Graduation Year
2016
Date of Submission
11-2015
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Religious Studies
Reader 1
Gaston Espinosa
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2015 Bretton Chad
Abstract
In this thesis, economic theory and models will be used to analyze trends of religious growth and decline within the United States. These theories and models, such as Rational Choice Theory, will be applied in order to better understand and gain new insight into shifts and changes within the religious landscape of the United States. Recent trends of growth and decline within Protestantism, the most prominent Christian tradition in America, will be the focus of the investigation. As its main focus, this thesis will ultimately demonstrate that the trends of decline in the mainline Protestant tradition opposed to the trends of growth in the evangelical Protestant tradition can be best understood by focusing on the unique relationship between a religious organization’s degree of tension with society and that organization’s congregational attendance.
Recommended Citation
Chad, Bretton, "Compounding the Sacred and the Profane: How Economic Theory Brings New Insight to the Growth and Decline of American Protestantism" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. 1263.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1263
Comments
Best Senior Thesis in Religious Studies