Democracy, Religion, and Commerce

Edited by Kathleen Flake Nathan B Oman.

Mormon Studies scholars Kathleen Flake and Nathan B. Oman have spent their careers exploring the political history of religion, mapping the contours of Mormonism in the unique landscape of the United States. In their upcoming volume in Routledge’s Law and Religion series, they join forces as editors, building off their work as they use economic analysis as a lens to understand the religious and political worlds we inhabit. In Democracy, Religion, and Commerce, the authors unveil the invisible hand of the market like a magic trick, illuminating how commerce developed as a dominant and often unconsidered force in religious life. The editors introduce U.S religious institutions made in the image of a capitalist system— detached from government and legislative oversight and highly individualistic. Beyond this central theme, the slate of authors contribute chapters as wide-ranging as the financial motives of religious universities and the government regulations of contraceptive coverage in healthcare. A couple of chapters will be of particular interest to The Season’s readers. Samuel D. Brunson's contribution uses the public battles over the LDS church’s finances as a case study on how tax law becomes the central arena for the public to express resentment toward religion, and Oman ends the collection with a paradigm-shifting and potentially controversial chapter explicating that religious identity (as a performative enactment) could be protected under the same anti-discrimination laws as gender expression. In the public square, where religious and political forces convene, the market muscles in — complicating easy assumptions and revealing entanglements of law, money, and deeply held beliefs. Readers gripped by the recent IRS investigations and leaks of church finances will find this challenging volume worth the investment. - Kristin Perkins (Democracy, Religion, and Commerce will be published by Routledge March 12, 2023).