Armenia is one of the areas witnessing the successive attacks from different ethnic groups due to its appropriate geographic location. The frequent attacks by the Ottoman in this territory caused the Armenians to migrate from the Julfa region to Iran during Shah Abbas I, thus the construction of distinct churches with Armenian churches in Esfahan was fulfilled. The aim of the present study was ...

In this paper, we examine how the decisions of churches are impacted by the decisions of rival churches. Using a novel data set of Christian churches in two suburban Nashville, TN counties, we estimate a model of strategic interaction, based on empirical models of discrete games, which accounts for the location and denomination of churches. We focus on a church’s decision of whether to provide ...

As the affiliation network of churches may potentially benefit public health, the impact of participants’ preferences on the affiliation network bears further study. This paper attempts to use agentbased modeling techniques associated with geographic information to study the affiliation network between churches and participants. Using churches in ZIP Code 30318 in Atlanta in Georgia, this study...

Our 2005 representative national survey (2,972 interviews) shows an overwhelmingly common and strong religious intolerance towards Western churches that are legally deemed “non-traditional” and are commonly perceived as foreign to Russia. Most Russians would not let Western groups build churches, establish religious schools, or engage in other basic religious activities in their hometowns. West...

Despite the existence of fraud in churches, little research has been done regarding the level of internal control implementation in these entities. Internal controls, particularly the basic control of duty segregation, allow an organization to protect itself from employee theft and fraud. This study attempts to determine the level of segregation of duties implemented in churches, as well as the...

Can churches teach the significance of marriage? Can churches teach the faithful about marriage and how to live lives of fulfillment that honor Christ in marriage? We believe the answer to this question is yes, but only if churches choose to take up this important ministry. Certainly churches have a powerful basis in the work of building marriages (Stanley, Markman, St. Peters, & Leber, 1995). ...

This paper examines the organizational structure of Christian churches, and in doing treats churches as firms constrained by their theology. Like all firms, churches must manage opportunistic behaviour. The hypothesis of the paper is that the particular organizational structure of a given church is the result of transaction cost problems that arise in the production of its spiritual good. An ef...

Political analysts, policy makers, and aid agencies concerned with Melanesia have recently begun to pay attention to the role of Christian churches in governance. As Douglas notes, “churches, with their intensely local roots but broadly global reach,” are increasingly being seen “as alternative structures in the context of ineffective or even absent state institutions” (2007, p. 158). The impor...

We surveyed 110 country churches in south-western Sweden for presence of brown long-eared bats Plecotus auritus in summer 2016 by visual inspection and/or evening emergence counts. Each church was also classified according to the presence and amount of aesthetic directional lights (flood-lights) aimed on its walls and tower from the outside. Sixty-one of the churches had previously been surveye...