Scientific Study of Religion - 2002 - Perl - Religious Market Share and Intensity of Church Involvement in Five

12 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION
Religious Market Share and Intensity of Church

Involvement in Five Denominations
PAUL PERL AND DANIEL V.A. OLSON†
Proponents of the supply side approach to religion theorize that religious market share—the proportion of people
in a geographical area who belong to a given denomination—is inversely related to religious commitment in that
denomination. They argue that a small market share motivates religious leaders to compete harder in the religious
market place, increasing the participation of members. Another perspective, often associated with secularization
theory, make the opposite prediction. It argues that people find it difficult to remain religiously committed in social
environments where they are numerical minorities because other people do not reinforce their beliefs and practices.
We use data from a large study of financial giving to analyze the relationship between market share and commitment
for five denominations in the United States. We find that market share has a negative effect on church financial
giving within all five denominations and a weaker negative effect on attendance in three of the denominations. We
explore whether these effects are the spurious byproducts of pro-religious cultural norms associated with either
the South or the presence of conservative Protestants in local areas. In models pooling all denominations, the
negative effect of market share on financial giving and attendance cannot be explained away by either of these
factors. However, the effect on attendance can be accounted for by congregational size.
The growing importance of the “rational choice” perspective in the sociology of religion,
particularly the “supply side” theories of Finke and Stark (1988, 1992, 1998; Finke, Guest, and
Stark 1996), has prompted interest in the relation between the composition of religious “markets”
and religious participation. In general, Finke and Stark predict that religious participation and
commitment will be highest in religious markets that are more competitive. They have proposed
several indicators and/or causes of competition in religious markets, including religious pluralism,
lack of state regulation of religion, and small market share. In this paper, we focus on market
share, a religious group’s share, or percentage, of all church members in a given geographic area.
Finke and Stark (Stark, Finke, and Iannaccone 1995; Finke and Stark 1998; Stark 1997) argue that
the smaller a group’s market share, the greater the competition it faces, and the harder its leaders
must work to increase membership and raise commitment levels if the group is to sustain itself. In
contrast, groups with large market shares face little competition and may become “lazy,” complacent
about their hold over members and their sources of contributions.
In addition to supply side theories, there are several other approaches that view small market
share as a cause of greater religious commitment. These approaches suggest that small market
share tends to heighten the “subcultural distinctiveness” of a religious group, making its members
more dependent on the group for resources and/or more devoted to the values and beliefs supported
by their relatively unique religious identity (Smith 1998; Olson 1993).
An alternative to the supply side and subcultural distinctiveness perspectives suggests that a
small market share isolates a denomination’s individual members from each other and thereby
reduces reinforcement for religious commitment. This perspective, which we label the “social
isolation” model, is often associated with secularization theory because isolation of members
† Paul Perl: Graduate Student; Department of Sociology; 810 Flanner Hall; University of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, IN
46556. E-mail: Perl.1@nd.edu
† Daniel V. A. Olson: Associate Professor; Department of Sociology; Indiana University South Bend; South Bend, IN
46634. E-mail: Dolson@iusb.edu
14685906, 2000, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0021-8294.00002 by Espm Escola Superior De Propaganda E Marketing, Wiley Online Library on [21/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
RELIGIOUS MARKET SHARE 13
may make religious beliefs less convincing (Berger 1967). Alternately, it may reduce the likelihood
that others will observe and provide sanctions for one’s religious participation (Sherkat and Wilson
1995). This perspective predicts that market share has a positive relationship with religious
commitment.
Most previous research supports the supply side and subcultural distinctiveness prediction
that religious commitment will be higher in areas of the United States where market share is
smaller (Stark 1998; Stark and McCann 1993; Zaleski and Zech 1995). However, there are at least
two objections that may be raised concerning these results. First, by focusing on the commitment
of Catholics and mainline Protestants, previous results may only be reflecting that these groups
have very low market shares in the South, the same area where all groups tend to have high
attendance rates (Stump 1984; Smith, Sikkink, and Bailey 1998). It could be that in the South,
affiliates of all denominations have higher commitment levels because community norms favor
religious involvement. A similar interpretation is that Catholic and mainline Protestant commitment
may be higher in low market share contexts because these tend to be areas where conservative
Protestants predominate (be it in the South or elsewhere). The high expectations that conservative
Protestants hold for their own members’ commitment levels may “spillover” to others living in
the same community but belonging to other denominations. A second objection is suggested by
the recent findings of Phillips (1998), which call into question whether market share has the same
effects on different types of denominations. He reports that among Mormons (the Latter Day
Saints), commitment levels are higher in Utah, the Mormon heartland, than in other areas of the
United States. It may be that a large market share increases commitment among religious groups,
such as Mormons, that have especially strict behavioral standards.
This paper directly addresses these two objections. First, our data include a large number of
congregations drawn from five different denominations, including conservative Protestant
denominations as well as Catholics and liberal Protestants. This allows us to examine whether
Southern Baptists display higher levels of commitment in areas where they are minorities, outside
the South. Additionally, we explore whether market share has similar effects in denominations
such as the Assemblies of God that have relatively strict behavioral rules. Second, we have combined
our congregation data with data on the religious composition of the counties where the congregations
are located. This allows us to control for the potential effects of conservative Protestant influence
on the religious behavior of the congregations in our study.
We find, consistent with supply side and subcultural distinctiveness predictions, that market
share is inversely related to members’ financial contributions to their congregations in all five of
the denominations. Market share also has a weaker negative effect on church attendance rates in
three denominations. Although we find that the presence of conservative Protestants has a strong
positive spillover effect on giving and attendance, it cannot explain away the negative effects of
market share. The inverse relationship between market share and giving is especially strong and
remains robust to this and all other control variables.
POSSIBLE MECHANISMS BY WHICH RELIGIOUS MARKET SHARE

