After long neglect, the subject of religion has received growing attention in the economics profession over the past two decades. One of the reasons is that it has proven diffi cult to explain the levels of economic development of many nations around the world without reference to a national culture, and many of these cultures have been signifi cantly infl uenced by religion. Contrary to a wide...

theoretical expectations. The assumption is that along with modernization and economic development, adherence to religious world views (seen to be a relic of the past) gradually dissipate, as they have in other advanced societies. But they haven’t in the United States. In fact, the importance of religious commitments and religious organizations to American society increased over the last severa...

BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION 7 ity: A Fetschrift in Honor of E. Thomas Lawson, edited by Timothy Light and Brian C. Wilson, 27–43. Leiden: Brill. Fitzgerald, Tim. 2006. “Bruce Lincoln’s ‘Theses on Method’: Antithesis.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 18: 392–423. ———. 2010. “Religion and Violence: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry.” In Chasing Down Religion: In the Sights of History and...

How did religion evolve? What effect does religion have on our moral beliefs and moral actions? These questions are related, as some scholars propose that religion has evolved to enhance altruistic behavior toward members of one's group. I review here data from survey studies (both within and across countries), priming experiments, and correlational studies of the effects of religion on racial ...