TITLE:
Economic Modeling of the Behavior of Revival Churches in a Static Setting
AUTHORS:
Assoumou Ondo
KEYWORDS:
Economics of Religion (Z12)
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.10 No.5,
October
16,
2020
ABSTRACT: This article is a contribution to the growing literature
on the economics of religion. Indeed, to our knowledge, there is no study aimed
at explaining the behavior of a revival church from a theoretical model. More precisely,
we consider a household which, to maximize its usefulness, claims to be inhabited
by the Holy Spirit, becomes a pastor and transforms its habitat into a church. He
allocates his time in such a way as to attract and maintain faithful who, born again,
offer their work in religious activity and/or make financial contributions. We show
that the behavior of revival or awakened churches (Evangelical, Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal,
charismatic or prophetic) is fundamentally determined by the economic context: the
level of employability, on the one hand, and the gap between the salary outside
the church habitat and the internal salary fixed by the household-pastor to remunerate
religious activity, on the other hand. In addition,
we argue that in Africa, Revival Churches officiate in a context of unemployment
and employ the maximum number of faithful in church activities and improvement.
In return, they receive a remuneration lower than that of the labor market (case
4).