INFLUENCES COMMITMENT
Competition
Proponents of the supply side approach argue that as the competition faced by a religious
group increases, so does the religious commitment of its members (Finke et al. 1996; Finke and
Stark 1988, 1992, 1998; Finke 1997). Market share is an important inverse measure of competition
(Iannaccone 1991; Stark and McCann 1993; Stark et al. 1995; Finke and Stark 1998; Stark 1997).
The key causal mechanisms in the supply side explanation for the relationship between market
share and commitment are found primarily in the reactions of religious leaders to the local religious
environment.
The market metaphor depicts religions as competing for believers in an arena analogous to
product markets in the economic realm, where firms compete for buyers. Just as an economic
organization is likely to become “lazy” when it dominates a product market, so does a denomination
tend to become complacent when most religious people belong to it. The leaders feel little urgency
to evangelize potential members because the ranks are already large. And when it comes to bringing
in resources for the group, they may be able to rely on tried and true contributors rather than
encouraging other members to give. By contrast, leaders of religious groups with small market
shares must work harder at attracting new members and encouraging commitment from existing
ones. If religious leaders see that members of their own group are few relative to other groups,
they will be strongly motivated to fill the pews. This is especially true if a small religion starts
losing members to surrounding competitors; the threat of elimination becomes very real. This
threat is particularly salient for denominational leaders, as opposed to lay members, because their
jobs and salaries depend on the group. Thus, religious leaders seek church growth partly for the
same reason business leaders seek economic growth: personal interest.
Distinctive Subculture
Proponents of the supply side model have primarily treated small market share as an indicator
of competition. There are, however, other conceptual arguments that lead to similar predictions as
the supply side approach but which center on how ordinary lay people (as opposed to religious
leaders) may behave in minority religious contexts. These arguments focus on social identity and
processes of social interaction that occur when a small market share leads to subcultural
distinctiveness. This can happen in two ways: by stigmatizing religious minorities in the eyes of
outsiders or by making it necessary for minority members to meet social needs within the religious
group.
This first mechanism, stigmatizing, implies that having a small market share may give a
denomination the appearance of theological distinctiveness to outsiders. Members of numerically
dominant religions may see the practices and beliefs of minority religions as bizarre, unrespectable,
or deviant. Even if the teachings of a minority religion are not inherently counter-cultural or
sectarian, they may appear strange to most surrounding people, producing perceptions of threat
and prejudicial attitudes. Thus, small market share could create a hostile environment for a
denomination and make its members social—as well as numerical—minorities.
Smith (1998) suggests that a religious group may be strengthened by conflict with dominant
social groups. He argues that contemporary evangelicalism has a “distinctive subculture” that
thrives partly through embattlement with mainstream American culture. This happens because:
(1) evangelicalism’s social identity is strengthened in defining itself against negative out-groups,
(2) its members form high levels of internal solidarity and integration in the midst of conflict with
external culture, and (3) its members derive a sense of purpose from struggling to survive in a
hostile environment. While Smith is less interested in the case of religious groups that are numerical
minorities, his arguments may apply to small market share to the extent that such groups are met
with external hostility. Such conflict may produce members whose social identities center around
their religious affiliation and produce highly integrated congregations with high rates of religious
homophily. Members’ religious participation may come to represent not just an expression of
individual religiosity but a defiant symbol of loyalty to an unpopular social group. Under such
conditions, religious commitment is likely to be high.
A second mechanism by which subcultural distinctiveness may heighten commitment is the
dependence of members on the religious organization as the main or only source of resources
valued by those with a distinctive identity (Olson 1993). A parallel may be found with ethnic and
racial minorities, who, because of external prejudice or practices that are unique in the context of
mainstream culture, typically display high rates of participation in their subcommunities. For
example, racial minorities who can neither attain high levels of social status nor establish strong
friendships outside the group may participate in the group to fulfill those needs (Ellison and
Sherkat 1995). Members of minority religions may respond similarly. Knowing that mainstream
social institutions do not support people like them, they may turn to one another to meet their
social needs. Because the church serves as a locus for social interaction among members of the
group, attendance rates will high. Additionally, members of minority religions may be more willing
to give material resources to their churches as institutions. Believers will have a strong sense that
they are helping to build up a community of which they are a part and from which they benefit.
From a rational choice perspective, if giving benefits persons with their identity, it is essentially
benefiting themselves.
This mechanism is similar to the arguments of Rabinowitz and associates (Rabinowitz, Kim,
and Lazerwitz 1992; Rabinowitz, Lazerwitz, and Kim 1995), who emphasize the need for members
of ethnic religions such as Judaism to associate with co-believers in order to sustain their social
identity. In cities with few Jews, members are more likely to attend synagogue because it may
offer the only chance to interact with other Jews. But where Jews are numerous, e.g., New York,
they are more likely to interact with each other in daily life, decreasing the need to attend.
Viewing small religious market share as an indicator of competition and viewing it as an
indicator of subcultural distinctiveness need not be mutually exclusive. Each perspective produces
the same hypothesis regarding member commitment:
Hypothesis 1: The market share of a denomination has an inverse relation with religious commitment among
adherents of that denomination.
Social Isolation
A third way in which market share may function is as a barrier to social reinforcement of
individual members’ faith. All else being equal, when a person is a member of a minority religion,
the social environment of the geographical region tends not to reinforce his or her religious beliefs
and practices. This is because most of the people one interacts with on a daily basis are not co-
religionists. It may be easier to remain religiously active when the people around one believe and
practice the same thing. The literature suggests two distinct mechanisms by which the religious
composition of the environment affects commitment: cognitive and social-behavioral
reinforcement.
Cognitive effects receive attention from secularization theorists. Berger (1967) emphasizes
that religious beliefs are fragile constructs sustained by social consensus. When a society’s
institutions support a single denomination, and when there is minimal religious diversity among
its members, all facets of life reinforce belief. This situation is characteristic of pre-modern societies.
But as religion becomes disestablished and recedes to the private sphere, and as pluralism replaces
religious homogeneity, consensus erodes. People spend increasing time interacting with others
who do not share their beliefs and enacting social roles in the public sphere that are completely
detached from their religious identities. Daily life presents an ongoing stream of social encounters
that are potentially challenging to religious conviction. While Berger is interested primarily in the
consequences of pluralism, his arguments imply that denominations with a small market share
may face particular challenge because their beliefs receive even less reinforcement from the
surrounding environment than majority religions.
Social-behavioral arguments emphasize that religious beliefs are just one reason that people
remain religiously active and committed. Often, people participate in religion because close social
ties—family members and friends—also participate (Sherkat and Wilson 1995; Sherkat 1997).
This is particularly true when those friends and family members are in a position to observe and
sanction (both negatively and positively) the level of one’s religious involvement—that is, when
they are in close proximity. Thus, some people attend services simply to please a spouse, set an
example for a child, or avoid embarrassment in front of their friends and neighbors (Sherkat
1997). Evidence that close social ties affect religious involvement comes from two sources. First,
persons in religiously exogamous marriages and the children of such marriages have lower rates
of religious involvement (Hoge and Carroll 1978; Iannaccone 1990). Next, religious participation
often declines after people move across the country (Nelson and Clews 1973; Wuthnow and
Christiano 1979; Stump 1984; Bibby 1997; Smith et al. 1998). This effect occurs through the
mechanism of changes in social ties; geographical mobility often removes people from regular
contact with others who previously reinforced participation (Welch and Baltzell 1984).
Thus, the social isolation hypothesis assumes that reinforcement for religious involvement
comes mostly from close social ties. Further, it proposes that small market share limits the
opportunities a person has to form close ties with people of a similar religion because such persons
are relatively scarce. When one is a religious minority, the pool of people one is likely to meet—
and therefore from which friends and marriage partners can be chosen—may include few others
who share that minority identity. This is because so much of daily social life consists of involuntary
