Lost in the Supermarket: Comments on Beaman, Religious Pluralism, and What it Means to be Free

By now the story is familiar. Throughout most of the 20th century, the study of religion was dominated by secularization theory, which predicted the inevitable decline of religion as modernity marched ever forward. However, empirical reality did not support this contention; God remains alive and well long after Friedrich Nietzsche's death. During the last several decades of the century, a new group of scholars, relying on insights from exchange theory and economic analysis, began to challenge the longstanding secularization paradigm (Stark and Bainbridge 1979, 1980, 1987; lannaccone 1988, 1991).1 These scholars used market theory to explore religion's persistent vitality in the United States. From this perspective, the United States is seen as a religious supermarket where relatively low levels of regulation allow religious pluralism to flourish. Pluralism, in turn, promotes competition among denominations and forces clergy to pay closer attention to their flock lest they go elsewhere. The end result is that consumers have more choices to meet their varied tastes and needs, they are better served by religious leaders, and society experiences a higher level of religiosity (measured numerous ways). Lori Beaman challenges this story on two grounds: (1) that the U.S. and Canadian markets are not truly pluralistic; and (2) that religious markets in both countries are not very free (at least for "marginalized" groups). Ironically, if correct, Beaman's two challenges to economic explanations of religion would actually serve to confirm the approach she is trying to critique. If, as she claims, religious freedom is quite limited in the United States and Canada, then it follows from lannaccone's (1991) analysis of religious market structure that religious pluralism would be minimal, which is Beaman's first contention. In essence, her critique would have the same effect as multiplying both sides of an algebraic equation by -1. However, I will argue that Beaman's inadvertent confirmation of lannaccone's thesis is based on two methodological flaws, which leave the analysis "lost in the supermarket" of religious pluralism. I will take issue with Beaman's two main contentions on methodological (as opposed to theoretical) grounds. First, I contend that Beaman's definition of religious pluralism is too broad to be useful. Lumping together most all Christian groups into one category and defining this as a single-faith tradition misses the true nature of religious diversity and competition. In making this critique, I offer an alternative conceptualization of religious pluralism that provides a more explicit working definition of the concept based on the organizational and financial autonomy of religious organizations. Second, Beaman's reliance on four anecdotal cases to support her claim of limited religious liberty provides a misleading contextualization of the situation faced by "'marginalized" religious movements. Although religious minorities may have a more difficult time establishing equal legal space for their denominations than more mainstream churches, the degree of religious freedom available to these groups is historically unprecedented when viewed