by both classical and modern scholars...