and chance encounters with the people who share one’s neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, etc.
(e.g., Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995: 126-7). Note that this is exactly opposite of patterns of social
interaction predicted by the distinctive subculture model. That model emphasizes that people tend
to form close ties with people like themselves and that this is especially true for members of
culturally distinctive religious groups. Because their social identity is so strongly linked to their
religious affiliation, religious minorities are likely to seek out other members of their group with
whom to share time.
With regard to religion, evidence suggests that both these social processes can take place
simultaneously. For example, the proportion of co-religionists among one’s close social ties is
positively related to the local market share of one’s religious group (Blum 1985; Olson 1998).
This is what one would expect if close social ties were formed on the basis of convenience and
chance encounters. However, Olson (1993) finds that, among a group of conservative Protestant
churchgoers in an urban setting, members socialize and discuss important matters primarily with
other conservative Protestants. Thus, members of minority faiths are actively able to seek out and
form close ties with others like themselves, possibly offsetting any restrictions posed by small
market share. Directly addressing this issue, Blum (1985) finds that both assertions are partly
true. Consistent with the distinctiveness hypothesis, Blum finds that people are especially likely
to form close ties with persons who share their religious identity. But even with this tendency
toward religious homophily, the proportion of co-religionists in an individual’s close personal
network is positively related to the market share of the individual’s religious group. People seek
out co-religionists, but their likelihood of forming ties with such persons is directly affected by
their relative abundance in the area.
As has been seen, the social isolation perspective suggests the following hypothesis, opposite
of Hypothesis 1:
Hypothesis 2: The market share of a denomination has a positive relation with religious commitment among
adherents of that denomination.
The Empirical Literature
Most previous research shows a negative relationship between market share and religious
commitment. This relationship is consistently evident cross-nationally. Iannaccone (1991) finds
that commitment—attendance, prayer, and theological beliefs—of Protestants in seventeen Western
countries decreases as Protestant market share increases. But his results indicate no difference for
Catholics. Stark (1992), however, finds that Catholic commitment—measured as rate of priests to
parishioners—does vary inversely with market share in a study of forty-five traditionally Christian
countries. Jelen and Wilcox (1998) find that Catholics in western Europe are more likely to attend
Mass and accept the Church’s political teachings in countries where Catholics are a minority.
They find similar effects for Protestant political beliefs (Jelen, O’Donnell, and Wilcox 1993).
One difficulty with such cross-national analyses is separating effects of market share from effects
of religious regulation (or residual effects of historical regulation) by the state (Iannaccone 1991:
163). Regulation, for supply side theorists, is a separate indicator of religious competition. Another
problem with cross-national analyses is raised by Stark, who argues that religious commitment is
ultimately a “local phenomenon” (1998: 203) and that analysis of smaller geographical areas
provides a better test of the supply side model of market share. These problems are alleviated by
analyzing distinct regions within a single nation. Several studies have done this with data from the
United States. The United States provides a good case for analysis because market share cannot
be confounded with effects of historical regulation; local religious monopolies in the United States
formed primarily through “accidental” migration patterns (Stark and McCann 1993: 121) rather
than state support.
Zaleski and Zech (1995) show that both Catholics and mainline Protestants in the United
States have higher rates of financial giving in areas where they have smaller market shares. Stark
and McCann (1993) find that rates of ordination to the Catholic priesthood, along with several
other measures of commitment, are higher in dioceses where Catholics represent a smaller share
of the population. The authors interpret these results in terms of competition and argue that
willingness to enter the priesthood depends on high commitment from surrounding Catholics.
However, this argument also fits the subcultural distinctiveness model, with its emphasis on strong
communal bonds and social support. Stark (1998) further finds that “innovative” Catholic responses
to the priest shortage (such as use of deacons and female leadership in parishes) are also more
common in Catholic minority contexts. This finding does seem to support the competition model.
Seen through the through the lens of the economic metaphor favored by supply side theorists,
such religious adaptations have analogues in efforts of firms to develop new products and marketing
techniques in the face of competition.
While these studies based on U.S. data are informative, they share a common limitation.
They leave open the possibility that the observed inverse relationship between market share and
commitment is the spurious byproduct of other contextual factors. While Zaleski and Zech (1995)
control per capita income and religious pluralism in the regions they analyze, the studies contain
no other such controls for local demographic context or characteristics of the religious environment.
Furthermore, these studies are based entirely on information for Catholics and mainline
Protestants—groups that have very small market shares in the American South and necessarily
have small market shares in any area where conservative Protestants predominate (be it in the
South or elsewhere). Thus, it is possible that the apparent inverse relationship between commitment
and market share actually derives from general pro-religious norms characteristic of these regions.
The influence of such norms is evident in studies showing that people who move to the South do
not display the weakened rates of religious participation characteristic of most geographically
mobile people; in fact, moving to the South may increase participation (Wuthnow and Christiano
1979; Stump 1984; Smith et al. 1998).
Though most previous studies find a negative relationship between market share and religious
commitment, two recent studies find a positive relationship. One is Phillips’ (1998) analysis of
the Latter Day Saints (LDS). He finds higher rates of church attendance among LDS members in
mostly-Mormon Utah than in other parts of the United States. Additionally, rates of Melchizedek
priesthood decline in Utah counties as the Mormon share of the population decreases. Phillips
interprets these effects as social-behavioral reinforcement, arguing that the greater likelihood of
being observed and sanctioned for non-attendance in Utah (because friends and neighbors are
more likely to be Mormon) prompts greater participation. Why do Mormon results differ from
other results? It may be that the greater strictness (Iannaccone 1994) of the LDS denomination
plays a role. The relatively high religious commitment of Mormons tends to be dependent on
formal monitoring and sanctioning processes (White 1996). To the extent that commitment also
relies on LDS members’ informal ability to monitor and sanction one another’s behavior both
inside and outside of church, such observation is facilitated by a large presence of co-religionists.
In areas where Mormons are a minority, monitoring members’ behavior outside of church is more
difficult and commitment levels suffer. In less strict denominations, such monitoring may be
irrelevant to the level of religious participation, and large market shares may therefore have no
similar stimulating effect on commitment. A second possible explanation for the apparently
anomalous LDS findings is Phillips’ speculation that the relationship between market share and
commitment might actually be curvilinear (1998: 128). Both very high and very low market shares
might produce religious communities with high social integration and therefore high commitment.
Olson (1998) also finds a positive relationship between market share and commitment. In
analyses focusing primarily on pluralism, Olson finds that market share has a positive effect on
church attendance rates of respondents to the General Social Survey (GSS), a pattern that holds
true across persons from the many denominations represented in this national survey of U.S.
adults. Consistent with the social isolation hypothesis, he shows this effect is indirect via close
social ties. People living in areas where their denominational grouping has a lower market share
tend to have fewer close ties to co-religionists and consequently attend less frequently. Although
it is not clear why Olson’s results differ from previous studies, it is worth noting that many studies
of market share, including the present study, measure commitment levels of church members,
people who have officially joined a congregation (e.g., Zaleski and Zech 1995). In contrast, many
of the respondents to the GSS are merely affiliates of a religious group, people who say they
belong to a particular denomination even if they are not official members or even occasional
worship attendees.
Data
The central data for this analysis come from the study of religious giving conducted by Hoge
and colleagues for their recent book Money Matters (Hoge, Zech, McNamara, and Donahue 1996).
This study was based on five denominations: The Assemblies of God (AOG), The Southern Baptist
Convention (SBC), The Roman Catholic Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA), and The Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA). For each denomination, 125 congregations
were sampled from within a total of nine geographical areas (Catholic dioceses) across the United
States. The nine dioceses are: Norwich, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kalamazoo,
Michigan; Winona, Minnesota; Richmond, Virginia; Jackson, Mississippi; Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and San Diego, California.1 Data were gathered at two
