Traditional scholarship approaches religious history from the demand side, attributing developments to the shifting desires, perceptions, and circumstances of religious consumers. This article advocates an alternative, supply-side approach that emphasizes the opportunities and restrictions confronting religious organizations and their leaders. Supply shifts lie at the root of major religious changes in America. Colonial revivalists, Asian cult leaders, and contemporary televangelists all prospered when regulatory changes gave them freer access to America's religious marketplace. The article concludes with a discussion of recent judicial decisions that threaten to restrict the future supply of religious innovation in America.
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References
1.
1. We suspect that this occurs because the underlying determinants of religious demand —people's tastes, beliefs, socialization, and so forth—are rooted in fundamental human needs, whereas religious supply is strongly affected by governmental policy. For data on the stability of religious belief, see Andrew M. Greeley, Religious Change in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
2.
R. Stephen Warner , “Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States,”American Journal of Sociology (Mar. 1993). We owe our use of the terms “supply side” and “demand side” to private conversations with Stephen Warner.
3.
3. William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 2, 59. The analogy is that of “breaking out of the dead skin of the past” and seeking something new.
4.
See also Jon Butler, “Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretive Fiction,”Journal of American History, 69:305-325 (1982).
5.
See also Roger Finke, “Religious Deregulation: Origins and Consequences,”Journal of Church and State, 32:609-626 (1990).
6.
6. Article IV of the Constitution stated that “no religious test shall ever be required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” and the First Amendment stated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
7.
John K. Wilson , “Religion under the State Constitutions, 1776-1800,”Journal of Church and State, 32: 753-774 (1990).
8.
8. Although Catholics eventually became the largest denomination in New England, Catholic immigration had little to do with the Congregationalists' early decline. By 1850, Roman Catholics constituted only 11 percent of all religious adherents.
9.
9. Frank Lambert, “ `Pedlar in Divinity': George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, 1737-1745,”Journal of American History, 77: 812-837 (1990).
10.
10. The Testimony of the President, Professors, Tutors and Hebrew Instructor of Harvard College in Cambridge, against the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield and His Conduct (Boston: T. Fleet, 1744), p. 3.
11.
The Testimony of a Number of Ministers in the County of Bristol against Mr. Whitefield (Boston: T. Fleet, 1745), p. 8.
12.
12. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1: 363.
13.
13. Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher, ed. W. P. Strickland (Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts, 1856), p. 123.
14.
14. Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 50.
15.
see also idem., Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750-1850 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984).
16.
16. Lorenzo Dow, History of Cosmopolite or the Four Volumes of Lorenzo Dow's Journal, Sixth Edition (Wheeling, VA: Joshua Martin, 1849), p. 256.
17.
17. As quoted in Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity, p. 50.
18.
18. Hempton, Methodism and Politics in British Society, p. 104.
19.
For data on Methodist membership in Great Britain, see Robert Currie, Alan Gilbert, and Lee Horsley, Churches and Churchgoers: Patterns of Church Growth in the British Isles Since 1700 (New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 161-165.
20.
20. Peter G. Horsfield, Religious Television: The American Experience (New York: Longman, 1984), p. 13.
21.
21. See Finke and Stark, Churching of America, pp. 218-223.
22.
22. See Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe, Televangelism: Power and Politics on God's Frontier (New York: Henry Holt, 1988), pp. 46-47.
23.
23. Roswell P. Barnes, “The Ecumenical Movement,” in Religion in American Society, ed. Richard D. Lambert, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 332:135-145 (1960).
24.
For examples of the cartel rhetoric used by members of the Federal Council of Churches, see Finke and Stark, Churching of America, pp. 221-222.
25.
25. See Hadden and Shupe, Televangelism, pp. 155-156, 292.
26.
For an alternative account of the mainline's decline, see Finke and Stark, Churching of America, pp. 245 ff.
27.
27. Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah, eds., The New Religious Consciousness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).
28.
28. J. Gordon Melton, “How New is New? The Flowering of the `New' Religious consciousness since 1965,” in The Future of New Religious Movements, ed. David G. Bromley and Phillip E. Hammond (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), p. 52.
29.
29. See Finke and Stark, Churching of America, pp. 242-244.
30.
30. According to several scholars, the cult scare has led to court and Internal Revenue Service rulings that seriously threaten longstanding freedoms of nonmainstream religions in the United States. See David Bromley and Thomas Robbins, “Government Regulation of Marginal Religious Movements” (Working paper, Virginia Commonwealth University and Santa Barbara Centre for Humanistic Studies, 1992).
31.
See also Melton, “How New Is New?”
32.
32. Franklin Hamlin Littell, “Religious Freedom in Contemporary America,”Journal of Church and State, 31:222 (1989).
33.
33. Thomas Robbins and James Beckford, “Religious Movements and Church-State Issues” (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Pittsburgh, PA, 1991).
34.
34. As quoted in James E. Wood, Jr., “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act,”Journal of Church and State, 33:673 (1991).
35.
35. As quoted in ibid.
36.
36. James E. Wood, Jr., “Abridging the Free Exercise Clause,”Journal of Church and State, 32:749 (1990).
37.
37. Quoted in Wood, “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” pp. 674, 677.
38.
38. Wood, “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
39.
The authors thank Derek Davis, associate editor for the Journal of Church and State, for updating us on the progress of this case.
40.
40. Quoted in Wood, “Abridging the Free Exercise Clause,” p. 747.
41.
41. See, for example, Greeley, Religious Change in America.
