Perhaps the most important contribution of this impressively erudite, well-written, and engaging book is its synthesis of three decades of thinking about the economic approach to religion in the fields of sociology and economics. That approach practically revolutionized the field by insisting on rational action as the basis for understanding religious behavior. Its proponents asserted that religious behavior is driven by incentives, that competition explains religious vitality and innovation, and that institutions powerfully shape the content and expression of religion.

Building on this school of thought, economist Paul Seabright thoroughly explores the supply and demand sides of religion. His book covers enormous terrain in the scientific study of religion in pursuit of a host of questions about the nature of religiosity and belief, ritual, organization, doctrine, gender differences in religiosity, secularization and religious change, the political uses of religion, technology and innovation, and more. Seabright’s wealth of interesting examples from the past and present, especially those drawn from African and Asian societies, make all this material concrete and engaging. Whereas the religious economies literature tended to focus over much on Western religion, the global sweep of Seabright’s research and his extensive reading correct this tendency impressively. Readers will learn much from making their way through the book’s more than four hundred pages, though in places the sheer number of studies Seabright discusses and the issues he addresses can make the focus seem diffuse and the reading heavy going.

Synthesizing all this material requires a general framework. To get at the human side of religion, Seabright moves beyond the club goods model of religious organizations developed by Larry Iannaccone and others, which treats religious firms as enterprises that coordinate action to produce excludable collective goods, primarily spiritual or intrinsic in nature. Seabright contends that the club goods model is too narrow, arguing instead that successful religious organizations take the form of enterprise platforms.

Seabright sees religions as enterprises distinguishable from secular ones in that they expressly facilitate exchange with supernatural beings in ways that individuals cannot readily attain on their own. They assemble resources, foster sacred experiences through ritual and devotion, express collective meaning and identity, and unite people into communities of mutual benefit and shared purpose. The most effective religious platforms involve people in dense forms of social interaction and provide access to goods and services that are unavailable elsewhere or that are superior to the alternatives in terms of quality and price. The people involved on the platform are the firm’s principal assets. Adherents access and commit themselves to religious platforms not because they are attracted to doctrines or firmly believe in supernatural ideas, but because they crave collective experiences, social solidarity, and identity with similarly committed and like-minded people. This makes religious leaders very powerful because by controlling access to the platform they can harness social incentives to induce conformity and obedience.

Political scientists will find value in Seabright’s analysis. Because successful religious platforms bring people together chiefly through voluntary persuasion and incentives for membership, they have enormous capacity to mobilize people toward political ends and extend their sacred clout to rulers and regimes. Seabright expands upon the familiar argument in historical political economy that rulers and claimants to power seek the support of the leaders of influential religions to establish their legitimacy. In exchange for their willingness to consecrate the ruler and thereby help win popular assent for the regime, the ruler compensates religious leaders with access to resources or favorable legislation, including benefits like official establishment as the state religion or economic and political privileges.

The relationship is premised on mutual dependence, and it imposes costs on both parties. Seabright observes that in historical and comparative terms, establishment usually saps the dynamism of religion by reducing incentives to provide the quality of religious goods that made the movement an attractive partner in the first place. Over time, established religions lose their spontaneous attraction and become enfeebled. On the other side of the bargain, religious legitimacy constrains the powerful who must rule at least nominally in conformity with religious ideals. After all, what makes religion a good source of political legitimacy is that it implies sacred limitations on the actions of the powerful. From the ruler’s perspective, the opportunity costs of an established religion can mount, especially when it inhibits innovation and technological change in its own interest. Should the religious establishment begin to shed popular support, subsidizing it and suppressing rival sects may prove ruinously expensive and politically delegitimating. Seabright gives several historical examples of how this process unfolds and why the defense of privileged religious groups so often leads to tyranny, persecution, and violence as strategies to secure resources and maintain political dominance. Seabright argues that in the United States and other societies, instrumentalizing religion for the sake of politics is a factor in religious decline because it polarizes potential adherents between rival partisan camps. Generally, Seabright’s analysis reinforces the impression that religion’s entanglement with power is bad for society and bad for religion, as Adam Smith argued 250 years ago.

In the contemporary world, religion remains important politically in large part because, as Seabright persuasively shows, there is no strong evidence worldwide in public opinion or in demographic trends to support the secularization argument. Although it has suffered decline in Europe and North America, religion remains as important as ever globally. The platform nature of religion has allowed it to adapt to the challenges of modernity by modifying its sacred claims and offering a changing range of goods and services to its adherents. As people enter globalized modernity, religious platforms are often the best sources of social support, identity, and mutual assistance that they require. This means that contemporary political entrepreneurs, especially of the authoritarian stripe, continue to seek religious support.

Nonetheless, I think that political leaders and rulers are generally far less dependent on religious organizations than they were in the past given pluralism and the availability of rival information to dispute sacred claims and discredit religious leaders. Today, a host of secular ideologies and movements can provide legitimation, with religions no longer enjoying pride of place. Modern conditions increase religious competition, which, in turn, drives innovation, but modern conditions also increase religions’ competition with secular alternatives, not only in the political domain but also in the domain of consumption. Perhaps this is why, although religion shows no signs of disappearing worldwide, its cultural and political importance may continue to ebb in wealthy and diverse societies. Religious platforms thrive but no longer occupy the center of such polities.