levels. First, an informant (usually a pastor or priest) was interviewed to gather information about
the congregation as a whole. Next, surveys were mailed to thirty lay people randomly selected
from the membership roles of each congregation. They were asked about their households’ giving
and their individual religious participation.
Preliminary analysis of the data showed that the relationship between market share and
commitment is much stronger when the commitment measures are based on information from the
congregational informant.2 Furthermore, we believe that congregations are conceptually the most
appropriate unit of analysis. Individual-level analyses tend to heighten apparent effects of individual
characteristics and diminish apparent effects of institutional and contextual variables. For these
reasons, the results we present in this paper use the congregation as unit of analysis and information
from the informants to operationalize all congregational measures. However, findings at the
individual level—while much weaker—are similar enough to give us confidence about the direction
of the relationship between market share and commitment.
We use two additional sources of data. We took information on local religious populations
from the 1990 Glenmary data, described by Bradley and colleagues (Bradley, Green, Jones, Lynn,
and McNeil 1992). These data, collected by the Glenmary Research Center, attempt to be a religious
census of churches and church members in every county in the United States. They are based on
133 denominations that provided information, and on estimates for Jews and Black Baptists, who
did not participate. The membership data have been standardized by the original researchers as
“adherents,” which include estimates of the number of children of members for denominations
not having child membership. The Glenmary data provide the county level estimates of total
adherents and market shares of individual denominations. We merged them with the Hoge et al.
data by matching zip codes of congregations to counties. Finke and Stark (1989) have criticized
use of the Glenmary data for operationalizing characteristics of local religious markets in the
United States. However, their concerns deal primarily with the measurement of religious pluralism
and are not particularly relevant to our focus on market share.3 Finally, county-level information
from the 1990 U.S. census (U.S. Department of Commerce 1992) was merged with these data to
provide contextual demographic controls.
Besides providing measures of religious commitment in different geographical contexts, the
data we use have several advantages. First, though its central focus lies with financial giving, the
Hoge et al. data set provides a wealth of other religious information, allowing us to include control
variables for theological teachings of congregations. Second, it includes data from conservative
as well as more mainstream Protestant denominations. If conservative Protestants display higher
levels of commitment outside the South, where they predominate and where cultural norms favor
religious behavior, there would be strong evidence indeed for a negative relationship between
market share and commitment. Finally, the Glenmary data allow us to control for religious context—
in particular, the share of conservative Protestants in local areas.
Measures
For each congregation, we measure denominational market share as the proportion of all
church adherents in the same county belonging to that denomination.4
We use two dependent variables—measures of religious commitment. The first is church
financial giving. We use financial giving as an indicator of commitment partly because it is measured
very carefully in the Hoge et al. study. It is also a measure of commitment that is theoretically
central to subjects of current debate in the sociology of religion. Giving, for example, is an important
correlate of church growth (Iannaccone, Olson, and Stark 1995). We measure church giving as the
informant’s report (usually based on church financial statements) of total receipts from regular
and special offerings during the previous year, divided by total households in the congregation.
The second dependent variable is church attendance rate. We operationalize it as number of persons
attending worship on a typical weekend, divided by total members.
Hoge and associates (1996) were skeptical about the reliability of measures created by dividing
total commitment levels by informant estimates of congregation members/households. They felt
that because different denominations have different ideas about who “belongs” to a congregation,
estimates of congregation size were likely to vary by denomination in ways that reflect
denominationally specific notions of membership as much as differing numbers of participants.
Thus, because much of their book focused on cross-denominational comparisons, they avoided
per member or per household measures (1996: 55). Instead they reported only results based on
information provided by individual questionnaire respondents. In contrast, our measure of giving
is calculated per household and our measure of attendance is calculated per member.
We prefer these measures for two reasons. First, cross-denominational differences in
congregational size estimates are less relevant to our results. Our focus is on within denominational
differences related to market share. Thus, in our denominationally pooled regressions we statistically
control for denominational differences by using dummy variables for denomination and by
standardizing our dependent variables within denomination. Second, as noted earlier, dependent
variables based only on information from the questionnaire respondents (such as those used by
Hoge et al.) tend to be less sensitive to contextual effects.
We use several types of control variables. First, we control for demographic characteristics of
the congregations. These include the congregations’ composition in terms of gender, race, age,
education, and income (see Appendix A for description of all variables). Next, theological variables
measure doctrinal teachings of congregations. Additionally, we use census data to control for
demographic characteristics of the counties where congregations are located. These census variables
include several factors that may be correlated with religious commitment at the aggregate level:
population growth rate, median family income, racial composition, gender composition, and
percentage urban.
Next, we control for two aspects of local religious context. The first measures conservative
Protestant market share and is operationalized as the proportion of all adherents in each county
who belong to conservative Protestant denominations. For AOG and SBC cases, we substitute the
proportion of all adherents belonging to other conservative Protestant denominations to avoid
confounding this control variable with market share. In creating this measure, we rely on a
denominational classification scheme similar to that described by Smith (1990) and used to create
the General Social Survey FUND variable, but which we apply to the denominations in the
Glenmary data. Second, we control for denominational pluralism in each county. Our theoretical
interest in this paper lies with market share, which we view as conceptually and empirically
distinct from pluralism. Moreover, when the dependent variable is commitment level within
particular denominations, market share is probably a better measure of competition than the
pluralism of the entire market, counting all denominations (Olson 1998). However, a anonymous
reviewer suggested that pluralism might account for some of the effects of market share. Thus,
some of our analyses control pluralism. Pluralism is the extent to which religious adherents in an
area are concentrated in one or a few local denominations rather than spread out equally among
many. We follow other researchers (Christiano 1987; Finke and Stark 1988; Breault 1989;
Iannaccone 1991; Land, Deane, and Blau 1991; Chaves and Cann 1992; Finke 1992; Hamberg
and Pettersson 1994; Stark et al. 1995; Hull and Bold 1998)in operationalizing it as the inverse of
the Herfindahl Index, a statistic used by economists to measure monopolies in markets.
Results
Table 1 shows ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions of religious commitment on market
share, separately for each denomination. This table looks different from most tables showing
multiple regressions. We decided, for reasons of space, to show only the standardized beta
coefficients for the market share variable, even though most of the regressions include other
control variables that are described below and in Appendix A. By omitting the betas for the control
variables from the table, there is space to summarize the results of forty different regressions.
Panel A of Table 1 presents results for attendance rate. First, market share is entered into the
regressions with no variables controlled. The left-most column shows coefficients for this model.
Market share negatively predicts the attendance rate within three denominations: Baptist, Catholic,
and Presbyterian. It has no significant effect for AOG or Lutheran members. In the next three
columns, control variables are progressively added to the regressions in blocks until finally all
controls are included in the far-right column.5 The significant effect of market share disappears in
each denomination once all control variables have been added. However, the sign of the coefficient
remains generally negative, and for Catholics and Baptists the magnitude of the beta remains
moderately large even though, partly because of a relatively small number of case, it is not
statistically significant.
TABLE 1
OLS Regressions of Religious Commitment on Market Share,
Within Denominations
___________________________________________________________________________
Panel A: Weekend Worship Attendance Per Member
Standardized Beta Coefficients for Market Share
Congregational Congregational County
Demographic Theological Demographic
Denomination N No Controls Controls Added Controls Added Controls Added
AOG 111 0.03 -0.002 0.03 -0.01
S. Baptist 114 -0.21* -0.17 -0.16 -0.23
Catholic 100 -0.31** -0.28** -0.28** -0.25
Lutheran 103 -0.15 -0.08 -0.09 -0.08
Presbyterian 111 -0.22* -0.22* -0.18* -0.06
Panel B: Yearly Financial Giving Per Household

Standardized Beta Coefficients for Market Share
Congregational Congregational County
Controlling Demographic Theological Demographic
Denomination N Income Only Controls Added Controls Added Controls Added
AOG 111 -0.22* -0.21* -0.18 -0.18
S. Baptist 114 -0.30** -0.31** -0.35** -0.32*
Catholic 100 -0.57*** -0.60*** -0.60*** -0.48***
Lutheran 103 -0.37*** -0.32** -0.34** -0.25*
Presbyterian 111 -0.27** -0.23* -0.23* -0.29**
___________________________________________________________________________
Note: The coefficients for control variables are not shown for sake of parsimony.
*p < .05, **p <.01, ***p < .001
Panel B in Table 1 shows results for financial giving. The regression models parallel those for
attendance rate in Panel A, except that income is controlled in the first model rather than added
with the other demographic controls in the second.6 As the first column shows, market share has
a substantial negative effect on financial giving for all denominations. And for every denomination
but AOG, the statistical significance of the effect is robust to all control variables. On the whole,
the results in Panel B, using financial giving as the measure of commitment, provide support for
Hypothesis 1, which predicts a negative effect of market share on commitment. Panel A provides
only weak support for Hypothesis 1, but neither Panel A nor B provides any support for Hypothesis
2, which predicts a positive relationship between market share and commitment.
We are uncertain why the effect of market share on attendance rate is weak in comparison to
its effect on giving, but we suspect that there is greater error in the measurement of attendance. It
is probably easy for congregational informants to accurately estimate giving because financial
receipts are presumably enumerated in congregational records. In comparison, taking head counts
of weekend attendees may be relatively unusual, especially in larger congregations.
Several aspects of the findings presented in Table 1 are particularly interesting. It is remarkable
that market share displays a significant negative effect on commitment even within the nationally
smaller denominations, especially AOG and PCUSA. In the Jackson, Mississippi diocese, about
fifty-three percent of church adherents are Southern Baptist, and in Norwich, Connecticut, about
sixty-six percent are Catholic. And in Winona, Minnesota, ELCA controls a plurality of adherents,
with about forty percent. However, for AOG and PCUSA, the market share measure reflects only
small degrees of variation in minority status. In no county included in this study does the market
share of AOG exceed ten percent, nor does that of PCUSA exceed fifteen percent. Yet within
these two denominations, market share is a negative predictor of church giving.7 This is impressive
regardless of whether one prefers to interpret the results in terms of the competition (supply side)
or the distinctiveness models. Intuitively, one would think that clergy would be nearly as likely to
perceive their denominations as threatened whether they control two percent of the market or ten
percent. And lay members would likely find it necessary to become involved in their churches to
associate with co-believers whether ninety or ninety-eight percent of the people they randomly
meet in daily life belong to another denomination.
Another notable finding is that market share has a substantial negative effect on church giving
for members of the Assemblies of God, which is a relatively strict denomination, in Iannaccone’s
(1994) sense. This finding suggests that the apparently anomalous case of the Latter Day Saints
may not be attributable to denominational strictness. On the other hand, the AOG may not represent
an ideal test case because in no geographical region does it have the kind of near market monopoly
that Mormons hold in Utah. The other speculative explanation for the case of the LDS was Phillips’
(1998: 128) suggestion that there may be a general curvilinear relationship between market share
and commitment, a relationship that would presumably be present in any denomination with both
very high and very low market shares. However, in examination of scatterplots—as well as in
adding the square of market share to regressions (results not shown)—we fail to uncover any
evidence of a curvilinear relationship for any denomination in the Hoge et al. data set. Thus, it
seems likely that some unique (and as yet unidentified) characteristic of the LDS accounts for the
positive relationship between market share and commitment observed by Phillips (1998).
Perhaps the most theoretically important findings in Table 1 are those for Southern Baptists.
Market share of the SBC tends to be highest in geographically Southern areas (in this data set, it
is above thirty percent in the Jackson, Oklahoma City, and Richmond dioceses and less than ten
percent everywhere else). Thus, Southern Baptists predominate in regions of the country where
general cultural norms favoring religious participation are likely to be strongest. And yet, Southern
Baptists display the lowest levels of commitment in exactly those regions. For example, in the
Southern sampling areas, an average of fifty-four percent of Baptist congregation members attend
worship on a given weekend. However, outside the South, seventy-one percent of them attend.
This is the same negative relationship between market share and commitment as observed in the
Catholic and mainline denominations, which predominate in very different parts of the country.
We interpret the SBC findings as preliminary evidence that previously documented negative
relationships between market share and religious commitment in the United States are not spurious.
In Table 2, we present results of regression models that represent even stronger tests of the
effects of market share. In these models, all five denominations are pooled and the dependent
variables are standardized within denominations. Pooling the denominations offers two
methodological advantages. First, it increases the number of cases, making it easier to detect
significant relationships. This is especially useful for analysis of attendance rate, for which we
have observed negative but statistically insignificant effects of market share for several
denominations. Because of the relatively small sample sizes within denominations, the betas must
be quite large in relation to their standard errors in order to attain significance. Second, because
there are multiple congregations from multiple denominations in each diocese sampled, pooling
the denominations makes it practical to add new contextual control variables. We estimate models
that include dummy variables for sampling areas (dioceses). This step provides a control for the
South (and other geographical regions of the United States) by constraining the effect of market
share to reflect only variation within the sampling areas. Most of the variation in market share lies
across, not within, these areas.8 Thus, effects of market share will reflect relatively small differences
in the religious contexts of geographically adjacent counties. In the models presented in Table 2,
we also control for denominational pluralism. Within a single denomination, controlling for
TABLE 2
OLS Regressions of Religious Commitment
(Standardized Within Denominations)
on Market Share, All Denominations Combined
___________________________________________________________________________
Standardized Beta Coefficients
Attendance Giving
Independent Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Religious Context
Market Share -0.15** -0.11* -0.03 -0.31*** -0.26*** -0.22***
Denominational Pluralism -0.01 -0.02 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.03
Conservative Protestant Share — 0.21 0.19 — 0.28** 0.28**
Cong. Demographic Controls
Members — — -0.37*** — — -0.18***
Average Income -0.09 -0.08 -0.01 0.05 0.06 0.09
% With College Degree 0.04 0.03 0.10 0.23*** 0.21*** 0.25***
Average Age -0.19*** -0.17*** -0.19*** 0.03 0.05 0.04
% White -0.03 -0.03 -0.02 0.12** 0.12** 0.12**
% Female 0.004 0.004 -0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01
Cong. Theological Controls
Emphasize Evangelisma 0.10 0.09 0.09 0.07 0.06 0.06
Emphasize Spiritual Growtha 0.10 0.09 0.07 0.06 0.06 0.04
Emphasize Social Justicea -0.01 -0.01 -0.03 -0.004 0.000 -0.01
Biblical Meaning 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.01 0.02 0.02
Teaching Conformity -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 0.07 0.06 0.06
County Demographic Controls
Population Growth Rate 0.06 0.05 0.07 -0.09 -0.11 -0.10
Median Family Income -0.13 -0.10 -0.11 0.11 0.15 0.15
% Population Urban -0.01 -0.01 0.06 0.01 0.01 0.04
% Population White -0.02 0.03 -0.01 0.03 0.08 0.07
% Population Male 0.000 -0.01 -0.02 0.02 0.002 -0.002
Denomination Dummiesb
Assemblies of God -0.10 -0.09 -0.08 -0.02 -0.01 -0.01
Southern Baptist -0.09 0.03 0.05 -0.12 0.05 0.06
Evangelical Lutheran 0.03 0.05 0.03 -0.03 -0.01 -0.02
Presbyterian, USA 0.05 0.06 0.03 -0.14* -0.13* -0.15*
Region Dummiesc
Colorado Springs, CO 0.12* 0.13* 0.16* -0.001 0.02 0.04
Jackson, MI 0.05 -0.01 -0.03 0.19* 0.11 0.10
Norwich, CT 0.03 0.06 0.05 -0.01 0.03 0.02
Oklahoma City, OK -0.02 -0.10 -0.12 0.21** 0.10 0.09
Pittsburg, PA -0.13* -0.05 -0.02 -0.09 0.01 0.03
Richmond, VA 0.05 0.01 -0.01 0.02 -0.03 -0.04
San Diego, CA -0.04 0.01 0.05 0.03 0.10 0.12
Winona, MN -0.01 0.03 0.07 -0.08 -0.02 -0.01
R2 0.122 0.128 0.230 0.271 0.282 0.307
___________________________________________________________________________
N=539
Note: Market share and congregational members are standardized within denominations.
*p < .05, **p <.01, ***p < .001
a
The reference category is Emphasize Tradition and Sacraments.
b
The reference category is Catholic.
c
The reference category is Kalamazoo, MI.
pluralism may cause problems of collinearity with market share, especially when the denomination
is a nationally large one such as Catholicism or SBC (Olson 1999). But these multiple-denomination
models allow us to avoid multicollinearity and test whether pluralism and other aspects of religious
market structure can account for effects of market share.
For models with the pooled sample, we use a single measure of market share that is standardized
within denominations (around the mean for each denomination). Standardizing market share
compensates for the extremely divergent means and variances across denominations.9 For each
dependent variable, the column labeled “Model 1” shows regressions that include all control
variables from the final model in Table 1. Additionally, the regressions include pluralism, dummy
variables for denomination, and dummy variables for sampling area.10
In these models, market share has a statistically significant negative effect on both attendance
rate and giving. With attendance rate, the effect of market share is statistically important even
though the within-denomination effects were relatively weak and even though additional factors
have been controlled. In comparison, pluralism has virtually no effect on religious commitment
once market share has been taken into account. This result is consistent with theoretical arguments
that when individual adherents or congregations are the units of analysis, market share is the
relevant measure of denominational competition.
It is instructive to compare the effect size (observable in the absolute value of the beta
coefficient) of market share with the effect sizes of control variables. Note that the apparent
unimportance of the denomination dummies is primarily due to the fact that the dependent variables
have been standardized within denominations. However, the effect of market share is very strong
when compared to effects of demographic and theological characteristics of congregations. Market
share is a stronger predictor of attendance rate than any factor except the average age of congregation
members, and it is a stronger predictor of financial giving than any factor controlled in the model.
Comparing effects of market share to those of census demographic controls is even more impressive.
These controls are characteristics of counties. But so long as the dummies for sampling region are
included in the regression models, they exert no appreciable effect on religious commitment. By
comparison, the market share variable has substantial co-variation with commitment levels among
counties within sampling areas. The non-effects for the county demographic controls are testament
to the robustness of market share.
Perhaps the strongest counter-argument to these results is that they simply reflect high
concentrations of conservative Protestants in local areas within geographical regions of the United
States. For example, outside the South, Evangelical Lutheran households give an average of about
$570 per year to their congregations in counties where conservative Protestants represent less
than twenty-five percent of all adherents. But they give about $850 in counties where conservative
Protestants have a market share of twenty-five percent or more. Similarly, outside the South, the
Baptist attendance rate is over twenty percent higher in counties with substantial numbers of other
conservative Protestant adherents. These effects may reflect a spillover of norms from conservative
to other surrounding denominations.
We test this possibility by controlling for conservative Protestant market share. In Table 2
both examples of Model 2 (for attendance rate and for giving) show that this spillover of religious
commitment is a very strong effect, although in the case of attendance it falls just shy of statistical
significance. In particular, it is important to note that this is not merely a Southern regional effect
because the regression models already control for sampling area. The results from Model 2 show
that conservative Protestant share reduces but does not eliminate the significant effects of market
share on attendance rate and financial giving. Taken with the Southern Baptist patterns of
commitment shown in Table 1, we find it very unlikely that the effect of market share on
commitment is merely the byproduct of pro-religious cultural norms.
In the last models presented in Table 2, we control a final variable: size of the congregation
measured as number of members. Congregation size tends to be a strong negative predictor of
members’ commitment (Olson and Caddell 1994; Zaleski and Zech 1995; Hoge et al. 1996). It
also tends to have a positive correlation with market share, probably because it is inherently
difficult to have very large congregations in areas where there are few affiliates. Thus, the effects
of small market share on commitment may reflect purely incidental constraints that it places on
practical congregational size—not denominational competition or the cultural distinctiveness of
religious minorities. As Model 3 shows, congregational size produces a significant negative effect
on both giving and attendance rate.11 It also wipes out the effect of market share on attendance.
Therefore we cannot rule out the possibility that this effect is a spurious byproduct of congregational
size. However, size fails to explain away the effect of market share on giving.
In summary, our results show a strong inverse relationship between market share and church
giving within all five denominations and a weaker inverse relationship between market share and
attendance rate within three of the denominations. In pooled models, market share has a negative
effect on attendance rate, but this effect may stem from the larger size of congregations in areas
with large market shares. In pooled models, market share has a negative effect on financial giving
that cannot be explained away by any of the control variables we examined. Thus, for financial
giving, Hypothesis 1 and the expectation of an inverse relationship between market share and
religious commitment receives strong support.
Discussion
In demonstrating an inverse relationship between market share and commitment, our findings
are consistent with the bulk of previous research on this topic (Iannaccone 1991; Stark 1992,
1998; Stark and McCann 1993; Zaleski and Zech 1995; Jelen and Wilcox 1998; Jelen et al. 1993).
The results here, however, are particularly strong. First, we have control for several factors not
taken into consideration by others: multiple demographic characteristics of geographical regions,
theological teachings of local congregations, and especially the presence of conservative Protestants.
Second, by showing that market share has a negative effect on commitment for Southern Baptists,
we cast severe doubt on the proposition that this relationship is the byproduct of cultural norms
characteristic of the American South. If that were the case, Southern Baptists would have higher
commitment levels in the South. In fact, Southern Baptists are more committed when they live
outside the South. Third, while much previous research has focused on nationally large
denominations such as Catholicism, we demonstrate that market share has a negative effect on
commitment even within relatively small denominations such as the Assemblies of God and
PCUSA. Fourth, using data on AOG, we cast some doubt on the proposition that denominational
strictness accounts for Phillips’ (1998) findings of a positive effect of market share on Mormon
commitment. Finally, we show that the negative effect of market share on commitment is substantial
not only across major geographical regions of the United States, but also across counties within
the relatively small areas represented by Catholic dioceses.
The case of the Latter Day Saints remains unexplained by our analyses. We suspect that
Phillips’ (1998) findings reflect something relatively unique about the LDS, some as yet unidentified
factor that is unlikely to be found in many other denominations. One purely speculative explanation
is that the relatively high rate of Mormon relocation to Utah from other regions of the United
States (Toney, McKewen Stinner, and Kan 1983) replenishes the area with highly-committed
members. Whatever the explanation, it may not be coincidental that the LDS has grown in
membership at a sustained rate that is virtually incomparable in the modern world (Stark 1984).
Given the findings here on market share, growth may eventually undermine itself for most
denominations. If a religious group continually gains members in a region, it presumably reaches
an inevitable tipping point where its increased market share begins to drive down the commitment
level of existing members. This may deprive the organization of strength, leading to stagnation or
even decline in membership (Iannaccone et al. 1995). However, the LDS has apparently been able
to escape this potential threat by maintaining especially high commitment levels in its geographical
base of Utah.
Implications for Theory
What do our findings imply for sociological theory concerning religion? We can begin with
the three theoretical models presented in this paper. Our data cannot tell us whether the results are
due more to supply side mechanisms or subcultural distinctiveness. Yet, while one model focuses
on the actions of religious leaders and the other focuses on the actions of lay affiliates, they may
not be contradictory. Both mechanisms may be involved. We can, however, conclude that, for the
church members represented in our data, the social isolation model is an inadequate theoretical
guide for predicting the effects of market share. Church members living in an environment where
they are surrounded by people not sharing their religious identity display no weakening of religious
commitment.
We find the arguments associated with secularization theory—that cognitive aspects of religious
commitment suffer in minority contexts—to be particularly questionable with regard to people
who are already church members. People who have come to accept an unpopular religious belief
are probably able to find reinforcement of that belief through church involvement. For example,
conservative Protestants appear able to maintain traditional beliefs about the morality of premarital
sex in the face of growing cultural permissiveness through church attendance and the consequent
exposure to others who share their beliefs (Peterson and Donnenwerth 1997). The field of political
socialization provides a possible parallel with regard to the ability of intentional social interaction
to reinforce unpopular beliefs. Finifter (1974) analyzed associational patterns and political
preferences among Detroit auto workers. She found that Republicans (the political minority) were
more likely than Democrats to form friendships on the basis of political party affiliation.
Furthermore, they had more numerous friendships. Finifter’s interpretation was that cognitive
dissonance experienced by political minorities can spur them to seek further social support for
their opinions. It is possible that analogous processes take place for religious minorities whose
beliefs are looked upon with contempt by members of predominant religions. In fact, meeting
other members of their group is probably easier for religious minorities than for political minorities.
Co-religionists can always be found at the nearest church, synagogue, or temple of one’s
denomination. It may not be so obvious how to meet other Democrats or Republicans, and correctly
perceiving the political preferences of acquaintances may be especially difficult for political
minorities (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1988, 1995).
Small market share may not threaten the religious commitment of congregation members,
who have access to like-minded people who reinforce their beliefs and identity. It remains possible,
however, as Olson’s (1998) results suggest, that among the general population of church members
and non-church members, small market share of the religious group with which one affiliates
(even loosely) may suppress church attendance by limiting close ties to others with a similar religious
identity. Because many people with only a weak religious affiliation may not seek out co-religionists
in church settings, such persons would be less likely to form close ties with co-religionists when
the market share of their group is small. Thus, it is possible that small market share stimulates
commitment among the church members analyzed in this and other studies of market share but
depresses religious involvement among those who are not church members and whose only contact
with co-religionists comes through everyday interactions. This possibility might explain the findings
of Stump (1984: 295) that Baptists in the GSS, contrary to those in the data analyzed here, have
higher rates of attendance in the South than other regions of the United States.
The findings from our analyses, combined with findings from most other studies of market
share, are quite congruent with the predictions of supply side theory. This is interesting because
evidence for supply side theory is less consistently supportive when empirical tests have relied on
another indicator of competition: pluralism. Finke and Stark predict that high a level of pluralism
will increase religious participation rates because pluralism forces the many denominations in a
local area to compete with each other (Finke and Stark 1988, 1992, 1998; Finke et al. 1996; Stark
et al. 1995). While this expectation is borne out by data from nineteenth century New York state
(Finke et al. 1996) and modern day Sweden (Hamberg and Pettersson 1994), an increasing number
of analyses (Breault 1989; Land et al. 1991; Blau, Land, and Redding 1992; Hull and Bold 1998;
Olson 1998, 1999; Olson and Hadaway forth.) find that pluralism is associated with lower rates of
religious involvement in early twentieth century U.S. counties, contemporary U.S. counties, and
contemporary Canadian cities and counties.
Because of differing empirical support for supply side predictions regarding market share
and pluralism, it is worth describing the difference between these two measures in detail. In
particular, the market share of a single denomination is not a simple inverse of the pluralism of all
religious groups in an area. Higher values for the pluralism index reflect both a greater number of
religious groups in an area and a more even distribution of adherents among these groups. Market
share, on the other hand, reflects only the proportion of all adherents belonging to a single group.
As the market share of a given denomination approaches one hundred percent in a local region (a
religious monopoly), pluralism must necessarily approach zero. But knowing that a given
denomination has a small market share reveals little about the overall level of pluralism in the
area. The denomination might be one of many small denominations in an area where no single
denomination has a large market share. Or it might be the only challenger to a denomination that
otherwise controls the market. In fact, across geographical areas, the market share of any nationally
large denomination such as Catholicism tends to have a curvilinear relationship with pluralism
(Olson 1999).
Because pluralism and market share are different variables, the failure of pluralism to yield
consistent results does not imply that results for market share will be similarly inconsistent. It
may be that pluralism is a poor measure of competition in some religious markets as Finke and
Stark (1998) now suggest, or it may be that pluralism also reflects phenomena other than
competition, phenomena that have a retarding influence on religious involvement (Olson and
Hadaway forth.). Whatever the case, our results apply only to market share and not to pluralism.
Market share may be a good indicator of religious competition even if pluralism is not.
An additional distinction between the pluralism hypothesis and predictions concerning market
share is that they have different dependent variables. For pluralism, the dependent variable is
usually the proportion of all persons in an area who are religiously involved, that is, who are
church adherents or affiliates (Finke and Stark 1988; Finke et al. 1996; Stark et al. 1995). In
predictions concerning market share, the dependent variable is further commitment among those
people who already identify with a religious grouping. Pluralism predicts rates of involvement
and therefore the size of the total religious market. Market share predicts how committed each
segment of that (large or small) religious market will be. Evidence from contemporary North
American settings suggests that pluralism is, in fact, associated with smaller total religious markets
(lower rates of church membership and affiliation). Studies of market share, including this one,
indicate that religious groups have the highest commitment where they are smallest. A highly
pluralistic religious market must necessarily have many groups with small market shares. If their
small market share leads to higher commitment among their members, would this not cause such
groups to grow, as Iannaccone and associates (1995) suggest? Possibly, all else being equal.
Yet, few studies of pluralism or market share have examined their effects over time. This
would demonstrate, for example, whether Catholics located in areas where they are a minority,
and where they thus have higher commitment levels, are actually able to harness those higher
commitment levels to achieve growth. If so, then one expects a cycle of “upstart” sects overcoming
the “lazy” majority faiths and an overall increase in religious involvement as described by Finke
and Stark (1992). If not, minority faiths may persist but fail to add substantially to their numbers
or to the overall proportion of people involved in religion. The many small groups in pluralistic
areas could have highly committed members but still fail to grow if pluralism suppresses religious
involvement. Until studies of pluralism and market share move beyond the examination of data
collected at one point in time and incorporate the factor of growth and decline over time, the
effects of these variables on the future religious landscape will remain in doubt.
NOTES
This research was supported by a grant from the Louisville Institute (#97-0048) and sabbatical support from Indiana
University South Bend. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the research division of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America for help in matching congregations to counties. We also thank Ann Perl for help with copy editing.
1
Only Catholics were sampled in Norwich. Evangelical Lutherans were not sampled in Jackson, and Southern
Baptists were not sampled in Pittsburgh.
2
We suspect that the weaker effects at the individual level may be due partly to truncation of variation in the
commitment measures. Congregation members who returned their surveys are likely to have been those who were
most interested in the topic, and such individuals probably represent disproportionately committed members. This
interpretation is supported by the fact that the return rate of the individual surveys for congregations has a strong
positive correlation with the commitment measures, as reported by the informants. The return rate also has a strong
inverse correlation with market share.
3
Finke and Stark (1989) criticize two aspects of the Glenmary data. First, they point out that many small
denominations were not included in the study and argue that these omissions cause the underestimation of pluralism.
Our analyses use pluralism only as a control variable. At any rate, Olson (1999) has found that calculations of
pluralism are not nearly as sensitive to missing denominations as Finke and Stark claim. Because all five
denominations in the Hoge et al. data are also included in the Glenmary data, omission of other small denominations
from the Glenmary data affects only our estimate of total church adherents in each county (the denominator in the
market share measure). But even here, it is unlikely to cause serious problems because Stark (1987) has shown that
just a small percentage of total adherents are not counted in the Glenmary data. Finke and Stark’s (1989) second
criticism of the Glenmary data is that counties are too large for measuring real religious markets, the areas in which
people could reasonably attend and participate in religious activities. This criticism, too, applies primarily to the
measurement of pluralism. In studying market share, Stark (1998; Stark and McCann 1993) uses data on Catholic
dioceses—units of analysis that are typically larger than counties.
4
Most previous research has operationalized market share as proportion of the total population (Stark and
McCann 1993; Phillips 1998; Stark 1998), probably because of difficulty estimating total adherents. In the Hoge et
al. data, using adherents as the denominator produces slightly greater correlations with religious commitment.
However, using total population produces results substantively identical to those presented in this paper.
5
Note that number of congregation members is excluded from the block of demographic controls in Table 1.
6
Because the ability of a household to contribute large amounts of money is highly dependent upon earnings,
omitting the income control from regression models may suppress or inflate effects of other variables, including
market share.
7
Note that omitting the control variable for conservative Protestant share (as has been done in Table 1) actually
suppresses the effect of market share on the giving of AOG members. This appears to be the case because AOG
market share is relatively high in several areas where there are high concentrations of other conservative Protestant
denominations. Thus, the negative effect of market share on AOG giving is substantially stronger than the coefficients
presented in Table 1 would suggest.
8
For AOG, exactly fifty percent of the variance in market share is explained by the sampling areas. For the
other denominations, sixty-five to eighty percent of the variance is explained by sampling area.
9
Standardizing market share somewhat reduces the effect size of this variable. The reason is that the Catholic
and Southern Baptist denominations have the highest means and largest variances for market share. These
denominations also tend to display the strongest relationship between market share and commitment (see the final
column in Table 1). Thus, failing to standardize the variable produces results that disproportionately reflect the
relationship within these two denominations. It does not, however, alter the statistical significance for market
share in any of the models presented in Table 2.
10
It is not clear that it is necessary to include dummy variables for denomination because the dependent variables
have already been standardized within denominations. Excluding the dummies produces virtually no change in the
size of the betas for market share. We include them in order to err on the side of a more conservative test.
11
As with the dependent variables and market share, congregational size has been standardized within
denominations. Standardizing adjusts for the extremely large mean size of Catholic congregations and possible
differences across denominations in the estimation of members (Hoge et al. 1996).
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Appendix A: Variables and Descriptions
Dependent Variables (From Congregation Informant)

Attendance Rate Usual attendees at weekend worship service, divided by total members.
Financial Giving Total receipts from regular and special offerings during the previous year, divided by total
households.
Religious Context (From 1990 Glenmary Data)

Market Share Each denomination’s proportion of religious adherents in the county.
Denominational Pluralism: The inverse of the Herfindahl Index for all denominations in the county.
Conservative Protestant: Percentage of adherents who are members of conservative Protestant
denominations. For AOG and SBC cases, this is changed to percentage of adherents belonging to all other
conservative Protestant denominations.
Congregational Demographic Controls (From Congregation Informant)

Members Number of congregation members.
Income Composition Estimated average household income, based on distribution of households across four
response categories.
Educational Composition: Percentage of members with college degrees.
Age Composition: Estimated average age of members, based on distribution of members across five response
categories.
Racial Composition Percentage of members who are white.
Gender Composition Percentage of members who are female.
Congregational Theological Controls (From Congregation Informant)

Christian Duty Three dichotomous variables designating the Christian duty most emphasized by the congregation:
Helping others to commit their lives to Christ.
Helping to change unjust social structures.
Following the teachings of Jesus as the basis for spiritual growth.
The reference category is:
Faithfully participating in the tradition and sacraments of the Church.
Biblical Meaning: Three-point ordinal measure of the extent to which the congregation holds that
there is one best interpretation of biblical meaning and that the congregation comes closest to
teaching that interpretation.
Teaching Conformity Three-point ordinal measure of the strictness of the congregation’s teachings
in relation to the denomination as a whole.
County Demographic Controls (From Census Data)

Population Growth Rate Natural log of population growth rate, 1980-1990.
Family Income Median family income, 1990.
Racial Composition Percentage of the population that is white, 1990.
Gender Composition Percentage of the population that is male, 1990.
Rural Composition Percentage of the population residing in rural areas, 1990.

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12 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

Religious Market Share and Intensity of Church

PAUL PERL AND DANIEL V.A. OLSON†

POSSIBLE MECHANISMS BY WHICH RELIGIOUS MARKET SHARE

The Empirical Literature

Panel B: Yearly Financial Giving Per Household

Implications for Theory

Appendix A: Variables and Descriptions

Dependent Variables (From Congregation Informant)

Religious Context (From 1990 Glenmary Data)

Congregational Demographic Controls (From Congregation Informant)

Congregational Theological Controls (From Congregation Informant)

County Demographic Controls (From Census Data)

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